I woke up this morning fighting the roller coaster of emotions the way I have for the past two months. Much of me is incredibly thankful that my wife, my kids, my grandkids have been spared the negative physical effects of this “novel” (think Stephen King type novel…aka The Stand) virus that has closed down much of what we took for granted. The sidebar to that is that my daughter, while being currently unaffected by this, is simultaneously being infused with chemo treatments to battle her Hodgkin’s Lymphoma thereby repressing her immune system even further and for how long beyond the currently successful treatments, who knows? We are missing the social interactions that, for 44 years in the classroom, I know I have taken for granted, our dinners out, our vacations, and on and on…However, I decided this morning that it was time to celebrate the good and put the annoying aside. My incredible wife loves flowers, and in the past I have been pretty good at making sure that there were deliveries of flowers for reasons and for no reasons, I realized also this morning that for the past two months, wallowing as I have been in the land of self pity that I dropped that ball also. Last week, I took a trip up to a local farm store and came home with some locally sourced, grass fed steaks so with that in mind, after a very long, very fun (well only one kerfuffle) walk with Abbey THE dog, I lit out with an agenda…that agenda was (a) flowers (b) vidalia onions (c) salad makings (d) potatoes  the idea being that early in the week, given it is my week to cook dinner ( for those not following, we split the weeks one each) I’d make a special dinner to celebrate all the good and do something out of the ordinary and nice for a wife who is more on the edge than I am.  Good luck abounded, as Stew’s was relatively quiet, and as a bonus they had a delivery of fabulous heirloom tomatoes, so I was able to get all I needed and plan for the evening.  It was so incredibly uplifting to do what, in the past, would have been nothing, that it truly made my day. The best part came around mid afternoon when I had to decide on the accompanying wine. Knowing, as I do, that I know little, I reached out for advice and provided two options to someone who knows a boatload more than I do. I received feedback very quickly and equally quickly opted for at 2013 Napa Valley Cab from a winery that we love, that I decanted (again upon advice) around 3 pm. Long story short, everything went well, the weather, the grilled onions, the salad, the baked potato, and most importantly the steak. We laughed, we ate, we sipped, we talked all as if the world was the same as it was six months ago, we listened to music with dinner (we both smiled when Jackson Brown’s “Before the Deluge” came around…something that clearly has new meaning today) and in the end we both agreed with Clarence Clemons, gone now for almost 9 years, who said in his autobiography [and I’m sure stole the line from somewhere else] “when life gives you a choice, always drink the good wine”  We also raised a glass to him and a smile and a glass to Silvio….

Slàinte, Cheers, Santé, Cent’Anni” Celebrate life!!!