the child has left the house. all hail uncle G.

Enjoy your time, msbelle!

We skipped the Mall of America this weekend. I was too wiped out to drive over there last night. So DH headed to Appleton to go shopping for work clothes. I'm glad he went alone because he's really hard to shop with. He can never find what he wants and it's very stressful.

Yay for G.

Hail, Uncle G!

You can buy beer in the grocery store here, but I'm not sure about wine. I usually go to the liquor store for wine.

When we lived in Florida in the late '70s-early '80s, there was a drive-through mini mart where you could buy beer.

Yep, in NC wine and beer can be sold after noon on Sundays. So you can leave church and swing by the Piggly Wiggly to nab a 6-pack. I was raised in a church that was pretty anti-alcohol, so that amuses me to no end. The ABC stores in NC (hard liquor) are closed, though.

It's 60F, so I have all my windows open and the fan on. It's delightful. I have to spend the afternoon doing homework, but at least I'll be doing it in fresh air.

Grocery stores in many towns in IL also sell liquor. But - are we counting liquor stores as bars? Because that's not the same thing at all.

I mean, do we count restaurants as grocery stores?

Oh for fuck's sake.

There are apparently a bunch of nimbleminded idiots on a multi-genre writing forum who think it would just be the Most Fun Evar to collaboratively write a really terrible category romance novel proposal to submit to Harlequin to see if they get a form rejection that refers them to DellArte Press, Harlequin's vanity press.

I mean, seriously? I know a lot of Harlequin editors who were appalled that the form letters were apparently supposed to contain the referral and said they'd just as soon start writing personalized rejections rather than send out that form letter. And to waste any editor's time with this nonsense? Dude, most of the editors I know have to read submissions at night, during the weekends, on subway rides, and even on vacations, just to keep their heads above water. To see people who purport to be pursuing writing as a profession so cavalierly dismissing an editor's time just because it's romance and ha ha wouldn't that be fun? pisses me off beyond all redemption.

It's weird straddling a state line, with different liquor laws.

In KCMO, you can buy anything at a grocery store -- except between something like 2 am and 9 am. But Kansas, you can buy beer and wine coolers at a grocery store, but wine or liquor has to be purchased at a liquor store. And up to a few years ago, there were no liquor sales on Sunday; a bar and grill had to have a certain percentage of food sales before they were allowed to serve on Sunday, and a plain ol' bar was closed.

When I was living in Lawrence, KS in 200-2002, the liquour stores wouldn't sell MIXERS. YOU had to buy your juice and club soda and whatnot at a grocery store. SO WEIRD.

msbelle, I am amazed by your patience and goodness, and not at all eye-blinky at your need to vent your own RAGE RAGE OMG RAGE at the situation out. Just amazingly stressful, and I hope things just get better and better for you and Mac. You both need it and deserve it.

ita, hmm, I could use a mini-vaca. You want be to come spork the attending? ThinkGeek.com sells titanium sporks now; I've been wanting to see if it's weapons-grade!

Yes, they still have those, Amy. Drive through mini mart for beer, milk, cigarettes. Tiny places with a drive up window on each side.

Wisconsin is pretty much completely red. When I was a kid, there were about 21 bars in my home town and I think three grocery stores.

I think Milwaukee has the most bars per capita in the US (not sure if that ranking still holds). I know that there are LOTS of bars in this small town of 24K people. So many that there is no way I'll ever know them all. Wisconsin has a VERY strong lobby in the Tavern Association and it's why the DUI laws are some of the most lenient in the country. I think it's safe to say there are less than a dozen grocery stores in the area--and that includes Wal-Mart.

Blue laws are strange here, too, though. We can't buy beer and alcohol in the grocery stores--they have to be completely separate. Several groceries have liquor stores attached and most alcohol can be purchased 24/7. At least I remember buying tequila and rum on a Sunday morning. Our closest convenience store/gas station combo has a HUGE beer cave.