How nice it is to be able to say that I woke up this morning and did not have a hangover.

A technically correct statement! But of course, there are some damning details. Let's parse it:

I woke up

On the ground. Sure, we were in a tent, but the tent is on the ground. And the little pad I brought was cold comfort. So my spine was a crooked there for a while: my neck and my back pointed in disagreeing directions.

this morning

At 4 a.m. -- I couldn't get back to sleep. I tried. But somehow the immediacy of the fact that I was outside kept me alert. Oh, and there was that sense of foreboding.

did not have a hangover

It's true. But all it meant was that the hangover had not yet arrived. But it was coming -- just as certain as the break of day (I watched it) and the birds singing (I heard them), that hangover gathered its massive strength and slowly but forcefully came down on me.

So I staggered around for much of the morning until others started to wake up -- including Cookie and Mojo, who made it the whole night sleeping outdoors. To think: we had been concerned that one or both would peach out; actually, all the kiddies lasted the night.

So Gene, you're a genius. And the kids are real troopers. It was a swell adventure. And truly, I didn't mean to drink that much wine. But by midnight as I was pouring my last one, I held the bottle out to see if anyone else wanted any before I took the last glass. It was then that it was made clear to me that no one else was drinking the stuff -- that mega-bottle was entirely on my head (especially by breakfast time).

Haven't had that much wine since the Valpolicella Incident of 1988...

More on that later, but first a poll: last night's bivouac was the closest to real camping I've ever done. The Mastandrea temperament does not seem well-suited to it. Have any other Mastandreas successfully gone camping? Alane did before she was a Mastandrea and says it's great fun, but we all know she's nuts.