Dear Rosé,

I’m writing this letter late at night after many drinks and a long think about our future together. What I have to say is going to hurt your feelings. But, I’m certain it won’t harm you permanently.

I love you, yet I despise what you’ve become, and therein lies the rub.

For quite some time, I’ve been trying to convince myself things will change. But they haven’t. Frankly, my dear, you’ve changed, and not for the better. Now I feel I have no choice but to pull the plug on our relationship.

When we met you had such an understated personality and an almost dry sense of humor. You were interesting to hang out with. Remember the times we spent together lounging on the beach in the late afternoon, reading the New Yorker and then sharing a simple supper of steamed mussels and French bread on the screened porch? You were authentic. You were sublime. You sneered at the socialites and laughed at the snobs.

When the Great Recession hit, the trendy wine-drinking crowd started noticing your very reasonable price point. You got invited to a couple of swank parties in the Hamptons where you caught the eye of the New York Post and the imaginations of a few social media style influencers looking for a reason to exist. Flash, bam, alacazam, you were suddenly summer’s “it girl,” perched like an angel atop the social pyramid.

You’ve become so popular I’ve even heard you referred to as a “lifestyle.” Today your devotees can purchase rosé-flavored chocolates, gummy bears, candles, and even clothing all touting your virtues. Practically every winery now feels obligated to produce a rosé. And why not? They’re easy and cheap to produce and, frankly, does anyone really care what they taste like so long as they are pretty and pink and look good on Instagram?

And don’t get me started on the new group of girls you hang out with: Skinny Girl, White Girl, Happy Bitch, and Notorious Pink. Real classy.…

Your guy pals aren’t much better. If I hear one more of your gays scream out “rosé all day” while twirling and swirling his glass of pink, I might just puke. It’s trendy now for straight guys to drink pink too, but only if it comes in a manly bottle with a screwcap and has a butch name like 40 Ounce Rosé. “Brosé” is what they’re calling it now. Gimme a fist bump.

My dear Rosé, you may think you’re still A-list, but you’re not. What you are is overexposed. You’ve jumped the shark and you’re on the slippery slope towards common. I understand some bars now don’t even bother with a wine glass. They serve you up in a plastic cup.

You’ve been spotted in boxes and cans. You frequent Walmart. I hear you’ve gone from hanging out in multi-million dollar homes in East Hampton to something called the Rosé Mansion in Manhattan where for $48 enthusiasts can taste over 120 wines, pose for photos, and swing from a chandelier all the while screaming out how much they love you.

Could it get any better? Most definitely. Paris Hilton has created a perfume inspired by you.

My dear, you are selling yourself cheap and if you don’t watch it you will become just like your Auntie White Zin. Remember her? She drove a white Pontiac Trans Am and married the same man twice. Now she’s bitter and broke and living in Reno.

I know you don’t want to hear this and you definitely won’t agree with me because you’re surrounded by sycophants who all whisper into your ear how “rosé is here to stay.” Be careful what you believe. It’s true you are the fastest growing sector of the wine industry and everyone points to vodka’s staying power as a harbinger of your future. But here’s the thing about vodka. Vodka is a serious player. Vodka creates alcoholics. You, my dear, inspire shopaholics.

Alas, the morning light of the new day will soon be upon us, my dear Rosé, so I must bring this letter to an end. While I very much hope you will take this as the wake up call it is meant to be and that you will understand why I must break up with you, I’m not holding my breath.

In conclusion, I want to reiterate for the record that it’s not me, it’s you. I hope we can still be friends.

Yours truly,

Rich

I drove to Milton one sunny Saturday morning to explore Peppers, a popular family-owned garden center known for its diverse selection of plants. There wasn’t anything in particular on my wish list that day and nothing I really needed. My garden is in great shape this summer, but like a scab I can’t keep from picking at it. Some of you who like to play in the yard know what I mean.

