kerewin's whine cellar

Old Habits

My father calls me all the time to tell me little tidbits. He has lots of spare time to do such a thing because as his semi-retirement job he drives parts from part store to part store of a local auto part store. I get calls because someone ahead of him did something stupid. Or today when he called to tell me that he saw an accident due to snow and told the state trooper that his 35 year-old daughter could drive in the snow better than those people. Usually he calls to tell me how much he misses certain things about holidays now that us kids are all grown up.

No more Santa, no more trick-or-treating, no more sugar-hopped-up kids running around on Thanksgiving with all the insane relatives. I miss that stuff too. The difficulty sleeping on Christmas eve is one I always pine for but nothing makes me more nostalgic than Easter.

To me Easter isn't about candy, or coloring eggs, or bonnets and gloves, not even church (sorry god). The best part of Easter was when we got old enough, after we found all the eggs, we made our parents go inside and we re-hid them. It was always hysterical to watch our parents hunt for the eggs with us giving them ridiculous clues. They were always so cool about playing with us, it is a memory I cherish. I wish there was a way to continue to live it.

Dubunking The Myth

There is a winery that is widely known as the most popular high-end Chardonnay glass pour in restaurants in the country. A nice California winery, they make primarily Chardonnay with a little bit of Pinot Noir thrown in for funsies. The wine is always very good. Their standard Chardonnay is sold wholesale for about $14 and retail? That one is a tad bit harder.

Supposedly this Russian River Chardonnay is restaurant only. Which means it doesn't have a retail price. Makes it so the restaurants want it because they know that it won't be in every single Costco or Safeway or even the local wine shop down the street. Except that, of course people want to buy it to keep at home and are always asking for it at their local wine shop. The wine shop in turn asks their salesperson for the wine.

The salesperson is put in the very uncomfortable position of having to say they can't sell it. If they are wise, they just say it is out of stock. That only lasts so long. Eventually the retailer puts his/her collective foot down and insists if the distributor wants to continue a business relationship they better sell the wine to the shop.

Voilà, the salesperson runs an invoice on a restaurant account (preferably one that isn't using the wine so as to make it look like sales are continually growing) and brings it in by hand to the retailer and asks for cash. Suddenly, lots of restaurant sales! Zero retail sales. Gosh that new restaurant is just flying through it! Hey, these people look good! Pretty impressive for a big lie.

Middle Age

I was sitting in the computer room of our house doing some work when I heard the sound of a puppy. A puppy in distress. How odd, I thought, no one has gotten a new dog around here lately. I figured someone was walking their puppy past the house and it got nipped or something. Except that the noise continued. So I got my keys and went out of the house into the very rare Seattle snowy landscape. Horrible, horrible noises still continued, but they seemed to be from the back of our house, so I walked around. We live on a corner and as I walked around I saw that our gate was open.

Six or seven Junior High school kids were in my backyard having a snowball fight. Screaming at the top of their lungs. This is where I am embarrassed to say that I turned into one of those women and started yelling at them.

"Hey! You kids get the HELL OUT OF MY YARD!"

As they scattered out I finished with, "You want to play in the snow, go play in your own yards!" One girl replied back, "Sorry!" They didn't seem that sorry as they ran off still hucking snow at each other.

Stupid snow. Stupid schools being closed. As my blood pressure went back to slightly normal I realized I was one of those cranky, middle-aged (to the teenagers) ladies who fly off the handle. How does this happen at 35?

Beer Story

A few years ago we spent the day after Thanksgiving with our friends Josey and Chris and their family. It was the first Thanksgiving we spent wholly by ourselves and I went all out on our dinner. Brined chicken, duck and chicken liver pate, lots of amazing food. With only two people there were a lot of leftovers. So when our friends called the next day and asked us to come over I brought along some of the food.

