Nectar of the Gods

My grandmother recently advised me that if I had enough wine at Christmas dinner everything would be fine. This was in response to certain family members who will remain nameless (my father) that think 1:00 is too early for Christmas dinner. My grandmother doesn’t even drink that much wine anymore but back in the days that woman was a wino.

One year for a birthday we went to eat at a quaint Italian restaurant. It wasn’t too froo froo but it wasn’t plastic red and white checkered table cloths either. Most of us had a fabulous meal. My grandmother drank her meal and proceeded to get schnockered at the table so when my mother commented on how much she liked the breadsticks she began throwing them at her saying “Put them in your purse. You paid for them. They’re not going to serve them again. Put them in your purse!” I thought my grandfather would drop dead right then and there. My mother not knowing what to do began stuffing her purse full of bread so my grandmother would stop yelling. She had to vacuum the thing out when she got home to get rid of the bread crumbs.

For years most of the family would not lift a finger to help her clean the table. She would retreat to the kitchen alone. Well not alone. She had her wine. We could always tell when her buzz was kicking in because her singing and whistling would increase to deafening volumes. “You say toe-may-toe! I say toe-mah-toe! Oooooo, let’s call the whole thing off!” Hey, whatever made her happy washing a million dirty dishes. Who were we to break up the party?

Grandmother has stopped drinking as much but if you go to her house the telltale signs of her wine days are everywhere. She drinks Ernest & Julio Gallo Chablis… in a screw top jug. She has recycled countless jugs by propagating ivy vines in them then placing them strategically in every room of the house. If anything happens to her I am giving them to Christo and Jeanne-Claude. They could line them up along I-10 from one side of Texas to the other and call it art.