as i lay dying......

ok, so i have been fantisizing about faulkner as of late......ever since i discovered that he won the nobel prize for literature, once upon a time....i have read 2 of his works........as i lay dying.........and the sound and the fury...both for book club.......in different years.......as i lay dying is the more memorable for usable quotes.......my mother is a fish.......likely the best one sentence chapter in all of literature......this evening i am not pondering prizes....i am thinking about my sister-in-law marilynn.....who is lying....dying....in upstate new york....of a culmination of multiple cancers......and though she is lucid for scant minutes in her 24-hour day.......i worry about the quality of what she is able to consume in that short time.......not necessarily her last meal,....but her end-game menu..........i have blogged numerous times about my favorite jane bernard memory that revolves around the ideal last meal........and this scenario doesn't quite fit one's dying days....one's failing, extinguishing hours......what about the nibbles at the end of the road.....and as i would worry mostly about drink.......i have considered this evening.......what i would want to drink as i lay dying.......assuming i could still make such requests.......and this begs the question........what white wine does one die with........it would be white......not red.....and thus i contrive a ramp through the contenders for the eternal wine....the blanc de blanc........i have fond memories of our honeymoon......a marvelous afternoon spent in the moselle tasting whites, with m,y spouse and a harvard undergrad on holiday.......the progression included a vintage sent as a gift for princess diana's wedding....and thus i would want a kabinet from the moselle in that number when my saints go marching......and also a dom peringnon...... from 1981.......the year my spouse and i visited the champagne district.....and the champangery......for those who keep score...this was the winery tour where the u.s. undergrad was carrying the chair she bought in italy....on the tour...sur les caves.......and so on.......let's see.......i recall a marvelous winery tour in napa....with my friend beth....at beringer.....the gewurtraminer.......ong.....so much like the moselle........and the wine tasting in bordeaux.....mostly reds.......no accounting for taste...i purchased vintage bottles for both my sons on that trip....andrew has yet to open his bottle.......on to.......the roots tour......the dinner in brussels with andrew, stephan and the loyal opposition.....the dinner with the mussels...with the bottle of muscat....?muscadet........it was not as sweet as muscadet i have tried since...and we had 2 bottles , just to be sure....but on that cold winter evening...in our state of euphoriaexhaustion .....i thought it a monumental choice.......and then there is boston......cambridge...a dinner with stephan and a friend of mine.....what was that.....a sancerre...fresh and dry....and not too outrageous for my overly outraged bones........a day in cambridge is like 2 days elsewhere when it comes to annoyance and aging.........and so where does that leave me........back in upstate new york.....with a bottle of locally vintaged white.....on a sunday afternoon luncheon in the gazebo....with a greek salad.....and a nice glass of reisling.....and all of us pretending like none of us would die soon.............