Josey really likes paté so I brought that. What I failed to bring was beer. That doesn't bother me too much since I drink wine, but the husband is fond of it. So when we first got there he asked Chris, "Hey buddy, where's the beer?" Turns out they didn't have any either, so AmigaBoy spent the next 30 minutes whining enough so that Chris suggested they go get some. He also made a big huge whooping production when they came back with the beer, all victorious. Apparently it made an impression. Not a true impression as AB barely drinks. Two beers is a lot for him. No one outside of this couple and AB and I even tried the paté. I probably should have lied when they asked what was in it.

Small story important for the exposition: Josey's brother (who wasn't there) is very, very, very into beer. So much so that he always carries some with him so that he won't be without in an emergency situation. You know, for driving around, or breakfast, or during work. You get the picture.

A week later I am talking to Josey about Tday and she tells me a couple amusing stories. She was talking with a brother-in-law (Chris has many siblings) about that day. She brought our names up and he said, "who?" To which she replied, "Oh you know my friends, you met then the day after Thanksgiving."

"Oh, the paté people?"

So we are paté people now.

Also she was talking with her mother-in-law who said, "I noticed AmigaBoy really liked beer. Does he have a problem or is he like your brother and can really hold his liquor?"

They just might have gotten the wrong impression of us.

[note to self: When deciding halfway through a story to use aliases, be sure to read through a couple times to make sure you don't accidently reveal someone's name.]

When I Was A Writer

In high school I had an English class where we were required to interview a relative and write an article about that person. I interviewed and taped my paternal Grandmother. At the time I didn't think it was that big of a deal. Now that she's been gone for almost 20 years I am starting to think I would like to hear what's on those tapes. They are 300 miles away from me so I have to trust that they can get converted to cd and sent to me. I really feel like I am on the cusp of something, here.

My dad is listening to the tapes and just sent me this email: "The first one is great I'm listening to it now and you are asking what Mom thinks of her youngest grand child."

That was me. She never got to know the adult me, she died when I was a junior in high school. I hope I get to re-know the adult her.

All About Kitty Belly

We are back from Boise, Idaho and it was really great hanging with AB's family for 3 days but now I am home and so very glad to see the kitties. We adopted these two street strays back in October 2002 just after I got home from Argentina:

This is shortly after we adopted them (tabby is Oso, little black kitty Ixtapa) and neither one looks too healthy. Oso, in fact had an infection which we got cleared up. Here they after some loving (and some regular food):

Gosh I missed their warm fuzzy bellies and sticking my face into them.

Mandioca

To Be Thankful

I knew well in advance that I was going to write a post of things that I am thankful for on Thanksgiving. However, this morning when we got up at 4am to catch a flight to Boise, Idaho there was very little I could think of. Instead, I thought all sorts of grouchy thoughts. FYI annoying 20something boy in the airport from Boise, we're cityfolk, we don't chat with strangers at 5 in the MORNING. We barely chat with strangers at noon. Usually alcohol is involved.

Now that I've slept for a couple hours more and my teeth are brushed I can think pleasant thoughts.

We are surrounded by loving family today (and my parents are hanging out with my sister and her family).
• I am in my dream job.
• AmigaBoy is in a job that makes him very happy and that is even better than being in a job I love.
• AB pushes me to excell and improve my life.
• Our house is comfortable and cute.
• My one Thanksgiving job was to bring the wine, so I am extremely thankful that the checked wine neither went astray nor broke.

Cheers, Happy Thanksgiving!

Soap On A Rope

My father used to drive around the Eastern side of Washington State selling car and machine parts to farms. As such he spent a decent amount of time in crappy motel rooms. Having been a Dial soap user for most of his life he found he didn't care for the brands of soap he found in those motels. He said they made his skin itchy. On the other hand, he didn't like to carry around the larger bar of soap with him because it got too soggy, or it stuck to the paper, or I don't even know what. He just didn't like it. So he went on a search for hotel-sized Dial soap.

