So Now What?

After months of watching almost nothing but politics on the ol’ television I came home last night not quite sure what to do….it’s over, so now what? I felt drained all day, mind, body and soul….just so tired from the intensity of the previous nights event. Not unlike when you finally make love to someone you have been wanting forever, you give yourself over to it, get lost in the, “I can’t believe this is finally happening” and when it is over you find that you are wiped out, and have this empty space where all that longing had been. On my drive home I felt like I had been holding my breath for months and just exhaled, weak and a little disoriented.


I walked through the door to find the hubby laying on the couch, this almost never happens…he is not a lounger, he will sit on the couch but laying is reserved for hangovers or illness so I knew he was having a “day after” issue as well. “So what you want for dinner” he managed to mumble, knowing neither of us was fit to go shopping or cook for that matter I started running down the list of our regular take-out spots…..nothing sounded good, burritos…too heavy, burgers….too boring, Thai….just had that. We were both melting into are spots on the couch when it hit me, “Dude, lets go out for crab legs” he perked up like a kitty when they hear the can opener.


Twenty minutes later we were sitting in a restaurant, our orders placed, (salad and big pile of legs for me and surf and turf for him) sipping on glasses of the very inexpensive but really tasty wine I had grabbed from the fridge on our way out the door. Now I will confess that we ended up at a chain restaurant….something we almost never do but we knew they had serviceable crab legs, it was really close and we were just too tired to spend any more time thinking about it. While I was fine with “settling” on the food I just refuse to drink crappy wine, more often than not I will just drink Gin & Tonics when we end up at a place like this but with this hole where my desire or longing had been I NEEDED the comfort of white wine with my crab legs.


I usually opt for Vouvray with crab, something Kelly turned me onto years ago and the paring is rich and decadent but I felt more like having something a little racier last night….something to get my heart pounding again, wake me up…needed a zing so I grabbed the 2007 Domaine des Cassagnoles Cotes du Gascogne ($8.99). We ended up paying more for corkage than I did for the wine, (even though it is a screw cap) but it was so worth it! The wine was packed with fresh green flavors, tart lemon and grapefruit and a sharp little blast of acid on the finish…..I loaded up my butter with tons of lemon, cracked, dunked, sipped and felt the blood returning to my body.



The hubby and I were so happy, locked in conversation, getting settled after such and emotional couple of days, things were getting back to normal. During dinner I heard my phone, I had a text message so I looked and it was from our son Jeremy so I flipped my phone open to read;

ALL WHITE PEOPLE ARE TO REPORT TO THE COTTON FIELDS AT 7 AM TOMORROW MORNING FOR ORIENTATION

We laughed so hard I am sure our neighbors thought we were insane and I almost chocked on a piece of crab…..I guess this text has been floating around, (we had not seen it yet) and one of our sons white friends had sent it to him…..once the laughter stopped there was something really cool about that. Is it ‘PC” hell no but it is funny and I for one think it is high time that we started laughing more. Jeremy often makes white people jokes….especially with regards to my husband’s, “dance moves” and we make comments like, “What did you do” whenever there is a police helicopter…..I’ve seen people cringe but we are very aware that our family looks different and also very aware that others notice it…..we learned to laugh early and love big no matter what we look like and that kind of comfort takes the race issue right off the table…..well, for us anyway!

A evening that started with a void of sorts ended with yummy crab legs, a delicious and inexpensive bottle of wine and a big belly laugh.