Tag Archives: beer

Recommended Dosage

My month of alcohol and caffeine abstinence has ended, with curious fallout.

Sometime mid-week between the 25th & 29th of January, I had a big glass of Kombucha at work. Kombucha, you may or may not know, is a fermented tea beverage. There is a lady at work who’s WILD about Kombucha and its health benefits and she got another lady at work hooked and then they were trying to hook a THIRD lady but that lady went home for the day and I happened to be in the kitchen so the second lady evangelist offered me some and I said, sure. I didn’t actually know what it was. I guess I trust my co-workers. She poured me a HUGE glass of the stuff and I had a sip and it was good, I guess. It was a little fizzy, quite sour. Tasted like wine.

Hm, this tastes like wine, I said. I looked at the ingredients: tea, grape juice, yeast, bacterial culture.

This IS wine, I said.

But alive, and healing your gut! the lady evangelist said.

A few minutes later I was talking to someone, still sipping my beverage, and I felt that flush in the face I feel when I have alcohol. I noticed my voice sounded quite enthusiastic about whatever we were talking about. Was I DRUNK? At work? On Kombucha? Back at my desk, since I was incapable of working for the moment, I googled “can Kombucha make you drunk?” and learned that no, the alcohol level is quite low, at around 1% BUT if you have a histamine intolerance or lack the enzyme needed to neutralize histamines you can FEEL as though you are drunk on very little alcohol indeed. (But really? That article? Lists all the food I eat all the time, to which I have no reaction at all, that I am aware of. My blood is 90% mixed nuts, for example.)

Interesting, I thought. Histamine intolerance? Sounds legit. So that Friday I had a glass of wine, to see if I had a histamine-like reaction like the ones I’d been reading about. It was my dad’s wine, homemade from grape juice and yeast. (JUST LIKE KOMBUCHA ALMOST OMG) The wine tasted fine. I did feel itchy on my chest and chin. I got a few hives. I got tired and went to sleep.

Now, I have a long history with random itchery. I used to get itchy spots a LOT and hadn’t really noticed they’d gone away until they came back. This is a revelation. Are they alcohol related?

The next night I had a beer (having decided my new rule is only have alcohol on non-school nights, so Saturdays only, or Friday too if there is no class on Saturday). The beer did not make me itchy. (whew!)

But overall, I have definitely been itchier in the past few days. Mostly around my chin and chest, my scalp, and my breasts. This morning I went for a short run and as I expected, I developed exercise hives. This only seems to happen when I have a kind of food / substance (if you’re including alcohol, which I might be, now) in my body that my body doesn’t like, and the exercise activates an allergic reaction. If not alcohol, it might also be dairy (I ate a lot of pizza this weekend) but ugh, I am still itchy right now, and the polysporin lotion I bought years ago is expired. Googling itchiness just brought me to a forum on perimenopausal itching, which also fits with my current circumstance but READING about the itchiness of strangers has made me feel itchier.*

Anyway, if you are ever considering giving up coffee OR alcohol, I really recommend you do both. Without the coffee, you are so tired you don’t want the alcohol. Over time, without the alcohol, you wake up in the morning not really needing the coffee. Really. I did have half a cup of coffee this morning, my first in a month, and it tasted really good, but I didn’t dance across the kitchen singing show tunes or anything. I just did laundry like every other Sunday morning.

* If you’re now itchy, I apologize.

Stay Keen, Jelly Bean

I have just retired to my patio, as it is a warm late spring evening and also Victoria Day. I think I might have woken the neighbour’s toddler, whose bedroom window opens on to the sidewalk, but all I did was open and close my screen door. Get over it, toddler.

I am drinking a beer, a Fat Tug, which is a delightfully bitter and hoppy IPA brewed on Vancouver Island. It is one of my very favourite beers. It is also 7% abv so one is enough. I may get a tattoo that says that because the devilry of alcohol is such that after one, more seems like a good idea and by the time you’ve had two Fat Tugs it’s tomorrow and why is your breath so bad and who brought the donkey?

The children recently came into some gift money from their aunt and uncle, who visited for a couple days last week. The money received nearly doubled Arlo’s stash of money that he was saving for an unspecified something, so yesterday he decided he wanted to buy a Nerf gun. Not just any Nerf gun: the Retaliator, the same gun his friend and neighbour has. He found it this morning at Wal-Mart for $32.92 and when I said, whoa! that’s a lotta money! he said, yes, but it’s worth it.