Apparently he called Dial directly a couple of times only to get the brush off. He contacted some hotels and such until he found someone who knew which vendor carried that brand. So he called this woman and asked about the possibility of buying smaller soap. First it was that she couldn't sell to him directly. Fine, he asked her to add it to someone local hotels bill. She made him contact that hotel to ask for their permission. Fine, done. Then she said he would have to buy a full case because he wanted a shape that hotel didn't carry (he wanted the fatter, round bars instead of the flat ones). Fine, fine, fine, he said. She asked him to pay upfront, and so he whipped out the wallet abnd promptly paid her about $100. Lastly she told him he might very well wait a few months until that hotel ordered more soap.

Jesus, lady, wasn't it clear he was prepared for anything?

A few months later she calls, his soap is finally there. He goes to pick it up. Turns out a case is FIVE HUNDRED bars. When travelling he used about a bar a month. That is a lot of months, some 41.67 years worth. My dad is now semi-retired and doesn't travel anymore. They use those bars in the house and have given lots away. He bought that case of bars about 8 years ago (I think). He now has it down about halfway. I wonder if this is one of those things I will eventually inherit?

Also can you imagine this phone call? "Dad, could you do me a favor and take a picture of your mini-Dial soap bar?" Almost weirder than buying a case of mini-soaps for personal use.

Larceny

I have a lot of little momentos from when I waited tables. Business cards, notes and messages favorite tables left me, one-fourth of a dollar bill that on a wine-saturated evening three friends and I all vowed forever friendship, tore up this dollar bill and signed each fourth. Silly things like that.

Some things I don't have anymore. Like the several sets of glassware my college roommate and I took from each bar we went to. We did everything together. We went to the same school, worked at the same restaurant, and hung out with each other outside of all of that. We couldn't have spent more time together unless we were a couple (we weren't). So it was more of a "group" decision when we decided we needed all of our glasses to come from bars and restaurants. When we moved apart, I decided it was time to look for matching glasses.

My larceny stopped pretty much after I graduated, but it left me with a tolerance for it in others. When cutomers would make jokes about how much they wanted a pepper grinder I would usually leave it near them and turn a blind eye. I once wrapped up a bread board from the Old Spaghetti Factory and gave it to some diners who were trying to collect one full table setting. I found it all very amusing and didn't really stop to think that I might be stealing from the company, too.

After OSF I worked in the dining room and bar of Duke's, an upscale burger joint. The owner was really obsessed with the name Duke, to the point where he legally changed his own name. As such the entire restaurant was filled with framed, Duke-named paraphenalia that he collected everywhere he went. It was a bit kitschy and tiresome.

The best part of cocktailing is the fun people you get to see regularly, but might not necessarily hang out with. There was this couple around my age at the time (mid-twenties) who always sat at the bar table where Duke had framed a business card he got from some other odd Duke-obsessed person. One night they were acting suspicious. They stopped whatever they were doing whenever I came by with their drinks or to check on them. I finally realized they pulled that frame down and were messing with the back of it. I got all excited and wide-eyed, "Are you stealing that card?"

They looked a little scared and replied, "Yes, are you going to tell on us?"

"No, I've always hated that thing! Glad for it to be gone. Well done." I bought them a round of drinks for their bravery. They managed to get a different business card in the frame and get it screwed back into the wall in a very short time and without arousing any other suspicion.

After they left, I picked up the check presenter. They left me a huge tip and the Duke card.

I never told anyone about the card switch and no one noticed. A couple years after I stopped working there I went in for a drink with friends. The wrong business card was still there. Unfortunately, soon after that Duke sold the restaurant and it was completely remodelled. I never did run into Jim and Sam after that, but I do think of them from time to time. I sure wish I knew what happened to the picture frame with the wrong business card.

This review was written after I worked at Duke's and maybe the problems pointed out were one of the reasons that particular one went out of business. 2000 was a time when Duke was struggling as a restauranteur. The dot-com bust was difficult for more than techies!

When I worked there, the salads were great, the chowder amazing and the burgers top-notch. But it was a burger and fry place run on a very small labor budget. Not too many healthy items, although the caesar was great. Duke has since closed down all of his fine-dining places and concentrated on the Chowderhouse theme and bounced back, with a couple new restaurants opening. So, who knows?

