Pairing Wine with Cereal

I just stumbled into the kitchen after having for cereal for dinner. “I’m having a glass of wine,” I announced, to cleanse myself of the sadness of eating cereal for dinner. It wasn’t even the cereal I LIKE.

(“So you’re just giving up and having cereal?” I’d asked C sadly. “Well, I could sit here with you for 45 minutes talking about how we don’t have any food in the house, debate ordering takeout, and THEN decide to have cereal, at 9:30,” he answered. “How is it that I went to the grocery store 17 times in the last three weeks and we have no food?” I moaned, staring at the open refrigerator: a container of old leftover brown rice, a package of flour tortillas, and various plastic-wrapped halves of aging vegetables stared back at me in reproach.)

“You are?” C asked, clearing his throat.

“Oh, sorry, baby, I just couldn’t imagine you wanted wine with that,” I backpedaled, assuming he’d turn his nose at such an affront to the ritual of wine consumption.

“Lover? Love of my life? Uh, dearest domestic partner?” he said sweetly. I was still talking. “ ‘Hey, baby, do you want to share a glass of wine with me?’ ” he said pointedly.

“Oh, yeah, sorry. Do you?” I asked.

I poured us both the last of the bottle (about five sips each) and placed C’s glass next to his glowing computer screen as our living room grew slowly darker with the twilight. “To Barack Obama,” I murmured.

“To Barack Obama,” he whispered, eyes glued to a blog, gently lifting his glass.