New Year

A pal and I were emailing this morning about our New Year's Eve celebrations.

Mine went like this: retirement party for father-in-law at a small town steakhouse, complete with polka band in the background; much beer; a few iron butterflies; too much champagne; lots of dogs; stay up way too late; not enough sleep.

Hers went: drinky, drink, drinkity, drink; stay up way too late; not enough sleep.

We're both too old for this sort of debauchery because we're both still tired today, even after a full day of recovery.

Time was I could party very hard, nurse a hangover for a couple of hours, and bounce back just fine. Now, one night of drinking (and it would have been pretty light drinking back in my college days) and I'm still exhausted more than 24 hours later.

I'm so tired that I accidentally wore a black bra under a white shirt and now, despite the fact it's about a billion degrees in my office, I cannot take off my sweater because my fashion faux pas will become public knowledge.

My friend beat me, though. She emailed me with, "I'm so tired that I wore two different shoes to work today."

Obviously, we're old and should now spend our New Year's Eves wearing flannel pajamas, drinking hot tea, and going to bed at 9:30.

Hangover Cures

A friend of mine recently had her very first hangover. And, oh, it was bad.

A champagne hangover is a particularly wicked kind of hangover. It's my personal belief that the only thing worse than a champagne hangover is a tequila hangover.

But the poor girl didn't know what to do for the hangover, having never had one before.

I have several hangover remedies and, for posterity's sake, I'm going to share them here.

The first one I learned in college, sort of a preventative maintenance cure, is to eat a large handful of dry cereal before bed, chasing it with at least 2 glass of water, take a couple of Advil and a couple Tums, and go to bed.

If you're too drunk to do the eat-before-bed routine, start the next morning off with a handful of Advil, some Tums, a full-sugar soda, like Coke (no diet drinks), a couple of pop tarts, and a viewing of the movie The Trouble with Angels.

In Mexico, the cure for a hangover is a very spicy tamale and a shot glass of beer.

More recently I've learned that a semi-effective cure is an Egg McMuffin, assuming you get up early enough to get McDonald's breakfast, and a Gatorade. If you can't have the Egg McMuffin, head to Perkins and get the Eggs Benedict or some other breakfast that is chock full of salt and fat. Choke it down!

Anyone else have a favorite hangover remedy?

Urgent Question

Is the game tippy-cup or flip-cup? I've always called it tippy-cup but my clerk informs me I am WRONG.