$1.99 Bottle of Wine

$1.99 Bottle of Wine

            Oh how I remember those days when we were all so broke counted our change together so that we could go to the grocery store to buy food for dinner.  Matt, Nicole, Christopher and I came up with $36.00 and we bought enough food to feed us all dinner for 5 nights.

There was the baked chicken that turned into chicken salad sandwiches the boys took to work the next day.  And then chicken noodle soup for dinner with a salad the next night.   I bought a thick London broil on sale and marinated it.  Sliced thin is the only way to go.  A bag of potatoes, a bag of rice and a bag of onions became staples.  It’s amazing with a little salt and pepper!   Reminds me of the fable “Stone Soup.”

We had parties!  Our friends (equally as poor) would say “Hey Trace, you need to have a party tonight!”  I would say, “Bring the meat you’re gonna eat!”  I would make the pasta salad, the potato salad and all the little stuff that makes a cookout complete.  There would be so much food left over we just had to have a party the next night!

My favorites were the times when I would put on a pot of spaghetti sauce.  I was famous for it on our little island.  It amazed me how quickly word got out or perhaps it was simply coincidence that Mark would drop in to say hello.  “Mark,” Chris would ask, “ would you like to stay for dinner?  Tracie made sauce.”  Mark mutters from the back of his head because he’s running out to his car.  I just happened to have a loaf of garlic bread on the back seat of my car!”  We all smile.  Imagine that.

Lorna walks in with Mark.  He met her at the curb.  She needed the recipe for the Italian dressing Grandpa taught me so that he wouldn’t have to make it any more.  Grandpa sopped up the extra juice with bread and when that ran out he lifted the bowl to his head and drank the rest like a beautiful wine (I must say I’ve been known to mimic the old guy).

Greg is only 10 minutes behind.  “Thought ya’ll like to drink a few beers.”  Lorna grabs the 12-pack and stuffs it in the fridge.  Nicole sets the table.  Matt pulls up more chairs.

Christopher had gone to the store for me and is all excited about the wine he found.  $1.99 a bottle!  WooHoo!  We clap him on the back.  A Regular Ulysses.  He bought 4 of them because he didn’t have to buy lunch that day.

So much food.  Conversation wild with laughter. Love.

These days we can afford to go to “the best” restaurants where our bar tab exceeds our food bill, which wasn’t all that great anyway.  My steak was over cooked and Peter’s salad dressing was too sweet.  We talk endlessly about the frustrations with work and the fact that there’s not enough time in the day for anything. Nostalgic we become talking about the times we would throw a tent in the trunk to go up to the mountains for a music festival or down to the beach to go boogie boarding.

Stress was different then.  Somehow we always made rent and so we went without a phone for awhile.  We didn’t discuss IRA accounts and the (ugh!) Stock Market.  No one had cancer, no one’s mom had to have a breast removed.  No babysitters.  We drove beat up old Volkswagens and various other vehicles held together with duct tape and paper clips.  My lease on my truck now is greater than any rent I had to split with three other people!

Times change that’s for sure.  Being late for work meant there were killer waves or other more private afternoon delights that took priority over meeting the boss at the door (who, by the way always asked  me why  my hair was wet as I come flying through the door 15 minutes late.  Every day).    We were bartenders and waitresses and hang gliding instructors.   Someone taught sailing and Lorna worked retail.   We created our own realities and we loved life.

We all knew that one day we would be driving brand new cars and living in beautiful homes.  We would have real jobs (at least some of us).  We knew that we would no longer have to scrape coins together to get into a movie or to buy another pitcher of beer.  No – now we have to scrape major bucks together to pay the IRS.  What’s the fun in that?

Coming back from dinner tonight I decide to pour myself one more glass of wine.  Santa Marguerite I bought on sale for $17.99.  I had a nice meal I suppose but we didn’t share that deep down joy I once knew.  We laughed a little.  Not that hard belly laughter that made Lorna snort and I couldn’t breathe – Nicole throwing pillows at us because her stomach hurt so bad.  All of our stomachs ached the whole next day.  None of that now.  Sometimes I suppose, but not tonight.

