Liquor Cabinets and Disintegration.

“Sometimes at holiday parties we couldn’t all fit at the -there was no way we could all fit at the dining room table so food would go on the dining room table buffet-style and we would move into the parlor and the parlor was the biggest room in the house but we seldom stayed in it -it was more of an entertaining room because the legitimate front door opened up into the parlor, but we wouldn’t -we wouldn’t go in there much; she had more breakables on the opposite side of that dividing wall that were a little more valuable; in the corner there was a tall black liqueur cabinet full of liquors and all kinds of fancy things from her more glamorous days, I’m guessing her parents were quite wealthy, she was quite wealthy to a certain point, I guess you could say she was wealthy up until her death, another part of that frugality kicking in, she saved up quite a bit to pass on to her son and daughter and a little bit to my mom but the flip side of that was she really didn’t live with it, she didn’t -she could have bought herself a Tupperware set but she didn’t; she could have really just enjoyed what little bit was left of her life but she saved it for us. I’m not sure why she did that. Oh well. Well she could have taken another cruise, but I don’t know why she never did; maybe she felt like she was too old  -she felt like her body couldn’t keep up. Maybe she was worse then I thought, and there was absolutely no way her body could keep, but as a kid -I don’t know...always optimistic.”

    That liquor cabinet was amazing. It looked like something straight out of a smoky lounge room in an adventure movie. Tall, dark, handsome, and dangerous, it may well have been a love interest if it wasn’t furniture. The glamor of it’s contents and the ceramic Buddha placed it farther back in time and wonderfully out of place in that parlor corner. The shelves stocked her various aged drinks, one of which came in a bottle novelly shaped like a monk. Francesca hazelnut liqueur...one time my mother took the cap off and let me smell the wonderful nuttiness within. It lives in the pantry cabinet under our stairs, now. Every now and then I’ll take the lid off, breathe deeply,  and remember that cabinet.