There But For The Grace

Around the time my sister and I were 8 or 9 my Mom got a job to add a little play money to the pot. My Dad was soon laid-off and it turned into the primary income. Even though he eventually got a different job the change of tides had permanently turned my Mom into a working mom. This definitely caused concern over things like holiday breaks. Luckily my parents managed to have one child six years before the other two and in my brother they found a day-care provider.

My brother was in High School at the time and he and his stoner friends thought it was great that we had a house without parents. So they all "watched" us from the basement with lots of loud music and lots of mary-jane.

H-star and I were best friends with the little hellion girl across the street. Kelly taught us to steal our parents ciagarettes so we could go out in the woods and smoke them. None of us ever inhaled, but we sure thought we were cool. Kel's dad was a firefighter so we would also dig pits, make a fire and then carefully put out the fire with the water we carried in our thermoses.

Eggs in the neighbors mailboxes? Kelly.

Climbing on the deck railing to get to the roof? Kelly, again.

Ding-dong ditching? Oh, Kelly.

Convincing all the neighborhood kids to ask their parents if they could sleep in the yard, or on the patio so we could all meet at a certain time to roam the neighborhood like a pack of wild dogs? Probably Kelly. You get the picture.

We sure learned a lot out in the 'burbs. Luckily we never got hurt and we never got caught. It seems crazy but I look back on those days with a sort of rose-colored haze. My parents still don't know about most of our adventures and if they did I am sure they would be all sorts of pissed off, retroactively. You know, at Kelly. Yeah, that's it.

Yeah, Write That Down

Weddings are extremely stressful. Even when you plan and pay for your own, there is just so much pressure to make everything perfect and everyone happy. One thing no one ever told us (and I go out of my way to tell others) is that right up to the wedding you will fight like you haven't ever fought before. If you actually make it to the wedding it will be a miracle. People around you will wonder why you are tying the knot in the first place. This is one such situation.

It was a month or so before the wedding and we planned a meeting with the DJ to set up expectations on both sides. Up to this point I had all the communication with the DJ. I got the feeling from our conversations that he was a rather conservative, born-again Christian. Not that there's anything wrong with that. We decided to meet up with him on a Sunday afternoon at the coffee shop a block from our house. I don't remember what we were fighting about, but that day was one long, wedding argument. To the point that I started crying on the walk up to meet the guy and almost turned around and let AB go alone.

AmigaBoy got me to continue on, but our mood was definitely somber when we met with Mr. DJ. We got into what all the normal songs would be and how that would go. The DJ was really cool in that he kept a list of songs that the bride and groom didn't want at their reception and if a guest requested a song on that list he would just tell them he didn't have it. I was keeping notes of the main details and everytime AB thought I should be making a note he would say, "Yeah, write that down!" To add emphasis he tapped the notebook.

My husband is a prime button-pusher and he could tell he scored with that. The first time I gave him an extremely dirty look. One that on anyone else would have melted skin. Instead he grinned and laughed. After that he just kept ramping it up. After about the fifth time I was fed up. I grabbed the notebook and pen, slammed it down in front of him and said, "YOU write that down!"

Mr. DJ got this scared look in his eye and you could just see he was calculating how long our union would last.

Our ceremony was filled with lots of little, loving touches. We included the guests in our vows, had each set of our parents stand up and read us a letter they wrote, and our pastor was a long, family friend who baptized me as a baby. Our reception was non-stop fun and I heard the DJ later tell someone just how surprised he was at how nice it all turned out. To this day whenever one of us wants to crack the other up we merely say, "yeah, write that down."

Red, Red Wine

One of the local wineries had an open house today that I attended with a close friend. I used to work at this winery on the weekends and it reminded me of a day about which I was sworn to secrecy (or maybe it was just implied that we should all keep our mouths shut).