It’s worth it because he is nearly nine years old and there is no adult logic to be applied to this situation. Money is for spending, and Nerf guns are for having, and it’s not my money is it. Nope. Ever observant, he said, you don’t think I should buy this, do you? And ever mindful I replied, nope but I won’t stop you.

Yesterday, faced with a similar cash influx, as well as a five dollar gift card for a local candy store, Eli bought himself 500g of Jelly Belly Gourmet jellybeans. And two packs of Hi-Chew. Grand total of that expenditure: $17 (only $12 real money, $5 for the gift card) Did I want him to spend $17 on candy? I did not. Is it the most ridiculous thing in the world? Quite possibly.

When I was ten years old we went to Italy to visit my grandmother and on the way back we stopped in Montreal or Toronto or possibly both to visit more of my dad’s family. My aunt gave me $20. This was 30 years ago. I don’t think there were candy stores back then. I certainly didn’t give a shit about Nerf guns. I went directly to the mall (I think we were in Scarborough?) found Music World (or A&A Records and Tapes) and bought my first cassette tape: Olivia Newton John’s Greatest Hits. It cost the entire twenty dollars. It was worth it. I had absolutely no regrets.

Still don’t. Wish I knew where the tape was. Probably in a box. Probably somewhere in my house, knowing me.

A while ago — years? — we started our kids on allowance. We ask that they divide their allowance into savings, sharing (charity), planned spending (things you’re saving up for) and mad money. Being us, we don’t enforce the planned spending as much as we could, (“I totally plannnnnned to buy these Pokemon cards…just a minute ago?”) but the savings and the sharing are untouched. And our kids understand money. They understand the value of a dollar; how much I get paid, how much goes to daycare and car expenses, etc. They don’t get everything they want, not by a long shot. Sometimes they get unexpected treats, like an ice cream cone for the walk home from daycare, but more often I say no to their ever-more outrageous requests.

Sometimes, though, money appears in your hand for no good reason and yes, the smart thing, the adult thing to do, would be to save it, but the human thing to do is to want to turn it into something that gives you pleasure. Maybe that thing will only give you pleasure for an hour. Maybe it will give you pleasure for a lifetime. I don’t feel like it’s something I should lecture about. The only way to learn which things are good investments and which bum is by experience.

This afternoon, Eli ate a lot of jelly beans. I didn’t pour them into a bowl for him the way we did yesterday. He held the bag and he ate them and ate them. He also ate dinner. Then he had a baseball game. Then we came home and he had a bowl of cereal, which gave him a stomachache.

How is my foreshadowing? Is it good?

After brushing his teeth, he started to cry. I feel like I’m going to barf, he wept. Eli can really weep about barf and he’s usually right. Arlo got out of the room. Eli barfed. Three times with increasing violence.

When my kids barf I do a little flowchart in my head. Barf: food poisoning or virus? Oh god I hope it’s not a virus. I’ll have to take tomorrow off work. We’ll all be sick. There goes the rest of May. Wow it’s very violent vomit. What did he eat today? Cereal. Before that. Jelly beans. Before that. Cheese toast. Before that. JELLY BEANS.

As the smell of jelly beans permeated the room — no, they were not even semi-digested — Eli started to wipe off his mouth with his sleeve. I feel way better, he said. Oh good, I said. Way too many jelly beans today, he said. I think so, I said.

And then, feeling a lot like the lowest clown on the clown totem pole, cleaning up the clown car, I mopped up a lot of pink, sweet vomit, and thought fondly of the beer in the fridge downstairs.

Full circle! Happy Victoria Day!

Thanks to Our Sponsors

This week has been brought to you by:

— Moisturizer. Because my cuticles and nails are incredibly dry and jagged and horrible.

— Halls cough drops, without which I would not have slept on Monday and Tuesday nights. Damned throat tickle. ALTHOUGH I could do without the inspiration printed on the cough drop wrappers, in English and French. ALLEZ Y yourself, cough drop.

— The drugs called “montelukast sodium” and “albuterol” which help Eli go from coughing all the time to not coughing all the time, instead of to bronchitis/pneumonia/whoknowswhat. I love these drugs.

— Zadie Smith’s book N-W.

