A bottle of red

I always thought that cocktail hour was a very civilized way to usher in the evening. However, when you're raising kids and working full time, cocktail time gets pushed aside ... in order to supervise homework, unload the dishwasher from the morning and get dinner on the table.
Tonight, however, Bill and I arrived home together (the car thing with our son has forced us to share rides to and from work). Dinner was going to be simple and Bill had pre-planned the menu (as usual). My mum arrived home just as we did, so we walked into the house together.

Bill suggested a glass of wine. We opened a bottle of red and mum and I drifted into the living room while Bill banged around some pots in the kitchen.
But, then....Bill came into the living room with his glass of red. He joined us in front of the fire and the cocktail hour magically began.
It's amazing what you can learn about each other while the bottle empties into each other's glass. We had a scintillating conversation about the world's travails from Pakistani political plights to Paladino's peccadilloes to our own family's smaller issues.
Bill tolerated the conversation even when it digressed to points where I knew he'd had enough. A glass of wine will do that. For all of us.

Snow globe

I didn't have a car today because my son is home and we were all jockeying for possession of a vehicle. He drove me to work so that he had some freedom to come and go today.

Sheepishly, I asked around at work if anyone could drive me home. I actually had 2 offers, and I took the one that left the earliest.

As I was getting ready to pack up I looked outside the office and it was, of course, dark but it was also absolutely, stunningly beautiful. The snowflakes were huge, they were falling at what appeared to be a slow rate of speed (I know, I know that doesn't make sense), and the big spotlights at my office were illuminating the trees and flakes in such a way that the world outside the window seemed surreal; like I was looking into a vast snow globe. And I thought : "I love Buffalo". The feeling was evoked certainly because of the beauty but also because I was, at that moment, standing in the building where I work (a gorgeous piece of architecture on Delaware Ave.), I had a particularly productive day,  and I had two offers to drive me home... from two women I really, really like.

The woman who drove me home is a great driver, and she has one of those SUVs that feels substantial and safe and secure. When I shut the door after we brushed the snow off the vehicle, I got that snow globe feeling again. The beauty, the safety and the camarderie combined for a sublime sense of contentment.

The first night Bill cooked for me at his house was a snow globe night. I remember walking to his house from my flat with a sense of anticipation and wariness. I also remember thinking how much I loved Buffalo then and how glad I had moved here. As I knocked on his door, I could see inside his front window, where the fire was burning and the table was set. I shook off the snow from my hat, walked out of the snow globe world and into a new one. 

I'm FIFTY - FIFTY YEARS OLD

So, last month I made a giant leap into old age! I say "leap" because it kind of snuck up on me.
Bill took me to Jamaica on my birthday (ok I made all the travel arrangements and he agreed to go with me despite the fact that there was NOTHING to do at the resort)  to celebrate (aka hideout from the world). I didn't think that turning 50 was going to be such a major deal. But, one month prior to the big day I tore my achilles tendon and was encumbered by a cast/boot on my right foot. My driving foot PS.  Bill said that God "smote me" because I was too caught up in the whole aging thing. I agreed that it was a cosmic joke just to drive home the fact that my body was betraying me.

Anyway it's healing, and  my health at age 50, other than the whole tendon thing,  is very good.... not quite as good as Sally O'Malley

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiehDcVZ-vA

... but pretty darn good.        

Strangely, this year was one of milestones in our family - our daughter, Emma turned 21 ( we celebrated at the casino), our son, Will turned 18 ( he said he drank some alcohol), I've already mentioned my mum and now, Bill is about to turn 60. Seems kind of weird that it's all happening at once. And that we all feel the need to mark the milestones somehow. Bill and I approach birthdays differently- and we both respect each others choice. He ALWAYS wants a party and I ALWAYS don't want to have a party.

But, as Bill says, we'll be dead a long time - so why not live it up while we can. It's kind of an American thing, I think. Throw a party in the garage when the kid graduates from pre-school type of attitude. He may have something there.

Maybe when I turn 51 I'll  change my mind about a party.

Silverware

My mum is turning 80 this week. We were visiting her in Florida for Christmas and decided that there was no way we could let her have a party with just her Florida pals and not celebrate with US! So we abducted her and brought her home. She didn't protest too much, so I think she was happy about the abduction. This is mum when she was a little younger.

We decided to have a dinner party at our house. The house is fairly tidy (since the kids are away at school, Bill and I don't do much to mess it up) and I figured we could throw something together pretty easily. And then I thought, holy smokes.... she's 80. We have to do better than throw something together.
So, I got Will out of bed to move some furniture so we could seat 24 people in the dining room. It can be done  - but it's tight. Then I pulled out 3 sets of silverware. Mine, my mother's mother's and Bill's mother's. As my mum made some really bad cookies out of potato chips (maybe more on that later) I got out the polish and started polishing.

It was snowing outside, the jazz channel was on (channel 436 for those of you with OnDemand) and the kitchen was warm... and best of all  my 79.9 year old mum was beside me. She was telling me stories of people I didn't know - it's ok - its what she does. And there was a real sense of peace that I actually stopped and noticed. I looked at the silverware and I felt satisfaction. I didn't use that easy dipping stuff (which I think ruins the finish) I used the old fashioned pinky-brown stuff that gets globby if you leave it too long. The results are below. Gleaming, eh?

Bill came home shortly after with 4 big cases of booze - wine and liquor. Because he wanted to make sure that everyone at the party had exactly what they wanted to drink. Obviously, he thinks about the important stuff.

My new blog

I recently met a lovely young woman who has been blogging for a while. She is a professional writer, so she's very good at it. She is also writing a book and likes to mention the subject of her book in her blog EVERY DAY. Although she writes about all manner of things, she always makes a reference to her book. She always makes me laugh and today she also INSPIRED me.
Ok, initially she just inspired me to clean out the refrigerator. I was still in my pajamas and had done exactly nothing and it was already 2:00 p.m. Granted last night was new year's eve and I was up late and groggy and I only had 1 cup of coffee, but really... 2:00? That's just plain lazy. Anyway my inspirational blogger wrote that she had played the piano, gone to church and cleaned out her refrigerator. And this woman COOKS! A LOT. So, there was a lot of sorting and cleaning of her fridge.
I jolted out of my stupor, changed into shitty clothes and emptied our almost empty fridge (we went to Florida for Christmas so we had tried to get it down ot nothing). It wasn't filthy (exactly) but it needed a good scrub down. It took me 90 minutes but it is now clean, organized and gleaming. It almost looks new.
While I was cleaning it I was thinking how much Bill (my husband) would appreciate it. He was, at that moment, at the grocery store. He does all the grocery shopping. I wasn't sure if he would notice it. He doesn't really notice things like that. But, I knew he would appreciate the organization of the 7 hot sauces (his) and the fact that I checked the dates on the indian sauces (I threw a bunch out) and that I consolidated some pickles.
Then it hit me. I will do this blog and I will always do a 'plug' for my husband. Just like Mary does a plug for the subject of her book. And I use the word "plug" because I don't want to wax on about how much I love him, but more about what a good guy he is and why i appreciate all that he does for me, for his family, for his clients.
So, Day 1 of my blog is my first plug for Bill. We've been married 24 years ... time enough for me to totally take him for granted. And I do a lot of the time. But, he does the grocery shopping every WEEK! And he cooks for me almost EVERY night. How did I get so lucky.