Losing my Sangrinity

Enough of nostalgia in my last several posts. Sometimes the compulsion of the Present moment is so strong, it overpowers all sense of sensibility, decorum, and commonsense. In my defense, however, it was not all as it seemed, and here lies the story of how I lost my Sangrinity. 

After waking up to a sunny and sparkling New Year's day, Lisbon displayed a sullen hangover on January the 2nd. It was cold, cloudy, and overcast. All day. It was also the only day we had, to go to Belem, and we did. 

Belem offers a lot of outdoor activities. In better weather, the very things we did, would have added a different flavor to our enjoyment. I'm talking serious shopping at the outdoor markets, AND eating Pasteis de Nata with other sweet and savories, at two of the top-rated outlets that serve them, including at Pasteis de Belem, circa 1837, where the queue forms out the door because this place has purchased and uses the original secret recipe from the nuns who started the tradition of Portugal's famous, well, Pasteis de nata.

Now to the fiasco, that was my undoing. Continuing, however, in my defense, imagine being lucky enough, to get a rather last minute dinner reservation at a wildly popular, white table cloth restaurant. It is warm and welcoming inside, and after a cold, dreary day spent mostly outdoors, that in itself is a bit intoxicating because you let your guard down, or wait..was it my guard that let me down? Was it? Hmm...with deception involved, to a large degree? Yes, and it wasn't just with an apple, there was a whole lot of fruit involved. Very colorful too. Is there a Bollywood-Esqueness to this tale? Finding shelter from the rain..was it inevitable, albeit a different kind of seduction, with the loss of one's sangrinity? 

So here we were, our group was seated immediately on arrival, at the fine restaurant, while a crowd of hopefuls lingered around the entrance, within touching distance of the fine drizzle. 

Our server came immediately and one of our party, who had been here before, asked around to get a headcount for the restaurant's highly prized Sangria. Of course, yours truly, on finding out it was alcoholic, vehemently declined. 

Everything happened so quickly then. We feasted on crisp salad and complimentary house nibbles. The mains and the fruit-filled elegant decanter came almost together. The fragrant vase-like beverage holder with its easy to grasp slim neck was placed right by my side. Now, nothing comes between fresh fruit and this mama. I queerly regarded the astonished looks in my direction and paid little heed to the crestfallen faces as more and more of the delicious white liquid fell into my glass, in my earnest attempts to get the fruit to oblige and budge. It was so very good, mmmm! The deliciousness of all the fruits- the kiwis, pineapple, grapes, mango, strawberries, and everything else with it, was so much subtler, and gentler and sweeter, for being soaked in the smoothness of whatever it was. I kept dunking more and more in my glass, and the liquid was just uncontrollable!

Soon the accusatory looks cast in my direction bordered on alarm. I think I may have realized that it was the famed sangria that I was chugging down, but everyone else, unlike me, mindful of their dining etiquette, made me doubt I could be so rude. I couldn't, now...could I? Was it the alcohol, with its sweet deception, disguised in a jar laden with fruit that compelled me, on that disquieting rainy night? Or was it something more mundane, like an innocent longing for the fresh fruit? I will never really know, except on that rainy night, at a hugely popular restaurant in Lisbon, this is how I lost my sangrinity.

(From a draft waiting to be finalized, since January).