I'm so lucky to live in a big city with (O god I hope) deep resources of like-minded individuals. This idea, in fact, is Main Reason Number One I keep living here despite the strong hankerings of one side of my soul for a garden, for the land, for space and views. I hold onto that ideal on days like today.
Today Manhattan was drenched with a technically 'light' rain that had amazing powers of full soaking. (I ran 7 miles this morning in "mist" which never coallesced into raindrops and yet was so uniformly soaking that I dripped puddles all the way up the stairs home.)
These coastal-soaking rain days are days on which it is a major pain in the ass to do my job, since for me to carry a good number of wine samples to my customers requires a backpack (which the umbrella drips on such that in a soaking rain the backpack then gets soaked and starts draining onto my lower back &etc= wet ass). Also a side wine bag which I have to put down if I need to answer the phone or hail a cab, which = wet thigh when I pick it up again to carry. Of course in addition to that there is the fact that there is no way around wet feet and ankles from walking around. So one gets pretty wet in general. Not to mention the annoyance of the total physical inconvenience of wielding all these bags plus an umbrella and a cell phone (esp a Treo which refuses to get your email and/or work as a phone if the wind is blowing in the wrong direction, not to mention a coastal soaking rainstorm). . .
On these days it smarts all the more to be confronted with what we shall delicately call an unreceptive public. In short, today I got soaked to have some customers (well one, but it's his store so no one, especially me, could disagree) totally dismiss a wine for the "sin" of having acidity (and we all know how I feel about acidity as a trait in wine). What could I do but bite tongue, as in this case it is impossible for me to empathetically second the customer's opinion and hell, at least at this very moment I'm not getting rained on so it could be worse. Only thing to do is to continue sales call. Get order in the end, although it's clear that despite my best efforts at diplomacy a chill has fallen. Schedule tasting for later to express my good will (however fake!). Linger a few minutes longer in an attempt to show that I'm really happy to be here! Feel clearly unwelcome! Leave awkwardly! It's pouring!! by the time I reach the corner I'm soaked!!
Know I have way too much wine to carry to my next appointment (where I'll drop off 4 bottles, but now I have 10!! I weigh 123.5 pounds!! My bags weigh almost half that! it's pouring!!) so plan to take a cab. No cabs coming! I get further soaked! An off-duty cab driver finally takes pity on me and takes me to my next appointment. My second wine bag drips onto my feet as I call orders into the office and (for once) feel grateful for the traffic that makes it take ages to get where I'm going.
The rest of the day progressed in better form, thankfully. I decided NOT to drive to Columbia County in the dark tonight on flooded roads and instead came home and made a lovely dinner. Had a glass of the wine that my customers rejected as too "tart" (and enjoyed it totally) with my dinner.
But of course that was not the only lesson of my day. I also read about this book on Dooce's post from today and so was reminded, for the second time today, that my tastes are totally unmarketable (also that I should never be trusted to date anyone ever again because the red flag dates? I marry them). It is true that I actually do care about what certain people (Clotilde, Pim, Joe Dressner, just to name a few) might have had for lunch. I hope that some people might care about what I have had for lunch if I find it interesting enough to post about. But the fact remains that I was reminded by this post that 99.9% of the world does not care about lunch (or what anyone including themselves have eaten lately) in general. They are followed by a more giant subset that never really think about wine. Some of them are my customers. Such is life.
But I am off to watch one of my all time favorite movies. Might need to watch it twice, but that should do!
OMG i love tghat film.
A perfect night would be Antonia's Line, Mostly Martha, and Babette's Feast...sometimes when I'm feeling the need for a big DARK food movie, The Cook, The Thief, His wife and Her lover. Just hearing that boy in the kitchen sing gives me the CHILLS.
After a good rain soaked day, that film and some wine sounds like a good plan.
Posted by: jo | September 16, 2006 at 04:05 PM
Mostly Martha!! An all-time fave, too. . . and Babette's feast is in my netflix queue since I'm planning on needing several self-indulgent Friday nights this month!
Fortunately a lovely weekend erased the gloom of last week. . . and for the record I'm eating NOTHING for lunch today due to total overconsumption of grilled steak this weekend. Which was delicious (all three times I ended up having some, as chance would have it) but I think I'm still digesting!
Posted by: Meg | September 18, 2006 at 08:27 AM
My observation from interacting with the UK wine trade over the last few years is that most people in the wine trade now care little about wine. Tehy probably did once, but those who really cared either left the trade, found a suitably small niche, or simply stopped caring and went into denial about what they were peddling.
Posted by: Jamie G | September 25, 2006 at 10:12 AM