Each year Winery X had a special night for their local distributor. All the wine reps came, enjoyed tasting through all the wines, hung out with the owners and sales managers, and also got a commemorative bottle of wine signed by the couple who owned the winery. My boss (who ran the tasting room) thought the evening would go into long hours and so she asked me to come work behind the bar so that the sales managers would get more face time with the distributor sales people.

Suprisingly, after they tasted through the wines and got their bottles those people were out the door before 9 p.m. Since we were in such a mood for a party, my boss, the two sales directors, and I decided to stay a little longer and enjoy the reserve wines that were open. The owners left shortly after that and I thought I would be wending my way homeward not too much later. How wrong I was.

Sometime after 10 p.m. we decided to see who was best at Cork Basketball. Way above the bar there were these ridiculous baskets and we decided to see who could make the most shots. I turned out to be quite good (my little secret: I had the least difficult angle to the basket and I didn't stray from it.) scoring at a much higher quotient than anyone else, although I don't recall keeping score. Towards the end of our "game" I threw a cork and on the follow-through managed to knock my (full) wine glass all over myself, breaking the glass on the floor. I have a vague memory of someone opening another bottle of wine to replenish what I spilled.

Luckily I was wearing a red blouse and once it dried out, you couldn't even tell. So even that didn't end our festivities. The end of the evening came shortly after midnight when both sales managers got up on the bar and danced. I believe they did a little of the Twist, definitely some Swimming technique and who knows what else. We finally left because there was little else we could think to do that would get us fired under normal circumstances. Normal circumstances being the presence of the owners. The next day the National Sales Manager called in "sick." He told his wife he had the flu. The rest of us limped on in to work and muttered mean things about him the rest of the day.

Today when I was on the customer side of the bar I looked up at that basket and wondered if anyone ever found all those corks we threw up there. I was sorely tempted to ask for a cork to check my aim.

Red Faced

When I was in Spokane last weekend visiting friends and family I had dinner with two old high school friends. It had been awhile since we had seen each other and one of them decided it would be funny if we each told an embarrassing story about ourself.

So I basically told the story about the time we spent in Puerta Vallarta with AmigaBoy's parents:

On our last full day in P.V. as all the United Stateseans call it, we went into El Centro. Walked the beach, bought momentos, stopped at a bar and had "una cubeta de cerveza, por favor" and when we left, I had a mark on my ass. Someone, dear god, peed on my seat. I smelled of urine the whole way home. Hallelujah for the condo having a washer and a dryer.

That was merely the last part of the story I told my friends, to see the far more embarrassing part you will have to click through. (My god, my ass is wide in that last photo.)

In Which One Relates To The Other

You know when you are really hungover and you finally start to feel better and even though you aren't completely back to normal it is the best thing you have ever felt? Feeling better and then hearing that you don't have to have your gall bladder taken out is about 10 billion times better than that.

Crime And Punishment

Don't think I was some sort of angelic creature for selflessly giving up my dream in order to protect my parents. I was hubris waiting to happen. When I was in High School I always swore there were two things I would never do:

Never go to Community College.
• Never, ever, ever, EVER work in fast food.

If you are 18 with almost zero work experience under your belt, there is precious little you are qualified for except working in fast food. So I primly found myself working at Corky's Drive-In. G-damn greasy spoon. I ended up working there until I moved to Seattle three years later. By the time I left I was basically the Assistant Manager of the place. I could whip up a batch of tartar sauce, scrub the floors, cook all the orders, and if necessary run the till. I was badass. Apparently I also had bad attitude. The owner's son and Manager told me when I left that when I started there I clearly had a big chip on my shoulder. "As if you thought you were too good to work here."

He was right.

My precious, genius self was too damn good to work in a fast food joint. That was a hard-learned lesson. It was one that got me into my current job (in a convoluted way). Food service can be a higher calling. Also a precious way to learn that you should treat people the way you want to be treated.

