Elephants, Owls, and Alcohol, oh my!

As you may remember, before/during our last vacation in Nevada I was on the hunt for mead. It may or may not have had something to do with the fact that Dan has us listen to nerdy fantasy books all day (we're currently on the fourth or fifth book of a series entirely based on Dungeons and Dragons...yes, my husband is a geek. He even went so far as to download character sheets for Dungeons and Dragons the other day.) and they're always drinking mead.



I did more than my fair share of research and deduced that 1) making your own mead is the best way to go and 2) if you can't make your own mead, go for Chaucer's brand mead, it's the stuff they use at Renaissance festivals. 

So, the Fluff and I are out running errands and we stop at the liquor store...I thought Dan would go in by himself due the fact that although the government tells me I'm a legal adult, old enough to go and die for my country (well, if I were male, anyways), lease an apartment, spend and make money, have a credit card, drive, get married, make babies.....I for some reason cannot purchase nor consume alcohol. Ridiculous, huh? But the Fluff says that it's fine, "this is Nevada!" and I go in with him. Lo and behold, there is some Chaucer's mead sitting on the shelf! We approach the check out. When she asks us both for our ID's, I'm honest and tell her I'm not 21 and she informs us that she cannot sell Dan the alcoholic beverage.

Weasely anger! I understand where they're coming from. But. I'm not some underage kid trying to get someone else to buy alcohol for me. He's my husband. We're married. He is of legal age to buy alcohol. Say I'm just running errands with my husband and he is barred from buying alcohol just because I'm there with him. They'll sell alcohol to my mom when I go into the liquor store with her, what's the difference? So yes, I was particularly irritated, we left and went home, and later my wonderful mother in law went back to get it for me.

And the tasting. It was good. But it wasn't mead. It was honey wine. Mead is an alcohol made from fermented honey...not honey flavored wine. I'm now very intent on brewing my own mead once we have a house. It was still enjoyable though, and the bottle came with two spice packets that looked like tea bags that you're supposed to put in the mead and heat on the stove. I just stuck mine in my glass and let it steep cold and it seemed to work alright. I am a fan, but I still want to try the real thing. To end this story of the mead, they need to lower the drinking age to eighteen because it's redundant and ridiculous to tell someone they're a functioning adult and able to do this, this, and this, but they cannot buy alcohol. There's always going to be people from eighteen to ninety nine (if they last that long) that are irresponsible or alcoholics. I doubt lowering the drinking age by three years is going to effect that at all. Maybe I should just move to Germany, or France. Which are countries with significantly lower rates of alcoholism...you know why? Because they don't make a big deal out of it like they do here in America. Drinking is something to accompany your dinner. You have a glass of wine with almost every meal. It complements the food. They have no need for a higher drinking age because people are introduced to alcohol early on in a safe and relaxed atmosphere. Where as in this country, too many people only drink for the sake of getting drunk, and as children we're constantly bombarded with "if you drink, you'll be an alcoholic! Alcohol is bad, bad, bad!" so when we get to the drinking age we expect to be irresponsible and alcoholics because it's an image that has been forced on us since we were able to understand was beer was. End rant.

And now for some more crafts. I made this Happy Anarchy Elephant for my friend's daughter:

 

On today's agenda, maybe: making an owl.