vacation

Have you ever wanted to vacation in your past? Spend some time as your former self...in your former life? I do. Now, don't take this to mean that I'm "living in the past", unable/unwilling to move on with my life, or wish to change any of the decisions I made to arrive at a different outcome. I love the "now" of my life and I wouldn't change a thing. In fact, I love my life so much that I want to revisit times along the way and just enjoy them.

With the big Superbowl win for the New Orleans Saints...and Mardi Gras coming up next week...its got me thinking about a vacation to the time Marcus and I were in New Orleans, just after we were married. That was such a wonderfully simple time, full of love and discovery. We really set the foundation for our lives now - if we had never lived that time in that way, I don't think we would handle the pressures we face now as well as we do. So indulge me a bit in my vacation fantasy...as I visit myself on a very ordinary Friday when we we're living in New Orleans.

It was so good to finish a hectic day at class and work thinking about my special Friday evening with Marcus. We only had one car, so Marcus would pick me up from the school of public health building downtown. The building was on the fringe of the city, near to the hospitals...and away from all the tourist hot spots. I had always wished that it was closer to the French Quarter, although it may have been too tempting to go out to lunch more often, which was not in the grad school budget. We were so broke then, living on a pretty small stipend and part-time student level salary. We did a lot with a little and took pleasure in the everyday things; we considered trips to the Save-A-Center grocery store our dates. On Friday's, we would indulge our affinity for wine at tastings held at the wine shop very near our apartment, The Cellars of River Ridge. This family owned shop had a diverse selection of wines, some gourmet treats, and accessories for entertaining with wine. Every Friday the owner would choose to feature 3 or 4 wines for a free tasting. We would meander in at about 6:00 pm, and carefully evaluate the tasting selection...pretending, really, that we knew what we were looking at. We'd make our choice, usually a red, and the owner would pour a generous portion in a small plastic cup for our enjoyment. Marcus and I would then sip the wine and form our opinions. The owner was always so helpful, telling us about the wine, the vineyard, and what we should be looking for when we tasted...the oaky overtones, the jammy, robust palate, the crisp, lemony finish. We listened and learned. With our little cups, we would then walk the aisles of the store, admiring all the labels and coveting the contents. Many of them were too expensive for us, but we liked to pretend. We would each pick one that we would buy, if we could. The back wall was a cooler full of a variety of beer that always drew Marc's attention. We even liked looking at the wall of liquors, checking out the bottle styles...we admired the majesty of the vodka bottles, especially. I think we knew their inventory as well as they did. Of course, we would try all the wines featured for the tasting...and some of them we would even have a second cup. We weren't the only ones; the store really took on a community party atmosphere on Friday's, with many "regulars" doing the same thing as us. We stayed for about 2 hours in this little shop, drinking, browsing, and chatting with the owner or his son. Sometimes we would actually buy something...it made us feel better about crashing the party every week, so to speak. When it was time to go, I would look up at Marcus and say "Taqueria?" When I was lucky enough to hear him say "ok" (after some cajoling), we would walk around the corner to a small Mexican restaurant, Taqueria Corona, for take out. It must have been hard for Marcus to always be the finance police...I put him in a position to have to deny me things quite frequently, especially dinners out. Anyway, I would order the California burrito, an oversize charred chicken burrito with avocado, and Marcus would get this combination meal...I remember it came with a fish taco, which at the time I thought was just weird. (Don't worry, I've been cured of my Midwestern palate.) We'd bring our meal home, set it up on the coffee table in front of the futon, pour ourselves a glass of box wine and beer to keep the buzz going, and flip on the TV and watch whatever. After finishing our extravagant meal, we'd cuddle on the futon and eventually fall asleep there, waking up in the wee hours of the morning and shuffling to the back bedroom to fall into bed. It was perfect...perfectly simple.