— Outkast’s song “Hey Ya” which I remembered and listened to several times this week.

— Seriously, Zadie Smith forever. Interesting, to me, that I brought this book home from the library last year and stared blankly at it for three weeks and then returned it. As though one’s emotional life, if taxing, can sap the ability to understand and appreciate good literature. Here is a bit I read on the train this morning that made me memorize the page number so I could find it again later:

“Felix spotted a wayward shiver in her eyelid, a struggle between the pretence of lightness and the reality of weight. He knew all about that struggle.”

There are some books you read to escape into, and you barely read the words on the page, just skim for the gist, like shoving chips in your mouth so the salt will take hold of you faster. Books you read to pass the time. Books you read to lull you to sleep. There are some books you read because they are good for you, the kale of the book world, and when finished you say, well, that was HEARTY. And then there are books where the flavours meld perfectly with one another, where the nutritional value is balanced with the combination of sweet/salty/spicy in your mouth, where you slowly open them to read — carefully — each word because each word is worth it. This is one of those books.

— The prospect of the four day weekend (easters Friday and Monday the glorious, sleeping-in brackets to this normal weekend.)

— Various pale ales.

Onward, Easter-ocity!

Seventy-Nine — Sweet Relief

Today was a gift.

We all woke up happy and mostly healthy. It was sunny, but not blisteringly hot, and there was a bit of that edgy September morning chill. I made Arlo oatmeal and Eli drank a glass of milk and I had coffee and wrote in my journal out on the porch. I had remembered to move the chair cushion last night so it wouldn’t get wet from the sprinkler that goes off every morning at four o’clock. It’s taken me all summer to remember to do that.

“Can you play Monopoly?” Eli asked me while I was packing lunches.
“I’m packing your lunch,” I replied.
“Am I going to SCHOOL TODAY?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“ALL DAY! FINALLY!” he said.

Indeed.

Also that’s as many words as he’s uttered at one time since last Sunday.

At 8:45 we got backpacks on and walked to school. My tank top was a bit optimistic, a bit more yesterday’s weather but it was a refreshing walk. We were caught up to by the neighbour kid and his mom and we walked companionably to school, the mom and I talking about resort vacations and the kids talking about whatever they talk about. Minecraft, poop, Lego.

The bell rang and Arlo went off to his classroom. I walked Eli to the kindergarten door and gave him a hug. “Bye,” he said. Parents were hanging around the door, peeking in the window, but I resisted the urge and walked away. Back down the hill, alone, carrying nothing but my keys.

It was 9:05 and I had five blessed solitary hours stretched ahead of me like an empty road. This was it, the moment I’d been waiting for for five years. Five years of spending all day every day with two small children and here we are, down to none. Not even a cat to bug me. (sniff)

I went for a run. I came home. I showered and stretched and folded some clothes and put them away. I made myself a smoothie out of a banana, some blueberries, some pineapple coconut water and the remains of my morning coffee. It tasted vaguely like a fruit mocha and was not as horrible as it might sound. I read things on the Internet. I tweeted. I went to Safeway and the liquor store and the vegetable market. I had lunch and read some more things on the Internet. I washed dishes and free-wrote for ten minutes and ate black licorice and did a load of laundry.

I walked in a most leisurely fashion back to the school and at 2:00 the door opened and Eli came out. He pulled his spare underwear out of his backpack, put it on his head and ran around the kindergarten playground with a few other kids. Then we hung out in the big playground for a while, because the big kids didn’t get out of school until 3:00. He found a cool caterpillar and played with two boys from his class.

After the bell, and Arlo joined us, we stayed at the school and played until nearly five o’clock. The weather returned from warm to September chill and I had trouble finding sunny spots to stand in. Two parent friends and I stood around and chatted while the kids played the kind of game you store in your head as a rebuttal for when people say kids don’t know how to play any more. Something about leaves as money and other leaves as taxes. There was robbery and tax evasion and restitution paid.

Reluctantly, we came home, had ice cream, then dinner, then more ice cream and now I’m having beer, and I want to say Thank You Friday, for being the day I spent this whole week wishing I could have.

