(Disclaimer: this blog is boring and dumb.)

Really. I Don't.

I'm about to embark upon a first this weekend. This coming Sunday is the famous, the fabled, the Wine Tasting at Mountain Lake.

This is a pinnacle of the band year. Or has been in the past, anyway. The three biggest crowds we have as far as members showing up to play are our annual Spring Concert, the 4th of July ceremonies, and the Wine Tasting. And why not? As much free wine as you can taste all afternoon - and still get back down the mountain - not to mention a complimentary wine glass as well.

So I, and I know you, my dear readers, may be shocked, but I love this concert. Get up there a little early, get a glass, go around to all the booths, taste here, taste there, and get just enough of a buzz to start playing. Then during our break I'll generally decide which tastes I liked best, and go buy glasses of them. We all do this. In fact, there's an inside joke that the second set of the Mountain Lake concert - well, one just never knows what might happen.

One of my favorite moments was several years ago when my sister and her husband became Patrons of the Arts by buying a few bottles of the grape and passing them all around through the band. I don't know if we played the second half like a well-oiled machine, but we were certainly well-oiled.

And yet, there's still always more civility than at a Sauerkraut Band concert.

Anyway, I have said it here before. I'm at Mountain Lake twice a year, for Wine Tasting in Spring, and Oktoberfest in Fall. And I'm blitzed both occasions. The Mountain Lake people must think I'm a hopeless drunk.

But all that will change with this Wine Tasting. Because see, I'm on the wagon. Not for any noble causes of sobriety, but simply because I'm still a recovering surgery patient and I can't drink. It's an odd thing. I don't miss alcohol. In fact, I've done two small SK Band gigs without it, and it was no big deal.

And here's the part of the evening where I get to say, "I don't have a drinking problem. Really. I don't."

Alcohol's a funny thing with me. I like to drink, and when I drink, I like to get drunk. I mean, I certainly don't drink it for the taste, save for Goldschlager, which has that added feature of great taste and quicker intoxication. But even though I like to drink, I don't think about it all the time; I don't want it all the time. In fact, I want alcohol surprisingly little. I have bottles of beer in the fridge, bottles of liquor in the cabinet, bottles I bought long ago thinking how good it'd be to come home and have a good, big drink. Never happened. Because I'm just not interested most of the time.

However. In the thinking and researching process of this surgery, one of the first things I learned is that alcohol is pretty much verboten. And I guess that was all it took to make me think about it. And I did - and I do! "What is it going to be like if I never get to drink again? What will Community Band practice be like without my shots of Goldschlager beforehand? What will Oktoberfest be like??" And really, it's embarrassing to admit, but as I've said before, what are blogs for if not embarrassing admissions, you'd be surprised how often I thought of living without liquor.

Then I had the surgery. And while I haven't missed alcohol in the least, it certainly hasn't stopped me from thinking about it.

I've since talked to a couple of people, who've told me that while alcohol isn't exactly recommended, it's not completely off-limits. It's like everything else; some can handle it, some can't. One person told me to expect to not be able to imbibe much before getting really drunk, so to pace myself. And also, that I should wait at least six months, if not a year, before even trying it.

OK. So. Oktoberfest is six months. Hmmmm.

And so I'll be a sober person on Sunday. And I'll still think about being able to drink six months from now. And who knows? When the six months is over, I may not even care. And keep the full bottles sitting around the house just like they are now.