WINE STATE OF MIND

I'm in a wine state of mind.

I have spent the last four weekends refusing to leave my house.  Part of this is because of the weather; leaving the house meant risking immediate and severe frostbite.  Part of this is because I have been in a sucky mood, and I have preferred reading books and scrubbing my toilet to being around people.  I am also willing to bet that a good portion of my need to stay home is tied directly to finally having my house back to near-normal following the Great Merrimack Valley Gas Disaster of 2018.

No matter the reasons, I decide today to finally venture out on a Saturday.

I hit my usual haunt for the weekly wine tasting and am greeted with, "Wow, we haven't seen you in a while!"  Truth.  Four weeks, to be exact.  Good thing I had some wine already stock-piled.  After tasting some great Superbowl-themed wines then buying prosecco (not one of the themed selections), I hit up CVS to spend $8 in extra-bucks (on toe and hand warmer packets).  I even take the time to drive my daughter and her pal to the T-station several towns away so they can attend a country music concert in Boston.

Apparently, I have decided to make up for all my recent weekends all in one day: Go, go, go!

When I finally do get home, I turn on the television to have noise in the background while I do some work.  Oh, look -- The Hallmark channel.  What a surprise ... not.  I am about to turn the channel to something far more original, like Say Yes to the Dress, but I notice that there's a movie on Hallmark about a winery. 

This makes me thirsty.

After the movie ends, on comes another Hallmark movie also set at a winery.  The last time I chatted with my landlords, we got on the subject of wine.  They have a wine cellar in their home (in front of mine), and they handed me a bottle of Montepuciano d'Abruzzo. So, here I am on a Saturday night in a wine state of mind, when work just doesn't seem so important anymore.  I open the red wine, let it breathe a little (because I am impatient and do not have an aerator ... I know ... a sacrilege), open some sharp cheddar cheese, then pour a glass of wine.

Sure, it has been lovely getting out of my house (other than going back and forth to work), but it's even lovelier to be home, watching winery-themed Hallmark movies, eating cheese, and sipping Italian red wine.  Life is good, and we're halfway through winter (officially) here in the frozen tundra of New England, so that in and of itself is a celebration. 

Besides, I don't believe it counts as drinking alone if the bottle is a gift. After all, wine truly is a state of mind, and, since I'm home and sipping along with wine-themed movies, I must be doing Saturday right, so I don't mind; I don't mind at all.