Martinis at 3

Sometimes life’s detours are better than it’s destinations.

One day last week, my plan was to get drawer liners and bathmats. En route, I approached my friend Suzie’s empty house. After 32 years there, she had moved to lovely but landlocked Arizona.  Impulsively pulled out my cell phone and dialed her number.  A ring.   Vavam!  Her image appeared -- not on the phone, but in her front yard!  I immediately pulled over and attempted to kidnap her for two hours.  I applied all my charm, and she resisted.  The errand list was driving her like a cowboy. 

I finally coaxed Suzie into the car with promises of doing errands—all the while scheming to  spend one precious hour with her relaxing in some sunshine, on a beautiful day, in the beach community she has forsaken, with the friend she has left behind.  My dark side plotted a means to cajole this desert-and-mountain convert into acknowledging that beach is beautiful.

So, two destinations later, we were heading towards the ocean -- two old friends with a car stuffed with bathmats.  Seeking a sunny spot, somehow we found ourselves sitting down at Hennessy’s. 

It was three o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon. 

Who was this person sitting in Hennessy's in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week?  I was supposed to be in my windowless office, surrounded by books, clicking away at endless emails, managing task lists, people and budgets and hoping at best for some diverting text message.  Wasn’t I?  No more!  I had shut that office door for its final time.  If not work time, then, wasn’t it time for homework, milk and cookies?  Well, I didn’t see any.

It was 3 o’clock, and it was HAPPY HOUR.  Lord, I didn’t even know people got happy so early in the day.  So, with limited savvy in the ordering of martinis, but emboldened by the offer of two for one, I ordered a most girly pink Cosmo. 

Gazing left, over the railing, I could see the blue Pacific rising up the wall of the horizon.  Looking up, I could imagine that the handsome bartender was glancing at me with appreciative eyes -- if I did not more realistically assess that he, too, was admiring the sparkling sea beyond me. 

Glancing right, I could see a twenty-something woman in a casual dark ponytail, scribbling on a well-filled, legal-sized yellow tablet.  My secretary, when I had a secretary, had always kept me supplied with stacks of these talismans which I believed invoked my best thinking.  I therefore assumed THINKING was happening at the adjacent table.  This young woman’s ink was black and her focus was enviable. 

I, myself, reserved by nature, did not inquire about the black ink. 

My friend, who has fewer inhibitions and therefore makes more friends, blurted out, “What are you writing?” 

The young woman looked up with pondering brown eyes and said simply,  “I’m writing a book.”  My ears pricked up. 

Then the Cosmo started talking, and my confession gushed.  “That’s what I‘ve always wanted to do!” 

And so the conversation expanded.  Here was a girl, age twenty-six, who obviously had it more together than I.  She had achieved miracles.  She had put black ink onto a tablet.  She had an agent who had offered her a book deal.  How did the happen?  Well, she had always been writing.  A few years ago, she had started writing a blog.  An agent had discovered her blog and approached her. 

Where does this girl live, anyway, in Never-Never-Web-Land? 

“A blog?”  My ears were now ringing and the Cosmo was half drained.  “I just started a blog a few weeks ago,” I responded with some dignity. 

The two-for-one martini deal was getting good.  Emboldened, I offered her my blog address.  She gave me hers, BecomingJennie.com.  Feeling suddenly chummy, I asked,“ Jennie, how many hits have you gotten?”

“Well, one day I woke up and actually cried when I hit ten thousand hits.”  I had to repeat the number.  She probably thought I was deaf in addition to being sixty years old.  My jaw dropped and my martini nearly splashed into my lap.  No!   Surely this girl lives on the moon, and has redefined cyberspace.

She must have sensed incredulity quickly turning into to E-Envy.  Generously, she offered up some advice, such as keeping a blog name short.  I reflected on my long, sweet-and-sassy name and looked with dismay at my empty martini glass.  I encouraged Suzie to order another martini, so I could drink half of it without feeling I had ordered a second martini. 

Suzie asked, “So what do you write about?” 

Jenny answered, “Well, basically, about life.”  I lifted my eyebrows. Didn’t you have to have more wrinkles before you could write on that topic?  She must have sensed my skepticism.  Turning a page of her tablet, she sighed, “It seems like I’ve already lived several lifetimes.” How could one achieve this so early on in the game?  Later, when I would hit her site, I would get some clues; it wasn’t easy. 

In my twenties, I don’t think I knew very much about life.   I was too busy achieving the predictable.  It takes a long time for most of us to figure out life. 

“Well, Jennie, I’ve got to tell you, if you think you have a lot to say about life and living now, just wait ‘til you hit your 60’s!  It will amaze you!  But be prepared:  You’ll be trying to figure it out all over again, just like when you were twenty. ” 

With an extravagant flourish, I paid the bill and walked out with my long-time, old-young pal.  I was smiling.  I might be just a beginner, and I might not understand a lot about life.  But I had just had my very first martini at 3.  And I was going to write about it.