I get bleary from the wine and teary from memories.  I must be getting old.  But. I really did love my life back then.  I loved those times.  And I really loved those people.    Especially Christopher.

Tipsy now, I think that perhaps tomorrow I shall put on a pot of sauce.  I smile at the cost of chop meat and a can of tomatoes.  Onions, green peppers?  Nothing!  Pasta?  Bosh!

With an impish grin I picture it.  Lorna drops by for some salad dressing only it won’t be Lorna this time.  I lost touch with her after we left the beach.  Elizabeth now will want a mason jar to take home with her.  She craved it when she was pregnant with Dylan and Casey.   Maybe she’ll drop in and give me some good news……  Monica will just so happen to have an extra loaf of garlic bread on the back seat of her car.  She stops by to see if I want to go to the Boathouse later.  Cisco and Richie being bored and skateboarding by will stop in to say hello.  Wayne bounces in telling of a new reggae band we have to go see.  We’ll make room for them at the table.

Oh please!  I could only imagine how lucky I would be!  If!  Oh please, imagine!  Oh Christopher.  Where are you now?  With any luck at all you will complete my vision and you with your beautiful smile and boyish charm will show up at my doorstep for some famous spaghetti sauce. And of course, won’t you?  Please?  Show up with a dollar ninety-nine bottle of wine?  Cliff won’t mind.

Spring Chicken

Last night I roasted a young chicken for Cliff’s dinner. It tasted funny and wasn’t the same as my usual juicy fat Perdue Roaster. Not sure if there’s a metaphor hidden somewhere in that or I just stumbled on a delicious irony?

I’m taking the carcass of the young chicken and simmering it down with onions and celery; fresh thyme and marjoram from the garden.  Cliff loves cream of chicken soup and I feel much better making soup out of a bird that yielded little meat for last night’s dinner.  I love roasted chicken with mashed potatoes and savory gravy.  I add savory to the stock because the kitchen smells like I’m on the French countryside even though I’ve never been to France.  Chicken and mashed potatoes are the ultimate comfort food.  I can think of nothing better.

The smell of chicken cooking in a pot makes me happy.  I’ve just drained the bones and will let them cool so I can pick through the meat.

The phone rings and it’s my adorable husband.  I tell him I caught a glimpse of the frog that lives in our pond.  He’s shy and won’t hang out on the ledge long enough for me to know for sure he is there. It’s fleeting and I never “see” him.  More like a flash and a splash, and he’s gone.  But on the edge of the pond is a wet spot where I know he sat.

Cliff mentioned seeing him once but he jumped around the side wall and scampered away into the tall grass under the fence.  Cliff thought the frog wouldn’t be back for some reason, so when I told him he jumped into the pond he said the frog was waiting for me to kiss him so he would turn into a prince.

Without hesitation I told Cliff I already had a prince.  I could hear Cliff’s smile through the phone.

“Good answer,” he replied.

Searching beneath the water lilies I look hard for my little frog though I don’t tell this to Cliff.  I tell him instead that I’m gathering thyme for his cream of chicken soup.  I’m happy the frog is still living in my pond.  To me, he’s an amphibious delight enlightening the imagination of my six year old mind.  I love when the goldfish kiss my fingers when I dangle them lazily just below the pond’s surface.

I cut up onion, celery and red bliss potatoes and add them to the stock.  Leftover gravy and mash potatoes thicken my soup and I can’t wait to make the salad and for Cliff to get out of the shower so we can have dinner together.  He’ll tease me that all he gets for dinner is a bowl of soup and a salad.

I have chilled the glasses in the freezer and we drink down the cold Heineken Lights.  He crushes up his crackers while I dip mine individually.  I don’t like them to get soggy.

Cliff tells me he’s going to trade me in for someone younger.  And I’m going out back to find the frog.  I laugh at him and say no cute girl wants anything to do with him and his belly.  He says he’s got the personality.  Indeed he does! I tell him he would miss me. I do alright for an old broad though far from being a spring chicken.  He says he would miss me very much.  That’s the beauty of homemade cream of chicken soup.