Forty-Nine

Things we did yesterday:

1 Arlo did his Saturday morning karate class at the community centre
2 then we dropped kids at my parents’ place for the afternoon
3 SA and I took the bus downtown
4 we went to the Alibi Room for lunch and beer
5 and ate brunch instead because there was no lunch yet, even though it was 1 pm, you crazy hip young people
6 got a stomach ache because beer at lunchtime is not usually how I roll (though it was delicious beer)(and brunch)
7 walked through Gastown and enjoyed the fine flora and fauna, including cruise ship tourists (so! shiny!)
8 took pictures and felt self-conscious about it and then noticed a guy sitting at a cafe table, taking a picture of the next cafe table through the slats of the chair and felt less self-conscious
9 walked up to the butt-end of Pacific Centre so SA could use the bathroom
10 walked through Holt Renfrew and then tried to get out of Holt Renfrew
11 had to be directed out of Holt Renfrew
12 into the mall! Which is very like a mall but much more fleh, where fleh means fancy and rich
13 then out of the mall onto Granville Street
14 there was a hip hop break-dancing demonstration on the street
15 those boys were young! and very good at break dancing. And sweaty!
16 we kept walking up Granville and then up to Chapters
17 though it felt kind of stupid to be in Chapters when there’s one at Metrotown
18 nevertheless. I needed to look at books.
19 ran into the dad of one of Arlo’s friends, working in the Indigo Kids section
20 asked him if there were any locking journals for sale (there were not)
21 looked at the biography section, the blank book section, the new fiction section
22 looked for deals, didn’t find any
23 got a peppermint tea from Starbucks because my stomach still hurt
24 considered using the bathroom but decided against it because SO MANY PEOPLE WERE IN LINE
25 took the escalator to the top of the store and then back down again
26 met up with SA again and we walked back to the butt end of Pacific Centre to use the same bathroom he used before
27 bought six doughnuts from Tim Hortons to share with the kids and my parents for dessert
28 tried to remember where the bus stop was, but couldn’t, so walked all the way back to where the bus starts
29 waited for the bus
30 saw a young woman on a fancy old-style bicycle, talking on her cell phone by holding it against her ear with her shoulder, wearing no helmet, crossing Burrard Street in a very wobbly fashion, as you would if you were riding a bike with your head glued to your shoulder
31 restrained myself from shouting rude things at her
32 rode the bus back to my parents’ house and walked up the very steep hill from the bus stop and nearly expired
33 found the children drinking ginger ale in the back yard, covered in dirt and the remnants of face paint
34 entertained them until dinner time; no small feat, as they were tired and grumpy and hungry
35 ate delicious barbecued meats and oven baked potatoes and home grown lettuce
36 lingered over wine while the children entertained us with their revue show “The Idiot Children”. They called it that. Eli came in the room with his t-shirt on over his legs like pants and no shirt and said, “Greetings fellow grownups. We are the IDIOT CHILDREN.”
37 were somewhat irritated by the second act of The Idiot Children until we realized that Arlo had lost the second tooth on the top of his mouth so had a legitimate reason to be sucking on his shirt and interrupting our conversation with his “urgent” voice
38 noticed it was quite late, well past our usual departure time and encroaching on bedtime. Despite our better judgement, gave the children doughnuts for dessert
39 packed up our stuff and came home
40 fought back a jigger of road rage and kept my eyes forward while driving when a douchecanoe in a thumping bass car passed me on the right just as I was about to change lanes because I was two blocks from home
41 ignored Arlo asking me “what’s a douchecanoe?”
42 put the children to bed. Once again, Arlo decided not to leave his tooth for the tooth fairy.* That makes four teeth the tf has not been allowed to claim
43 poured a snifter of wine
44 watched an episode of Homeland on Netflix
45 ate a few chips
46 locked the door
47 read my book
48 went to sleep.

* 49 this morning we learned that he actually *did* put his tooth under his pillow but didn’t tell us, as an experiment. He wanted to see if it was Eli who would take his tooth, or the tooth fairy.**

** Apparently there is a tooth fairy and s/he is a thief because the tooth is gone, no one in this house took it, and there was no money left.

Thirty — Summer!

Prompt two for Bring Back the Words: “What is your quintessential summer supply list?”

Today was the last day of school for Arlo. Technically it was only 2 1/2 hours of school. We all stood around outside the school at 11:30 going ‘what do we do now? Do we go home? And? Then? What?’ It was raining, so that didn’t help.

Hopefully it all comes back to me.