I was lazily pushing my cart up and down aisles waiting for something to catch my eye when I suddenly came upon a young guy squatting down among several dozen rose plants. His green Eagles baseball cap was on backwards and he was reading the names and the colors of the different roses to an attractive pregnant woman I could only assume was his wife. His t-shirt had risen up in the back and his jeans had slipped a bit. Naturally, I had to stop my cart to, um, check out the merchandise.

In order not to appear conspicuous, I too began looking at roses and soon found myself entangled in the thorny embrace of a New Dawn climbing rose, which, as luck would have it, is one of my favorites. It’s a very fragrant pale pink rose with double blooms that can climb as high as 20 feet.

The New Dawn in my garden is more than 20 years old. I planted it in 1997, the year it was named the most popular rose in the world. The young one, clinging to my clothing and licking my bare forearms and legs, was like a puppy at a rescue shelter. It wouldn’t leave me alone.

Forty-five minutes later I arrived home in Rehoboth, legs bleeding, with the young rose in my arms. “I wasn’t looking, it just happened.”

My partner Michael shook his head. “Another good idea I’m gonna have to rip out in a couple of years.” The sarcasm was so thick I could cut it with a knife.

“Rest assured I’ll keep it well trained and trimmed,” I responded tit for tat.

Then he laughed. “Remember Mr. Jefferson’s strawberries?”

I was at the plant store at Monticello, hell bent on bringing home a garden souvenir. I figured if Mr. Jefferson grew Alpine strawberries then I could too. And I had the perfect spot in one of my big wooden planting boxes that received semi-shade.

Well, in less than a year the plant took over the box. Strawberry runners were parachuting out into the yard like Marines on a mission. It is, however, nowhere near as invasive as the English ivy I planted as a groundcover in a couple of shady areas. Twice a year I pull it out by the bushel from my fence, off the pine trees, from around the hydrangeas, and even from my basement. Yes, you read that correctly. The goddamn ivy actually grew through the dryer vent!

Are you familiar with sweet autumn clematis? You’ve probably seen and smelled it around town in the fall. It’s a vine that covers bushes and trees in blankets of small sweet-smelling flowers. Like kudzu, it was brought over from Asia in the 1880s and has since run rampant. I dug some up and planted it in the back yard. Now, despite a weekly pruning, our fence is starting to sag under its weight. But the scent is heavenly.

There’s more, a lot more. And not all of them appear on Delaware Natural Resources invasive species list. Who knew crepe myrtle blossoms and berries could clog a car’s air conditioner or that figs attract wasps and mice love cherry tomatoes? I didn’t know until after I planted several hundred naturalizing daffodils that I was highly allergic to them.

Okay, so maybe my great garden ideas don’t all work out. “The New Dawn rose has been nothing but spectacular over the decades,” I reminded my skeptical companion.

“It almost killed you!”

Hmm, that’s not exactly how I remember it. But at one point I was training the rose to climb up the side of the cottage and onto the roof. The little white house looked positively Nantucket quaint when hundreds of pink flowers were in bloom. The rest of the time the rose destroyed my shingles and sliced up my awnings.

One afternoon I was on my knees up on the roof giving it a good prune when an awkward reach for my Bloody Mary caused me to lose my balance. I’m convinced I would have slid off the roof but for that rose. I grabbed its thorny canes and steadied myself. Barehanded I might add. It’s since been hacked back to a more manageable size.

As I slipped on my gardening flip flops and grabbed my shovel to go plant the new rose, I reminded myself there are no bad ideas when it comes to gardening, only good ideas that go horribly wrong. And if that happens you can always dig it up. 

Like most people who believe jury service is an important part of our American democracy, I try to avoid it. Burglaries and drug dealings just don’t interest me. And it seems I’m always called when I’m extraordinarily busy at work or just about to go on vacation.

I began to reconsider my position, however, when I received a letter from the Sussex County Superior Court summoning me for a two-week term of jury duty, beginning just after the fourth of July holiday. Seems there are so few potential jurors in southern Delaware they put you on call for two weeks. And what for? Chicken house arsons? Trailer park perversions? It was too quirky and way too tempting for a writer like me to pass up.

