Cheese of the Month

Way back when I was fourteen or fifteen, I joined the Doubleday Book Club.  I sent in the postcard, which did not require an adult signature, and began to collect books.  You may not be surprised to hear that after I joined Doubleday, I received and accepted an invitation to join the Book of the Month Club.  It is heartening to know that the Doubleday Book Club still exists, and still offers five for 99 cents if you join.  Book of the Month Club is more upscale, and more expensive, so it's nice to know some things haven't changed.

My mother belonged to the Book of the Month Club when she was in her twenties.  I don't have much that belonged to my mother, but those old tattered books sit proudly on my bookshelf today,

sharing space with my first Doubleday treasures.

My mother's collection includes A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, Clarence Day's Life with Father and Mother, James Hilton's Random Harvest and (my favorite), The Chastity of Gloria Boyd by Donald Henderson Clarke.  My titles were less diverse, all romantic mysteries by Daphne duMaurier, Mary Stewart and Phyllis Whitney.

I loved getting those books, Christmas every month.

Later, in my twenties, I was still on-again-off-again with book clubs, but I discovered a new monthly thrill.  I was in graduate school in Baltimore, and not just loving school for the first time in many years, but having a blast with a fellow student, who spent many hours "drinking and telling lies" as she so brilliantly put it.  Lots of laughs and great stories from those days, including the time we apparently set fire to my Christmas tree with a rum-soaked fruitcake.

Another of my fondest memories was her discovery of the "Cheese-of-the-Month Club."  It was run by a guy whose photo made him look absolutely delightful, and like someone who was absolutely delighted to share his new and delicious cheeses with us every month.  In fact, he was so enthusiastic about this, that he offered free gifts with every order.  So we joined, and we divided up the free gifts, which were different cool cheese knives (which I still own) and shared the cheeses.

It's been quite a number of years since those days.  Our particular cheese-of-the-month club doesn't appear to exist (yes, I would recognize it online in a minute), but there are many others.  They're pretty expensive now, and probably don't include such neat free gifts.  We had a lot of laughs at the expense of the sweet guy who ran the cheese-of-the-month club, and I'm sure he would be delighted at that as well.

A couple of weeks ago, in the thick of January, I received a small replacement part in the mail for my old grill.  With it was a coupon -- actually a very nice card -- offering $100 off a trial order of wines of over $160.  Usually I do have enough will power to toss such offers in the trash, but it was January, I had been dieting, and was cold, hungry and bored, so I explored the site online.

The offer turned out to be hard to refuse.  Order by the case or individual bottles, free shipping over $100, reviews which included one that raved about using her introductory coupon to buy a zillion bottles of wine for a pittance.  I looked at the wines.  I looked at the mixed cases.  I looked at the fine print.  I chose a case marked mixed American wines, white and red, priced at $259 and reduced to $159.99.  I tried to put it in my cart and learned that to get the lower price I had to be an "angel" which apparently meant that I would be "investing" in winemakers who were making new wines.  Now, that is really not me, but the fine print promised that every penny would go to future purchases, and was refundable any time I decided to quit.

What could I do?  I became an angel.  Then, back to my cart, I noticed that I still had to pay $259.  So I opened another window and without logging in I did the same shopping.  After finagling around a bit more, I came up with the $159, but a cheery notice that said I could redeem my $100 coupon with my next purchase.

Stay with me, because this has a happy ending.

I called the toll-free number and a delightful young man promised to help.  He assured me that I should be able to redeem my coupon with the order I had placed.  Ah-ha, he said, the problem was that the order total was $159.99, and before I could bitch about deceptive advertising and hang up, he added the penny and took off the $100.  Now I had a dozen wines originally marked at $259 for $60.00.

But wait! as the old Ronco ads used to say...

The young man asked me what kind of wines I liked, and then added three more, assuring me that I would really like them.

Then I asked if the first $40 monthly payment would be charged right away.  No, he said.  In fact, it would happen in March, and only after I would get an email notice, and the option of declining to be an Angel.

Well, if this was a scam it was such a good one that it didn't even occur to me that it might be a scam until the following week when I was wondering if I really would take delivery on my case of wine.

But it was not a scam.  Here came FedEx, with a friendly driver hauling my huge box and informing me that he had about a dozen of these deliveries today, but mine was the biggest.

My first taste comes tonight.  I have about as much of a discerning palate for wine as I did for books in 1966, or for cheese in 1978.  Which is to say, I'll probably enjoy it quite enough.  I'll let you know.

Ringing It In Alone

Imagine my surprise when my children grew up and no longer wanted to spend New Year's Eve with me.  I for one had great times with them on holidays, major and the most minor.  My daughter pulled the plug on that when she up and left for the midwest, although she does grace me with alternate Thanksgivings and Christmases.  In the latter case she always makes sure she is gone by New Year's Eve.

Can't say that I blame her.  I certainly wasn't home playing poker and watching Marx Brothers movies with my parents when I was in my twenties.  That was a custom that came into being through my husband's family.  When we visited his mother and Aunt Faye in Chicago, New Year's Eve was a dinner for the entire family, followed by hours of talking and laughing, which eventually got to a serious poker game.  Aunt Faye brought out the magnificent jar of pennies she had collected and divided them up, and we went at it.  The only family game of my childhood, which I remember fondly, was Keno with my sister and mother.  In Chicago, we played poker to the wee hours, adults and children.

Let me interrupt myself here.  The second time I visited Chicago with my not yet husband I instigated leaving after dinner to spend the night at a hotel, where we watched Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers (my first time) and drank champagne to usher in the year.  I can only say that in the end a) I believe I have gotten what I deserve and b) I wouldn't have done it any other way.

This year my son, now 22 and late to his teenage rebellion, has asserted his desire to be anywhere but here, and after a couple of painful New Year's Eves when we tried to make the most of being together, I accepted that this year he would be with his friends.  So last night I was alone.

I do alone pretty well.  Back in the day on Long Island when we had stopped traveling during the holidays, we would begin early in the afternoon watching Marx Brothers and Fred Astaire movies with an all-day poker game accompaniment.  The eventual tradition became a humungous antipasto and red wine for dinner and champagne at midnight, with a lobster dinner on New Year's Day.  So yesterday I bought myself a lobster, opened up a bottle of prosecco, and began to watch a movie.

At dinner time, the reality of the night began to assert itself.  I had never, not ever, been alone on New Year's Eve.  So as the water heated up for the lobster, I thought about my entertainment options.  I do have a fairly full DVR and enough movies on DVD -- and VHS -- that something would leap out at me and scream Happy New Year.  And it did.

I had a few weeks ago recorded a public TV tribute to doo-wop and the oldies of my pre-teen and teenage years.  And although I had totally forgotten her name, I had sung along with Kathy Young countless times when I was but a naive, dreamy-eyed kid.






Yes, that is Bowzer of Sha Na Na doing the intro.

And lordy there was Jay Black still showing off hitting and holding that high note on Cara Mia.  My husband and I had seen him do an oldies show on Long Island in the 80's and back then he looked like he'd had a long hard-drinking, high-living life, and he hasn't changed a bit.

So I'm here to say that it's okay to be alone on New Year's Eve.  And it's okay for my kids to be doing what I was doing when I was young.

And I hope that someday I'll be around when they are looking for a home base where they can bring over their kids for a hot New Year's midnight poker game.  I've started filling the penny jar.