It was bloody hard getting my chops busted. I may have hated flipping burgers but I liked working for a family-owned restaurant and it paid my bills, got me through CC, and helped me on my way in Seattle when I finally moved there. It was fucking hard work. After I left I didn't eat hamburgers, drink cola, or eat bacon for seven years. When people asked me why I just said, "In three years, I had my fill."

Tragedy And Divinity (Two Sides Of One Coin)

When I was going to high school my parents didn't fill out tax returns. When I asked them why they explained that many years before they had a return where they owed money. Money they didn't have. So, even though in the subsequent years they were owed money each time, they were afraid to get it.

I grew up in a pretty middle class neighborhood, with shades of upper-middle. Everyone in my social group was planning on going to college. We were all signed up for pre-college AP courses. So I knew I was going to college. Even though no one else in my entire family ever had. What I didn't know was how to pay. My parents were barely paying their own bills and I didn't work in High School*.

I applied and was accepted at the University of Oregon and this is when it came clear to me that some magical money tree from my parents wasn't going to open up and rain college money upon me. I did apply for some scholarships, but didn't really receive much direction from my HS career counselor (a woman more interested in belonging to the highest clique in the school), nor were my parents really interested in helping. Needless to say, I didn't get any of them. I did know that I could apply for financial aid, but being a minor I needed to have the copies of the tax returns of my parents.

So I begged and pleaded and eventually they filed and got money back** and I got what I needed to file for financial aid. So I was set, I was going to school in Oregon in the Fall of 1989. Except that all financial aid programs worry about fraud and randomly flag a percentage of students to make sure that their parents aren't making more money (har, har, har) than they said and are just bilking the government. My file was one of those flagged. So they requested a couple of years of copies of my parents income tax returns. Since those didn't exist, I duly dropped my acceptance at the U of O and told my parents and friends that I decided I was going to stay at home and work for a year to save up money. I was so ashamed, I never told anyone, even my parents.

At the time I didn't realize that when you applied for financial aid they didn't ask each and every student for such in-depth information. I only learned of the random flagging years later. I figured I was screwed and decided to take matters into my own hands. I got a job, moved out my parents house ,and applied at community college***. I thought that was the only way those embarrassing tax returns would never have to surface. I thought I was saving my parents from getting in trouble.

So fate of fates, I ended up going to Spokane Falls Community College and getting my A.A. degree before transferring to the University of Washington for a bachelor's degree. I never went to Oregon. If I had, I probably never would have met many great friends or ended up in my dream job, or meeting the wonderful AmigaBoy. At the time it happened I thought it was the greatest of all tragedies. Turns out to be one of the best things that ever happened.

*Another great gift my parents gave us, the right to be kids. I always thought they brought us up lazy, but then from a different perspective I realized they gave us what they never had. Lazy, carefree, Summer days.

**They have filed ever since, and ever since, received money back.

***Going to CC was a chance at a pretty good education in the basics. The class sizes were a lot smaller and every professor knew your name and if you were missing class. It was also tons cheaper and part of the reason my school debt was so low. I highly recommend it.

Working It

They talk about the medical field being dehumanizing, but one thing "they" leave out is that it is damn slow. For instance, say you called in sick to work today. You know, because you've had intermittent stomach pain for 3 days. You also make an appointment with your doctor. Since it is at 2:45 you think, "Wow, I can spend the whole day in bed, then go to the doctor, and when I get back from the doctor, I will have lots of time to watch silly television and play on the internet."

But no. Because you get there (early just in case they need you to fill out paperwork) and they don't call you in until at least 30 minutes after your appointment. Then you have to chat with the nurse (cute boy nurse, Jason) for a bit. Then the doc comes and you tell him all the things you told the CBN. Then he pushes around on your stomach for a bit, and then tells you you need an x-ray.