While there is much written about how to avoid jury service, there is very little information about how to get selected. Some experts say you should appear well groomed and well dressed, but not flashy. Others say it’s important to look interested. And, don’t be chatty. Lawyers eschew talkative jurors.

To raise my chances of getting picked, I decided to channel the late Dominick Dunne, the Vanity Fair writer who specialized in celebrity court cases. He actually came to Sussex County in 2005 to cover the lawsuit brought by Disney shareholders against Disney CEO Michael Eisner over the $140 million deal he signed off on to get rid of Disney’s number two executive Michael Orvitz after only fifteen months on the job.

On jury day, I did my best Dunne impersonation: horn rim glasses, purple checked shirt, and a pressed pair of chinos. From what I recall, the Delaware judges seemed to like Dominick, so I was certain this look would impress.

Per court order, I left my cell phone, electronic equipment, newspapers, and sharp instruments in the car. All I carried into the courthouse with me was a copy of Hillary Clinton’s new book “Hard Choices,” so the lawyers would see I was capable of making the tough choices required of a juror.

A couple of people besides me also brought books, but they were cheap paperbacks with metallic embossed titles. One woman lugged a plastic Igloo cooler. I’ve no idea how she got it through security, but I heard her tell the stern court official who wrestled it away that it contained “some ham samiches and a Dr. Pepper.” A very fat man in a pair of denim overalls showed up with a U-shaped airplane pillow wedged around his neck. A young hipster with Elvis-sized sideburns sported a sweat-stained “ill” Phillies fan shirt. An older black woman came with big pink curlers in her hair. These were my rivals.

Following a short informational video, the court clerk began calling names for the day’s prospective jury pool. My name was announced first. And while he claimed it was random selection, I wasn’t fooled. My careful preparations had clearly paid off, I thought to myself, as I strutted past rows of my peers.

We prospective jurors were next escorted downstairs and into a windowless holding room with a big flat screen television mounted to the wall. There was an air of excitement that soon deflated when the court clerk came in and turned on television game shows. Personally, I would have shown old re-runs of “LA Law” or “Perry Mason.”

As we waited the jury pool began to spread out and self-select around interest groups. Cooler lady joined the “talkers” on the right side of the room. “Watchers” moved in front of the television while “sleepers” went to the farthest corner of the room. I joined the few “readers” in the middle of the room, but soon tired of Hillary Clinton’s pontificating about the transatlantic rifts that opened up during the Bush administration, so I began to eavesdrop on the “talkers.”

Over the next two hours, I learned that goats were better than cows and sheep at pasture maintenance and that Aruba was best avoided as a vacation destination because “they’ll kill you.” I heard there would be a beer garden at the State Fair this year and that nobody believed the new reality show called “Married at First Sight” until Cooler lady claimed it happened to her. Seems she sobered up for the first time only on her wedding day.

When three burly policemen escorted two prisoners in handcuffs and jumpsuits right by the open door of our room, everyone got agitated. Was this it? The court clerk came in shortly thereafter and said we were excused for the rest of the day.

Seriously? I hadn’t sat through “Wheel of Fortune” and “The Price is Right” with a bunch of strangers just to be dismissed with the wave of a hand. I confronted the clerk. “Wasn’t there another trial I might be considered for?” “Call in later tonight,” the clerk advised me, eyeing me warily. “We might need you tomorrow.”

Spirits dampened, I headed over to the Georgetown Family Restaurant where Dominick Dunne had lunched every day while he followed the Disney trial. When I asked the waitress to please bring me what Dunne liked for lunch, she just stared at me, slack jawed and silent. I showed her a Los Angeles Times photo of Dunne eating soup in what appeared to be this very same restaurant. Still no response. Outside it began to rain.

I never did get selected for a trial during those two weeks. In hindsight, I’m thinking the Hillary Clinton book might have been a little over the top. So while I cannot report any further about downstate justice, I can recommend a good cup of homemade Lima bean soup if you’re interested.