#9 Champagne and Hot Chocolate

My parents came to visit this weekend and Saturday night we went out for drinks after my voice recital. I was celebrating so I ordered champagne. I had just finished reading The Widow Clicquot by Tilar J. Mazzeo, a biography of Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin, the woman behind Veuve Clicquot champagne. I thought about ordering a glass of that, but I knew how expensive it was and just went with the house champagne. Eric would not have approved. He would have liked the idea of champagne, but not the cheap champagne. Eric liked the finer things in life, especially if someone else was paying.

I can remember when we were in grade school and my mother’s aunt and uncle came to visit us. Her uncle took us to the grocery store to buy us candy. I got one thing, Eric got as much as he could carry. I told him he was taking advantage, but he didn’t seem to get that concept and the only one who got upset was me.

I don’t mean that Eric was selfish, I’ve already written another post about his generosity, he just knew a good deal when he saw one. He would be the first to treat himself, or someone else, if the occasion arose.

When he first moved to Las Vegas and my parents wanted to visit him, they told him to buy theatre tickets. He did, the best tickets he could find. My parents almost killed him, after they woke up from the faint induced by seeing the ticket prices. They came with a private entrance and a wine reception.

When I went to college and my parents came out for parent’s weekend, they told me to find a good restaurant. I took them to a pizzeria. (Giordano’s, a really good pizzeria) I’ll never live that down. Eric found them a fine restaurant in Boston when they went to visit him.

Eric always loved dressing up, some of his best childhood moments were when he got to wear the hand-me-down suits of a friend of ours. Even in college he was proud to show off the “casual suit” he bought. I don’t think he realized that most college kids didn’t wear suits to bars. When he lived in London, he frequented “Men’s Clubs” and I don’t mean the kind with half-naked women sliding up and down poles.

While Eric loved dressing up and going out and having fabulous meals he loved low-brow things equally. He loved pizza smothered in garlic powder. Actually he loved anything smothered in garlic powder, some days it was hard to be close to him.

He had a special affinity for hot chocolate. He would order in it the finest restaurants and the lowliest diners. I remember drinking it with him from individual teapots at a resort with my parents. He also ordered it at a sidewalk café in Singapore. In case you don’t know, the temperature in Singapore is routinely hotter than you would ever want to be. I wouldn’t want to sit outside there, let alone drink a hot beverage while outside there.

When celebrating a special night Eric might have ordered champagne, or he might just as easily have ordered hot chocolate. Whatever the case you can be sure it would be the best they had to offer.

Especially if he could convince someone else to pick up the tab.