{"id":837,"date":"2015-06-24T18:22:57","date_gmt":"2015-06-24T18:22:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/?p=837"},"modified":"2015-06-24T20:39:11","modified_gmt":"2015-06-24T20:39:11","slug":"wrestling-bears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/?p=837","title":{"rendered":"Wrestling Bears"},"content":{"rendered":"

It feels SO good to sit down at my desk right now. It’s been a week of drama, illness, and rearranging\u00a0schedules. It’s only Wednesday, I know, but no matter!\u00a0This week’s been a bear to wrestle…<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"BearWrestle\"<\/a><\/p>\n

First\u00a0and foremost, I’ve had to play Nurse Norman for my wife, who woke up at 3am Tuesday morning feeling dizzy and disoriented. I thought she was gonna topple over and crack her head on the master bath marble. Turns out she has a pretty bad inner ear infection gained from a terrible cold she’s been combating since last Thursday. So there I was all day yesterday,\u00a0escorting her to and\u00a0from doc appointments…running around picking up meds and food…dropping 10 very specifically-timed ear drops into her right canal…”10…9…8…7…etc.” Checking in and making sure: “Eat your soup!” “Go lie down!” “Take your meds!” “Stop e-mailing work!” (My wife does NOT know how to relax…)<\/strong><\/p>\n

In other news, my pug Mickey was put under and had a very deep-rooted tooth extracted last week and HE’S been on 100 different meds. And getting him to take his required pills is like wrestling TWO panda cubs<\/em>. Yes, I’m telling you, shoving meds down The Mick’s throat is EXACTLY\u00a0like THIS<\/a>. Exhausting! The damn dog’s 19 pounds and it’s\u00a0seriously like tackling a linebacker. He’s strong! “I’m not trying to kill you, Mickey, I’m trying to ease your pain and prolong your life!!!”<\/strong><\/p>\n

I also have dear friends going through tough times.\u00a0I wanna be\u00a0there for them. I wanna bring the good wine over. I wanna listen and\u00a0support and pay very close attention to what’s going on, and, hopefully, provide some\u00a0laughs if I can, sitting around their family table. But it’s\u00a0work! It’s work to be there for your nearest and dearest. You wanna do the best job you can.<\/strong><\/p>\n

So I have been wrestling bears this week.\u00a0It all comes from a\u00a0downright obstinate\u00a0sense of duty.\u00a0Care-taking’s like a side business for me. I even used to get paid\u00a0crappily for it. I worked with an elderly male victim of HIV and a woman who\u00a0died of lung cancer. I’ve seen some shit. LITERALLY. And, don’t get me wrong, I RELISH my position. But then I worry, should anything bad ever\u00a0happen to ME, what will my people do?? I mean, I’d like to think<\/em> they wouldn’t be able to function without me. But something tells me they’ll be fine.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like…JUST. FINE.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That’s cool. I hope they will<\/em> be just fine. I also hope they remember the care I took of them and the love I showed them. Because loving and caring for my people is almost like a disease for me. If I ever cared to find a cure, I would!<\/strong><\/p>\n

The good news is, I’m going out-of-town next week. Rest could be on the horizon! The wife has a conference in Vegas and we’re gonna go check out some shows (none which feature wrestling bears, however, which surprised me.) <\/strong><\/p>\n

Listen, I’m no fan of Las Veg–I mean, Lost Wages by any stretch. But I AM a rabid devotee of sitting around a fantastical pool, sucking tropical drinks through a giant purple straw, ogling bikini girls, and reading my John Lydon book<\/a>. Hey, I’ve EARNED that shit. We’ll also be taking a side trip to the Grand Canyon. I’ve never seen it. I really wanna be awed. But my worse fear\u00a0is I’ll just pull a Clark Griswold<\/a> and\u00a0be on my way.<\/strong><\/p>\n

So more to come! And TAKE CARE. \ud83d\ude09<\/strong><\/p>\n

WINE PAIRING: My friend Doug Paul<\/a> sent us the crisp and tart and completely delicious 2012 Georgia Cuv\u00e9e from his Three Sisters Vineyards & Winery<\/a> which we opened and toasted<\/a> with on Father’s Day. I’m telling you…whatever Doug and his team are doing down there in Dahlonega wine country, they’re doing it RIGHT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It feels SO good to sit down at my desk right now. It’s been a week of drama, illness, and rearranging schedules. It’s only Wednesday, I know, but no matter! This week’s been a bear to wrestle… First and foremost, I’ve had to play Nurse Norman for my wife, who woke up at 3am Tuesday morning feeling dizzy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[307,306,308,235,309,310,232],"class_list":["post-837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bear-wrestling","tag-caretaker","tag-clark-griswold","tag-georgia-wine-country","tag-las-vegas","tag-medications","tag-three-sisters-vineyards-winery"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4VgPA-dv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=837"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":848,"href":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837\/revisions\/848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}