Must haves for summer:

– Umbrella and rain boots (ba dump!)
– Internet connection
– Library card
– Lip balm
– Hat (ball-cap style)
– Spare hat (full straw style, in case it gets really hot)
– Sunglasses (must be new every season because I wreck sunglasses. Yes, if I bought a good pair I *might* take better care of them, but then again I might not and then I might end up wrecking expensive sunglasses)
– Sunscreen — whatever’s handy. 30 spf for my face all year ’round and whatever doesn’t smell like coconuts for the rest of my body.
– Children’s sunscreen — the spray-on kind, not too smelly, not too cold, not too sticky you get the idea.
– A big bag to put all the stuff in
– Purse in which to carry the stuff I don’t want the children to find (secret chocolate, my phone, etc)
– I suppose I should check the status of my bathing suits as I have a tendency to buy halves of two pieces when I see them for cheap and then end up with yellow bottoms and black and white tops. I know! Travesty!
– Sandals. I only wear one pair but I own three. Last year I was looking for the perfect sandals, despaired of ever finding them, bought two cheap pairs instead and THEN found the perfect ones. #lesson
– 400 five-dollar t-shirts, two of which start the summer white
– Bubbles for the children to blow
– Water bottle. Have you guys seen my new (late summer 2012) water bottle? I’ll take a picture of it for you tomorrow.
– Tea tree oil for all my itchy spots, not that we have mosquitoes here, I am just itchy a lot
– Heel file because my heels are made of coral. They’re so hard and mean they held up a gas station last week, just for free twizzlers. How embarrassing.
– Toenail polish, the brighter the better
– Deodorant! And hair oil goop stuff so my hair lies down a little bit each day. My hair needs its rest.
– Snacks! I like almonds and raisins and fruit; the children enjoy a fine assortment of crackers
– Tasty beer
– Often gin
– In a pinch, wine
– Music. Lately, the children have become obsessed with SONIC HITS the local HIT STATION that plays all THE HITS. They are starting to chafe my nards with this, actually. I turn the key in the car’s engine and the radio hasn’t even come on yet and Eli says “Is this SONIC HITS?” Are they paying you to listen? I don’t think so. Settle down, Beavis.

And the sanity must-haves:

– Regular showers
– Time to write in my journal in the morning, and a break mid-day, otherwise a full day with two children might just result in me stealing a skateboard and running for the border
– Exercise
– Sleep
– Several nights sitting on my porch until it’s dark, talking with Saint Aardvark
– Tiny vacations, even if they are just in my tiny brain.

Happy, happy summer! I hope!

Nineteen — A School You Can Walk To (And Back From)

We spent a lot of time at our neighbourhood elementary school today. It’s so good that we live walking distance away, because first thing this morning, someone had to walk Arlo to school (and then come back.) An hour later I had to walk up to accompany Eli to Welcome to Kindergarten, (then back.) Later I walked up to pick up Arlo from school (aaaand then back.) Two hours later, we returned to the school for the Spring Carnival, an occasion which only comes around every eight (at least, based on what I know from chatting with various people) years, like cicada breeding. It is just as noisy, if not noisier than cicada breeding. And then. After standing around in lineups for games and bouncy castles and Sno Cones for two hours, we had to..you guessed it…walk back.

But the walking back is the best part. It is, after all, downhill.

No, the best part is when you win a cake in the Cake Walk, finally, after paying for three kids to do the Cake Walk and losing, but then you win because it’s the end of the night and yesterday the Carnival Committee panicked and asked for more cakes because they didn’t think they had enough, then ended up with way too many cakes and not enough walkers, so five out of twelve cake walkers got a cake. This might be the secret to cake walks. But don’t quote me.

No, actually, the best part is when your creepy neighbour who also has a kid at the school, gets dunked in the dunk tank, which dunking you don’t see because you’re standing in endless game lineups with your child, but two separate people tell you about it because they know you will care.

No, the best part is the cake because it’s cake.

No! The best part is when you get home, realize you logged fifteen kilometres of walking today (plus a 30 minute run after lunch because you were feeling under-exercised somehow?), and sit down to have a nice beer. That is the best part.

