Monday, March 29, 2004
G.F.W.
This morning I was granted a reprieve - unable to get a post down in words, I was also unable to get to my website for whatever technical reasons currently bedevil the cyberverse. I spent a sadly not-insignificant portion of my weekend watching my outlaw Phil (sister-in-law’s husband) scrubbing my computer after some insanely malicious piece of digital putrescence got into my directories and started making life miserable. Then Photoshop wouldn’t load, and then I couldn’t get to the ‘hut.... it was a disaster of epic proportions. Alternate viewpoint: it was a series of moderate irritations that have no bearing on the larger world. Deep cleansing breaths. Remember the good stuff....
GREAT FREAKING WEEKEND.
(Aside: I was realizing this weekend that I am pretty profane in my ordinary speech on a day to day basis, but I avoid any profanity on this journal. It seems artificial now. Maybe the redesign will shake me up creatively. Time will tell.)
On the way to the airport, we were entertained as follows: * Store sign reading “Just Futon”. Not even multiple futons, just the single one. Maybe they rent it out? Or use it as some sourdough-like futon starter? Further research will be needed in the burgeoning field of futonology. * From the “I’m Surprised They Let That Combination Slip Through the Cracks” department: Undistinguished black honda, driving slowly and defensively, license plate 4FKN869. Okay those weren’t the last three numbers of this one but those were the letters and that combination would certainly have come up in the natural course of events. I do know that the whole “4Q**” series of license plates were skipped by the DMV as potentially hilarious. * Giant billboard for Jack Daniels, reading “Next Best Thing to a Backstage Pass.” I wanted to add the word “Out” to the end, but Kel once again came up with the winning strategy: Black out the first “a” and the “P”. Anyway I thought it was funny.
Friday night we all dined at Cajun Pacific and finally had the po’boys, which were, to my recollection, totally authentic; I topped mine off with a cup of good solid gumbo. The place has six tables and a rocking soundtrack, the tables are decoupaged memorials to blues and zydeco stars past and future; it was a great meal and afterwards we played a game of Fluxx and fell asleep blissfully.
Saturday I started the day right with french bread sandwiches, which came out better than EVER before for a variety of reasons. Someone said they were the king of breakfast food but I demurred, suggesting that breakfast food has a queen, not a king - and the blintz souflee is the queen of breakfast food. No, we agreed eventually, this was more of a Slutty Dutchess, which name is henceforward trademarked and zealously defended to the brink of paranoia. So:
We ate Slutty Dutchesstm till our gills bulged and then we cruised out to Dry Creek Valley where we went to four excellent wineries and had an increasingly fine time at each of them: Quivera (classy, cool, sophisticated; here we ate our delicious picnic lunches); Lambert Bridge (beautiful, rustic, with wisteria arbors and high chandeliers in the barrel rooms and rockin’ party favorites on the stereo; the staff were brassy and pushy, in a nice way); Teldeschi/Thumbprint (this was like crashing some mellow wedding - it was a barrel tasting party with loads of great food, strawberries dipped in mocha chocolate, an overwhelming number of wines from two great labels, kids running around playing games as we chatted with the obviously anesthetized winemaker); and then Meeker (in a tiny shabby old 1880’s bank building in Geyserville, where we hung out for a long time drinking big old glasses of profound fullbodied wine and meeting the guy who grows the Merlot and the winemaker’s daughter and all her dogs, and just sloughing off tension and filling up with euphoria). The weather was warm and sunny and flowers were blooming everywhere.
We got home just in time to want dinner again so we dialed in a pizza from Greco Romana, which is a truly excellent pie. More wine with supper: the Quivera Anderson Ranch ‘01 Zin, followed by a stashed bottle of Bonny Doon Framboise with chocolate pastilles - it was great to see Tara take a taste of it after a day full of wine and have her whole face respond to how different it was, how smooth and syrupy and sweet. She fell asleep on the couch where she crashed after supper; Phil took the other couch and I had to stumble all the way back to my bed before I fell asleep. That I made it unscathed speaks volumes for the skill of architects in this great country.
Sunday we slept late and hit Clement Street for some light viet lunch before we went into the park and visited the Conservatory, which was a mindblower, as always. It was fun to take the camera in; I have been practicing and learning how to get some decent shots, or at least how to gussy up some of the weaker ones. Photoshop finally loaded this morning and once I get back to the house maybe I’ll be able to put up a few examples.
We took Phil and Tara back to the airport Sunday afternoon, decompressed for a few hours, and then went back to the east bay to watch the Sopranos at Dave and Kim’s house. They caught us up on last week, too, which we’d missed, so I had two hours of underbelly in which to wallow. We brought over a Teldeschi ‘97 zin, a big beefy wine that seemed to go well with the bloody machinations we were watching. It was a satisfying, if gruesome and violent, way to close out a very nice few days off work.
In the meantime, I could say more, but I’ll leave it at this: Great freaking weekend, people. Seriously.