I packed out alot of wine glasses today, almost too many for one man to use and break over the course of a lifetime. Looking back I suppose there were a few things that got my collection going again, a collection that had gone into remission a number of years back.
Long time ago when I was young and wagons still had wooden wheels I had pals who shared my jones for champagne, for large quantities of wine and beer and somewhat wild parties. I had folks over the house back then on a fairly regular basis and went through crystal glassware like mad. I was always on the lookout in toney department stores for nice stemware, for nice bowls and plates and such, but after awhile, especially after the kids came on the scene, found that that wasn't important anymore in my normal everyday life. After awhile it seemed that most of my company was The Estranged One's family, and for the most part most of the libations we shared were found in twelve ounce cans and bottles. My collection of wine glasses wound down to a pitifully small number and since I wasn't partaking much in the grape anymore and had no one around to share the habit with the need for wine glasses went away. The collection wore down to what I had in my old hutch, which, by the time you came into my life in earnest in 2005, wasn't much of a collection at all.
It may have been that one letter you wrote me in September of '05 where you told me that you were a social drinker that started me thinking. It could have been the night of the Gala when we broke open that bottle of bubbly here in my house, or maybe the trip we took to Chelan for WALE when we sat with our colleagues at the hotel bar and sipped the night away. No matter, I saw clearly that my collection of wine glasses had become shabby and needed an immediate update. More importantly I felt that I had found someone who would make a difference in my social calendar, who just might make some sort of concerted effort to help pull together some sort of organized entertainment in my life for a change. One talk or another that we shared on the couch made it clear that we needed good heavy beer mugs that could go into the freezer, that we needed a table full of nice crystal goblets, that we could use a matched set of plates and possibly a nice assortment of sparkling wine glasses to toast in some sort of special event.
Maybe it was my imagination running away with itself, but I started looking for stemware in second hand stores in earnest that fall. Even after the wars, once you were gone and I moved back into the little house I kept at the "hobby", accumulating glassware knowing full well we would never share wine in those cups again, but by then I was buying housewares in bulk, engaging retail therapy, dreaming of pulling together trunk loads of kitchen stuff for the kids, piling up goods for the day TEO would go away, knowing full well that the day she left she would strip my shelves bare .
Well, she left in the summer of '07 and left me with all of my accumulated stuff. All those goods I worried so hard about remained stacked up in back house for years. TEO never took a thing, left me with crockery and cookware and tools all stacked away in on shelves and table tops. I moved back into the big house only to find that all the things I bought and accumulated during our time were still there waiting for me, too. Why would TEO want to take away wine glasses and table settings when she had all that and more waiting for her back in Boise? Why would she want to accumulate crystal goblets when she had no intention of entertaining let alone using those kinds of glasses for drinking? They would only get broken, or worse, clutter up the shelves and get dusty.
So I went about my packing today and thought of you and that one night when we opened up that bottle of nice California sparkling wine at the end of Gala shift. We had two mismatched glasses on hand that night, two glasses long leftover from my wild old days when I entertained on a regular basis. Didn't matter that night if I had dozens of them waiting in the wings, there was just the two of and two glasses suited us fine. I looked hard at the boxes I have stacked in the living room, ready and waiting to be added to the rest of the boxes I have stacked up next door. That waiting area is starting to remind me of that one scene in Citizen Kane, the beginning of the tale when all the stuff is being shoveled into the great fireplace. I know that I have too much, that someday I will have to unload some of it and pare down that collection of stemware but know that that time is not now. I still am waiting for that one great party that will take place someday, the one that you painted such a nice picture of in my head. Someday someone will come into my life and fill up my house with people and laughter and a sort of hungry joy, one that says that love lives here and that people are welcome to partake in it.
You came through my life one time and made it clear that two glasses were not enough. I thank you for that, not only now, long after the packing is done, but also at some later time, when I'll hoist up a glass of fine chilled wine, knock it back and think of you. Of us, of two fine people, both in need of a table full of glasses and room full of company that say love lives here.
To your health, my love.
Your WHMB
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