If there is one thing I love in life, it’s to turn over a new leaf.  Or, I should say, I like to read about how to turn over a new leaf.  12 weeks to be bikini ready, or a 3 day cleanse, or basically every month of O magazine.  But something always gets in the way of completion of my self improvement.  (The main thing that gets in the way of completion is that I do not start.)  For example, Dr. Oz’s 3 day cleanse lost me at sauerkraut.  The most recent thing I read was the Jerry Seinfeld productivity method.  The gist is, you get a giant calendar, and you do your thing (for example, exercise, or writing, or flossing your teeth, or meditating) and after you do your thing that day, you put an X on the calendar.  After you have a string of Xs, you don’t want to break the chain.  Then once you are doing something every day, yea for you! I printed a thing that just had squares that started at 1 and ended at 365, and I told myself I could put an X through the day if I did one of three things.

1.) wrote a blog post
2.) worked on my book
3.) did a writing exercise from a book that I have.

I lasted around 16 days straight before I missed a day, and then another day, and then the next thing I knew, there was no way I could figure out where I was because the dates weren’t on the calendar, and if I started on March 3rd, then I’d have to add 3 days to whatever day it was, and let’s just forget the whole thing.

But it’s a Monday, and it’s the unofficial start of summer, which is a perfect time for starting or restarting a project so here I am.

And where am I?  Sitting on the patio, thinking of the potential unofficial drink of the summer. Remember when I discovered Hendrick’s gin?  Then, last summer or so, I had a few gin drinks with my good friend, and I asked for the recipe at least thrice, and all that I remember from it was “gin” and “cucumber dry soda.”  Alas, more ingredients than that=too complicated.   Hendrick’s is sometimes recommended to be garnished with cucumber, so I had a brainstorm a few days ago that Hendrick’s and Cucumber Dry Soda could be the drink of the summer.  But I only like to buy Hendrick’s on sale, and the Memorial Day ads led me to believe that no sales were imminent.  Also, I hadn’t seen Dry Soda anywhere, but their website led me to believe it was at Whole Foods and King Soopers.  I struck out at Whole Foods, and King Soopers, and was very sad and frustrated.  Summer is supposed to be relaxing and carefree.  Had I picked the wrong potential drink of the summer?  Maybe it wasn’t meant to be?  But if it wasn’t meant to be, then why did I keep thinking about it?  Well, last night around 5:00 pm, I called King Soopers and yes, in fact, they do stock Dry Soda, and it’s on the top shelf of aisle 4.  By the time I got off hold and had my answer though, it was 5:49 and the liquor store closes at 6:00.  I pedaled so fast, I was just a blur on a cruiser bike.  I stopped only when I was in the gin section and I took some heaving breaths and thought at first that they didn’t carry Hendrick’s.  Turns out there was one bottle left, but I couldn’t reach it.  Yes, top shelf liquor.  So top of the shelf, that I, and adult woman, was not capable of reaching it.  I must have looked forlorn, and possibly dangerous, like the type of person who was considering climbing the shelves, because someone asked if I needed help.  I did, in fact, need help.  And before I knew it, I was on my way to King Soopers with Hendrick’s in my backpack.  (AND IT WAS ON SALE!)  And of course, the reason I couldn’t find the Dry Soda at King Soopers the first time I was there, was that they were on the very top shelf, where I couldn’t see or reach them, in the “healthy” drink section.  Once I had gotten to the coconut water I guess I gave up.  So I found the Dry Soda, angels were singing, the sun was shining a beam straight down onto me, harp music was playing, until there was a giant scratch of the record and all my dreams came crashing down to earth.  There are 7 flavors of Dry Soda, and King soopers stocked 3 of them.  Note, cucumber was not one of the three stocked flavors.   Curses were uttered.  I just bought the darn blood orange dry soda, and a cucumber, and I made a drink with Hendrick’s and blood orange Dry Soda over ice, and garnished it with some cucumber slices.

It was the most anti-climatic delicious cocktail I have ever had.