Enjoy the Chivas

Waikiki, California (I don't know why I wrote that. I just felt like it. 😎)

I'm not doing much shopping at this time. I go to the market twice a week, where I am now spending a lot more there than in the pre-Covid past. My market, part of a small chain, recently started a rewards program. Last week I was told that I had gotten $20 off my $100 order due to accumulated rewards. Huh! And I haven't even been buying much wine. Yet.

Like most of us, I have indulged in online-purchasing a few pieces to build a pandemic wardrobe. It was sweats and sweaters through the winter; cotton jersey and tanks through the summer. Don't get me wrong. I dress up to go to the market twice a week. I know the employees there, and don't want to go ugly, the way I go around my house. But, more than that, I don't want to get out of the habit, or completely lose my ability to spruce up. So, I match my mask to my outfit, I do my hair and put on eye makeup. Good to go.

But every now and then a dress catches my eye. I'm shopping on Johnny Was or Anthroplogie (both have great masks, by the way) and I see something that I could wear to salsa. And I get a momentary, internal glow that comes from imagining myself in that outfit at that event, moving across the floor with Joel turning me and my dress flowing about me like Ginger Rodgers. A similar thing happens to me when I read recipes. I can visualize making that dish for that smart dinner party that I am not having and haven't been having for a long time, even before the pandemic. I pass on the dress, but I do clip or save the recipe. It costs me nothing to daydream, and you never know...

I bought new dance shoes just before this mess broke. If you watch any of those ridiculous dance-contest, reality shows on TV, you would think that all salsa shoes (called Latin Ballroom) are sexy. They can be. The shoes I wear are kind to my feet, not terribly high-heeled, and come in tan and black. I have them in both colors. They are made by Bloch, a company that makes ballet, pointe, and other dance shoes. They are comfortable when broken in, suede-soled for smooth turns, and not terribly stylish. So I pay more attention to dresses, though I generally alternate between wearing pants and dresses. Sometimes I dance in jeans. The unwritten rule is that we dress up on live band nights. So, when do you think there will be a live band again in an LA salsa club? My salsero friends agree that salsa clubs will probably be the last thing to return. So, I can keep fantasy shopping, but will continue sending my shopping money to Joe Biden instead of to Johnny Was.

I also don't have the upkept hairstyle that I used to have. Most of my friends have returned to salons, but I doubt I will until the salsa clubs open. I've been able to cut my own hair, as it's long which makes it easier, and I have even learned to apply highlights. It's not perfect. It's pandemic.

After my dad passed away, my mom often said that I had given her some advice that she had taken to heart. I had told her not to worry about what she spent. She would sometimes comment that blueberries or artichokes were so expensive. I told her that if she wanted them, she should buy them. She and my dad dined out a lot. They traveled domestically and internationally as if the police were after them. Most of that was going to be curtailed, so why shouldn't she indulge in blueberries and artichokes or even lobster, if it was what she wanted? I feel the same way about this pandemic. Take whatever oxygen is provided, because anything, anything that can bring us any joy right now is worth it. This is the time for the best single-malt scotch -- that one bottle of The Macallan that you thought you should never buy at that insanely exorbitant price. Go for it.

Once, after I was grown up and married, I was visiting with my parents and helping my mom put away folded laundry. I noticed a bottle of Chivas Regal in my dad's underwear drawer. Now, I could have understood this, back in the day when my high school friends and I would steal alcohol from our parents and replace what was taken with water. We were so stupid. It didn't occur to us that this was probably a better plan with gin or vodka. My dad drank J&B scotch, and he actually rather nicely asked me to stop watering it down. But those days were long gone. I was beyond legal, and we were drinking from our own bar, and martinis, not scotch. Plus, the bottle was unopened. I asked my mom about it. Oh you know your dad. He's saving it. My dad was probably around 70 at the time. I said to my mom, Tell Dad that if he dies, the first thing we're going to do is drink that scotch. My mom laughed, but later told me that she did tell my dad. And shortly after, he began to enjoy the Chivas.

We've all known and have said that life is short. But have we lived like that? I had never flown alone, and it was this gynormous wall that I needed to figure out how to get over, because there was no going around it. So, on Christmas Day 2018, I boarded a flight on my own, without a traveling companion. When I came down the escalator in the airport in San Jose, California and saw Lynnette wearing a Santa Claus hat while standing with her husband, Jim, and waving at me, I had the  euphoric sense of having ascended Everest. Then, on my 6th 'solo' flight this past March, I almost died (yes, I will continue to refer to that experience in bold italics). We are dicing with death everytime we leave the house these days. Hence the masks. I don't drink Chivas, but I would hate to think of someone getting into my single-malts because I didn't time the drinking of them to run out before I run out. Or because I stupidly ignored Covid warnings, causing me to leave this world and my fully-stocked bar as a result.

So, maybe a pandemic can bring this life lesson. I keep trying to locate silver linings in all of this, and there are some. Surely not enough to make up for all the deprivation and all we will continue to go through but, still, there are some. And one of those is the realization that whatever we've been waiting to do, whether it's buying those sexy, sky-high Manolos, taking that QM2 crossing, or just enjoying the Chivas; it is time to get on it. Or, in the case of that transatlantic voyage, at least the planning of it. It's not just that life is short. It's that life is unpredictable. So, what better way to cope with it all than to indulge in whatever our hearts currently desire. We might as well, right? Can't dance (at least not for awhile...). Thank you for reading my blog. A scotch toast to you, Tommy 💛 (that's my dad)!