Special Occasion

My husband and I had big plans for our anniversary last month. Well, big plans considering we are on a budget and have two kids at home, and jobs to go to the next day and. And. And.

We’d watched Blood Into Wine, a documentary about winemaking in Arizona and had planned to buy a bottle or two and spend our anniversary weekend at Timberline Lodge. We’d read, hike, dine, and sip our fancy-schmancy wine while soaking up the 1930s WPA architecture.

In actuality, the lodge was booked. Our anniversary fell on a Tuesday night. Childcare was complicated. We had a fantastic, spur of the moment dinner out but our fancy wine stayed home. We were waiting for a special occasion.

Occasions came and went. A concert on a lawn. A picnic. A beautiful weekend. But the wine remained corked.

I remembered a story I’d heard on This American Life. I wish I could find the link. In brief, it’s about a couple who receive an expensive bottle of champagne for their wedding and never drink it because they’re saving it for a special occasion. Years go by and the wife dies. The husband then decides that his gift to people will be a nice bottle of something and this story so they don’t make the same mistake. Moral: Every day is a special occasion.

So one night, in the middle of the week, after the kids were in bed we opened our fancy wine and watched Firefly.

The end.