Seventeen — A Special Relationship

Tonight, SA and I went out and had some beers at a pub, the River’s Reach pub here in New Westminster. We drank pints of King Heffy, an imperial Hefeweizen and while I don’t enjoy Hefeweizen as a rule, this particular iteration is extremely tasty. We sorted out a bunch of life-type stuff, saw the end of the hockey game, and then walked home in the clear, late-spring air, with stars above us and nobody else anywhere to be seen. We ended up at our house –yay!– where there was still one person awake and watching his laptop play news and videos and stuff, and then I typed this up and, I predict, will soon go to sleep.

One of these days I’ll do a good thousand-word post about the commercialization of childhood or how live prawns are so blinky, or somesuch, but not tonight.

Thirteen — Vancouver Craft Beer Week

In the middle lower left of Richmond, in a parking lot, we lined up for half an hour to get into a hot tent that smelled like the floor of a bar. We got little taster mugs and tokens to exchange for beer samples, walked around and sipped our samples slowly, then fast. The DJ played remixes of ’60s and ’70s music and I heard the Talking Heads and over them, a mid-pitch roar that made it sound like the hundreds of people around me were singing along to the music. On further examination, they were not. As I moved around the festival tent, I overheard wonderful snippets of conversations about bicycles, beer, summer festivals, t-shirts. I pushed my way past many, many men with long beards and bald heads, plaid shirts and glasses. A man in a paperboy cap danced to Led Zeppelin and planes flew low, preparing to land at the nearby airport. When we left, the valet at the nearby casino snapped his fingers and waved his hand in the air and a taxi appeared to bring us home.

Eight — A Place I Don’t Need to Go Again.

From an e-mail I received today:

“There is no better time time to book your Mackinaw City vacation at AAA’s highest rated properties at great discounted early bird rates. These prices will not stay like this for long so be sure to book your reservations now to enjoy these special savings! We guaranteee the lowest rates on the internet for Mackinaw City Hotels!”

Last summer when we were in Ontario for three weeks, SA and I decided to leave the children with their grandparents and travel to Mackinaw City, MI, for some Adult R&R. We reserved a room at the Travelodge and refused to be saddened by the cheaper and dirtier than usual bedspread, the stains on the wall and carpet, the lack of (advertised!) wi-fi, and the proximity of the balcony to the next room’s balcony. (hint: it was about from heretohere.)

We put on clean clothes and walked down to downtown Mackinaw City, drank some cheap American beer and ate four pounds of fish and chips even though we ordered a plate to share (if you order a plate to share, they give you a ‘bit extra’ and charge you $2 for sharing it, resulting in still nearly a pound of fish and chips between us OHMIGOD I WASN’T THAT HUNGRY THAT’S WHY I ORDERED ONE PLATE NOT TWO JESUS) and walked around looking at the tourists who went into the t-shirt shops, bought shirts that said “Mackinaw City: Where Bros Go To Get it ON” and then wore them around the city while they looked for fudge.

And on the topic of fudge, of course we promised to bring the kids some, it was the only way we could convince them that their grandparents would NOT kill them in their sleep if we went away for two days — hey, they are fine grandparents, but apparently the kids are attached to us, whatevs — so on our second day away we went first to Fudge Brothers or suchlike, for a 1/4 lb of fudge and then to a Candy And Fudge Emporium Extraordinaire Est. 1921 where I tried to buy a bag of candy corn from a salesgirl who was a) from an Eastern European country and b) worked on commission.

Salesgirl: HI!
Me: Hi, I would like just a small bag of…
Salesgirl: Two bags for $5! Three bags for $7!
Me: No, that’s OK, I just want one small–
Salesgirl: Ohhhhh, NOBODY buys small bag. Everyone gets big bag! Big bag is $10, or two for $15!
Me: I just have two kids. Two small kids. I only need a small bag of candy corn.
Salesgirl: I don’t sell ANY small bags. All day. No small bags.
Me: Well, I want this one.
Salesgirl: Fine. $3.
Me: Here you go!
Salesgirl: Fine.
Me: Thanks a lot!
Salesgirl: Fine.

The kids ate two bites of fudge, half the candy corn, and forgot about the rest.

So no, Tourism Michigan, we have no need of Mackinaw City this year.

Although I just remembered the $30 gummy bear the size of an actual bear. I might need to go back for that, someday.

My feet, straining to be free of their Travelodge prison; Mackinaw City, MI, 2012

My feet, straining to be free of their Travelodge prison; Mackinac City, MI, 2012