So many people have gained weight, since everyone was forced to stop working and to change their lifestyle.  I have lost a five or six pounds, no big deal or worth a celebration, but my Bride is another story.  Just before everything imploded, where my Bride works, they promote different “healthy” programs periodically and one was Weight Watchers.  My Bride had to pay for the start up costs and if she was successful according to Weight Watchers, her company would later redeem her expenses, so it was a win-win situation for her, and she does like getting paid to do something healthy; she met her goals, so Weight Watchers, her employer and most of all, my Bride is happy.  Anyways, I have been very cruel and have made her go through and box up all the clothes that do not fit her, because they are hanging on her, and of course she has had to buy new replacement clothes, even though she has discovered plenty of “new” clothes that had been too small for her.

We were going to Birmingham, which is a nice northern suburb of Detroit, that has some very fashionable and trendy apparel shops, as well as some great restaurants.  She wanted to go shopping and it was a necessary trip, plus we made plans to have dinner with our son and his wife later that evening.  As I say, she was very happy, and as the old saying goes “Happy Wife, Happy Life.”  When she goes shopping, I normally just stroll the street, in case she calls for me to help her make a decision and in the old days I would enjoy a cigar.  Especially nowadays, because I am not partial to wearing a mask for extended long periods of time, and I guess that I retired at the right time, because I am sure that I would not enjoy retailing as much as I did, looking like Jesse James.  Anyways, right across the street was a restaurant and wine bar and I figured that I would get a chair out on the verandah and enjoy something chilled and wet while she was having fun.   No such luck, even in Birmingham, the restaurants and wine bars had shortened their hours of business, but my Bride was a quick shopper, made the right decisions and found me with a parched tongue.  We took a gamble and walked a couple of blocks to the Townsend Hotel, where they had both a restaurant and grille open, but also a bar.  We have been to the Townsend several times, and she has even been there more often, because of her job; for conferences and business meetings, and my Bride is considered an essential worker, so even with her home every day, we have not been bumping into each other.

There were actually two chairs at the bar, in fact that is all that there was in these days of social distancing and from my era and outlook, two chairs at a bar seems so sterile and uninviting.  Since, there were only two of us, and we haven’t practiced social distancing between us, all was good.  We had some time to kill before seeing the kids and my tongue was still parched.  My Bride had a glass of Giocato Pinot Grigio Goriska Brda, Slovenia 2018.  Giocato in Italian means to play or to have fun.  Giocato was a joint endeavor between Slovenian winery Edi Simcic, their lead winemaker Aleks Simcic and the United States wine importer Small Vineyards-August Wine Group, along with their Italian counterpart Collio.  The wine is hand harvested and fermentation and aging are done in Stainless Steel.  Goriska Brda is the northern sub-region of the much larger Primorski wine region in western Slovenia and the name is actually two towns that are divided from each other from the dust that settled from the political intrigues of Italy, Trieste (both Zones) and Yugoslavia.  Goriska ended up in Italy and is known as Collio Goriziano and Brda is in Slovenia.  Political intrigues aside, this was a very nice Pinot Grigio with some brightness and notes of green apples.    I had a glass of Maison Simonnet-Febvre Chablis 2018, and they were founded in 1840 and are one of the oldest wineries of the area.  They produce a wide range of wines showcasing the terroirs of Chablis and Grand Auxerrois, in 2003 they were bought by Maison Louis Latour and it is run as a separate enterprise with its own style.  Chablis is the large general appellation for the area and this wine was fermented for around six months on the lees and then aged for around two years, all in Stainless Steel.  This really was a tasty wine with a fruity nose and a finish of minerals in the terroir and a real crispy wine.  Even though my Bride has been on a Pinot Grigio kick, she did opine that I had the better of the two choices.  After enjoying the wines, it was time to go to the restaurant and meet our son and his wife.