Friday evening, after the nanny left, was a wonderful time for me and Sasha. For almost two hours we played together happily, dancing, babbling, rolling a ball around the apartment, and playing peekaboo. Whee!

And just that morning I’d written “What Do I Do Now?,” a post lamenting my inability to really get into it with Sasha, to bring myself to her level of entertainment. What had changed in those eight or nine hours?

Well, I was drunk.

Okay, not really drunk. But after a week of being sick, and a day spent visiting various banks to talk about refinancing, I desperately wanted a beer. And so, around 4:30, I had a perfect oatmeal stout, over at the Brazen Head, followed by a nice glass of 10-year-old Talisker, none of which helped me solve the Friday crossword puzzle in time to get home before the nanny departed.

But the two drinks absolutely helped me deal with Sasha, and without endangering her too much. It was an extremely pleasant evening, capped off by finding a single comment had come in to my post:

“You sir,” wrote Duder, “need a drinking habit.”

Truer words, Duder, truer words.