WINE – Definition of life without: Unimaginable

I like to think that our children’s first words were either mommy or daddy but it’s just as likely, if not a tad more probable, that it was “Cheers.” There were three of them, all under the age of three at one point, so I can’t, with any confidence, assure you that the vessel with which they saluted had milk in it. I remember it was plastic and had a nipple on one end but that’s about it.

I do know for sure that “Mimi’s juice” were among our grandchildren’s first words. And it had absolutely nothing to do with apples or oranges.

Wine seriously entered our lives when we were poor and living in Boston. Our drink of choice, and affordability, was knock-off Dubonnet. $1.99 a bottle at full price and sometimes we got a deal. We had just as much fun with that “wine” as we do now with the real stuff.

If a medicine is prescribed that even suggests that there be no wine whilst one is taking it, into the trash it goes. After my husband’s last kidney stone was shaken to bits and pieces and the nurse said “no alcohol for 24 hours,” I wondered about her sanity. If ever there were something to celebrate, it was good-bye to the stone.

My husband goes to Sam’s for our wine run. He buys in bulk. Why not? It’s certainly not going to go to waste. Four cases at a time. Someone always says, “Oh boy….looks like a big party” and he always says “Nope, just me and the little woman.”

Last week, as we were checking those bottles out from Sam’s, the cashier was singing that old ditty: “ 99 bottles of beer on the wall…..” Only she changed the words to “48 bottles of wine in the fridge.”

Lest you totally get the wrong idea here, no, we’re not alcoholics. I’ve seen that up close and personal and have no desire to replicate it. We simply love the coming together to celebrate life and friends…..over a glass of wine, of course.