Where did you get that hat...?

Been a strange weekend.  The missus had a bit of a car crash, and I hardly eased things yesterday with some complicated unpleasantness that I won't go into detail about.  Needless to say, being a 'grown-up' isn't always particularly fun (mind you, not that anyone ever said it was!).

I've heard folks say at AA that you have to be selfish and ruthless if you want long term sobriety.  I never quite got this, because for me, my family comes first.  However, I now understand what this means. I've had to make a call that is far from ideal; but I believe that, to protect my sobriety, I have little choice.  Like I say, I won't go into detail - but it seems like the 'appropriate' thing to do.  Notice how I don't say 'right' here - ultimately, I'm new to all this business.  Very new.  And I'll probably make some calls and judgements that don't necessarily turn out the way I expect them to. And within days, I may realise that I've made a misjudgement and change my mind. All I know is that, right now, I believe I have to do certain things, and sadly they will cause some pain.  I don't like it.  Far from it.  I think 'ruthless', unfortunately, sums it up.

This may seem very strange, but I visualise my sobriety like my own child.  That notion that you would do absolutely anything to protect your offspring (I would carry my daughter barefoot over a desert of broken glass if I had to!) is exactly how I feel.  I would do anything it takes to keep my sobriety safe; and never do anything that could put it in jeopardy.

Give me a break!

On a lighter (yet, as usual, surly) note, I have a particular bug-bear that's been irritating me all blummin winter.  I have noticed a disturbing number of people ('grown' adults, I am talking about here) wearing woolly hats that have two bobbles strategically placed to look like bears' ears.  Add buttons (of which I have a pathological aversion to - don't get me started on that one) or black patches for eyes and you have yourself, in what appears to be the majority of cases, a bloody Giant Panda on your head!  How bloody bloody  cute!  Now, I can understand this of girls, say, age 5-9; but grown women?!!  Ridiculous!

But get this!  I kid you not.  On the train this very morning was a 'grown' MAN wearing one of these abominations.  But, oh no, a panda is too orthodox for this wacky, quirky individual.  He was wearing a hat that looked like one of the monsters from the Monster Munch adverts of old; replete with giant buttons (eurrgh!) for eyes, and dangly-down bits that were either representing teeth or tentacles (I couldn't quite work out which).  This person should be removed from society immediately; because he will no doubt go on to commit more equally heinous crimes, and ruin the mornings of countless innocent bystanders in the process!  Come the Revolution...