Wine Down Wednesday, Maybe?

"Wine Down Wednesday 1/2 off Red Blends" written in bright red still shown with a sparkle on the window of the bar and grille. She had just painted it the week before everything changed. Ellie was so excited to have her idea finally being used, 1/2 price wine was bringing in more business on what was normally a slow night. She took her time painting those words on the old windows of the store front. The old building on main street had been many things during its years of being alive. That old thick glass still held some reminisce of those times and uses. Ellie spent all her hours during the slower times at the bar and grille to scrap the old paint leftover from the Crest's Five and Dime name and replacing it with her Wine idea. She had been a waitress at Wildflowers Bar and Grille for six months before the world stopped, and she was coming into her own style and her groove. The day she got the call that the governor was shutting all restaurants down to fight the Corona Virus was a Monday, her normal day off. She found it very ironic that not only was she drinking a Corona at the time of the call, but the song playing on radio in her friend Malory’s kitchen was "Its Ironic" by Alanis Morrissette. Grace the owner of The Wildflower, assured Ellie that she would get unemployment during this closing and that when they could be opened back up, she would have a job. So she tried not to worry and she also tried to keep herself busy.

The first week she knew what day it was, and what hour it was

and sometimes even what minute it was, because she did not sleep. She stayed awake and watched coverage for hours on end of the newly named Pandemic sweeping across the country. She checked her bank account every hour on the hour to see if she had enough money to cover the bills, she had already sent out to pay. She knew in the back of her mind she was ok, but it was becoming an obsession just to keep checking just to ease her mind. She checked social media and the local paper on-line news, The Spartan, to see when the first case of the virus would find its way to her little town.

As the weeks began to tick along, she spent few hours watching

news coverage and more time watching some of her favorite old shows, Friends, The Golden Girls, King of Queens, and I Love Lucy. As the more time went by, she began to leave the TV on for background noise and more time being a little more productive. She cleaned out all her closets, she went through her old magazines and read them. She cleaned up the old sticks and dead limbs from her backyard. She sat at her kitchen table and drew up plans for a new herb garden in the newly cleaned yard, but she didn't try to order any seeds. She always used the local hardware store, Blevins to buy anything she needed for her home. Blevins had adapted to making deliveries around town, but Ellie didn't want to ask Earl Jr get out in the snow just to bring her seeds that she can't use yet. So she just waited and planned for a sunny day, she knew one day it would be sunny. She grew bored of the TV, so she started playing her old CD's and records, she danced to Tiffany's I Think We're Alone Now at some random time in the middle of the night as she repainted some old furniture that had been sitting in the back of her basement for the last few years.

She was alone but she didn't feel overly alone as she chatted

every day with multiple people. She chatted on the phone with her Mom, she chatted via facetime with her niece and nephew, she chatted via text with her friends and coworkers. She even chatted with people sitting on their front porches or working in their yards when she took her walk to and from the community store to get her groceries. The funny thing was she had no idea what day it was or what time it was during all this chatting. She never looked at the times or dates on those calls, text, or emails. She just answered them and placed the phone back down. She was totally engaged in whatever she was doing at that moment. It could be reading a book she had bought five years ago, but just now found time to read it. It could be watching a Agatha Christie movie curled up on the couch with some ice cream and chips. It could be spending time trying to master her adventure of calligraphy She ordered a kit from Amazon and spent hours trying to make it look just as good if not better than the examples that were sent with the kit. It could be her being totally engaged into the experiments of wine and cheese pairing she performed every day in her kitchen for her cat Joey. She also slept whenever she wanted. When she grew tired, she took a nap, when she wanted to go to bed she went to bed, and she actually slept. Something that for years Ellie had not truly done, her mind, her spirit, and her body were really resting.

The days and weeks kept passing and Ellie kept in touch with everyone that was close to her, she made sure everyone was staying well and had all the needed. She kept in contact with Grace from the bar and grille and gave her some examples of new ideas she had come up with for new menus and new events, to use and explore when the time finally came for the restaurant to be opened back up. But Ellie still really was not sure most of the time if it was Saturday or Thursday, and she honestly never knew the actual date of that day she was in. She knew that spring was here, and she finally had gotten down to Blevins and bought some seeds and started her small garden. When she arrived at the hardware store, they were kinda shocked to see her, as they had just opened the doors they said. Ellie didn’t really understand what the meant by that, as she had not charged her Apple Watch in weeks. She actually wasn’t even sure where it was at the moment, and she really wasn’t too concerned about it to be honest.

It was summer now and the air was less humid since the rainstorm had come through a few hours before, so Ellie decided to take a walk. She ended up walking by the Wildflower Bar and Grille and saw her handy work on the windows and took her phone out of her pocket to take a picture of the Wine sign. It was then and only then that Ellie realized it was Wednesday six months to the day that the bar and grille and had the successful first Wine Down Wednesday 1/2 off red blends.