That means he leaves, you strip, put on an ugly gown, then he comes back and sets you in the hallway. Where everyone who walks by gets to see you. Maybe you should have shaved your legs, I'm just saying. You finally get x-rayed and get to go back to the little room where you wait for the doctor, again. X-rays are inconclusive, so you get to have an ultrasound. Which means you get to put your clothes back on for the CBN to come back and take blood ("I won't miss, I promise!" says CBN) and give you a work order for a hospital to take your ultrasound. Which he manages to schedule for that day, but you better hurry, they are waiting!

So you leave (don't forget to reschedule your follow up with the doctor!) and haul ass to the hospital and you get there barely in time. Which doesn't matter because there will be two people to check you in and one is speedy and one is slow. You'll get the slow one and she'll get all your info into the computer just to hit the wrong button and delete it all. When you finally get set in the waiting room you realize you are surrounded by absolute freaks. One of them might even try to have a conversation with you while doing stretches. In the lobby. Luckily those freaks were referred by the hospital and just walked up stairs to get their appointment. Meanwhile someone called ahead for you and you get the get-out-of-jail-free card when technician guy comes in and calls your name before all the freaks (Ha! Suck it!).

You go through the whole rigamarole with the gown again and then spend the next bit of eternity getting every one of your organs thoroughly ultrasounded from every conceivable angle. (Can you turn for me? Now can we get you to stand up? Take a deep breath, hold it, now let go. Rinse, Repeat.) The wet towel they give you will not take off nearly all the goop they spread from practically your chest to your pubes and all the way across on either side. You will find out that everything they looked at looks fine. So all those tests were sorta worthless.

You are finally released, and you still have to go and pick up your pain meds. (Let's face it, you probably won't take them because you have to work. Still your Dad told you always to fill a subsciption, "just in case.") Which takes twenty minutes and you go spend 15.5 minutes reading trashy magazines and go back to pick your meds and some old lady will be ahead of you getting hers, too. And every bit of food she will need for the next three weeks. After all of her purchases get handled she will suddenly realize that she prefers caplets to pills.

By the time you get home, it is past 7 p.m. and you haven't eaten all day. Guess what? You also get to eat mostly liquids and mild food for the next few days. At least you have CBN to look forward to on Wednesday. Of course, you will want to point out the lovely bruise he left on your arm when taking your blood.

The Allegory Of The Bed Frame

My friend's fiance recently moved out due to depression, anxiety (he recently went off his meds and stopped seeing his shrink), and because he thought her kids didn't like him and wanted him gone. Jody loves him and so she said, "The kids are away with their dad for the weekend, so just go stay with a friend and really, really think about this. They love you, I love you, I want this to work. Whatever is wrong we can fix." Instead Chip packed up his stuff and found his own apartment the next day.

She called him on Sunday afternoon to let him know that she still wanted it to work and he was welcome at her house but once the kids came back home and she told them, it would be permanent. "It would be really unfair to them to have you bounce back and forth, never sure if you are going to stay," said Jody. Chip told her he loved her but that he needed this.

Last night she went over to his place to give him the last of his stuff and they talked for a long time. She got the chance to get a lot of stuff off her chest about how his walking away really wounded her. He told her how he knew the next day that he made a big mistake and he was going to work really hard to get himself to normal. I was really glad to hear that while Jody sympathized, she didn't let him off the hook and back into her life.

While she was there she noticed his new bed and frame in his room. The bed was made, but the frame was just sitting there, disassembled. He had trouble putting it together. As a nice gesture she offered to put it together for him.

"Do you need the directions?" Chip asked.

"No, that's ok," she replied and very handily put the frame together.

"Oh I had it together exactly like that, but it just didn't seem sturdy enough so I took it back apart."

As she told me this, she said, "And that's him, that's his life in a nutshell."

He sees this thing that he put together. He follows the directions and it looks exactly like the picture, but he starts to doubt himself, so he takes it back apart and lays it aside.

Lightning Always Strikes Twice

Whenever I visit my parents, my father is very careful to leave me room in the driveway, even if he has to park one of his cars on the lawn*. He seems to think that cars left on the street are just a buffet line for thieves. Even though I used to see lots of the other neighbors park their cars on the streets with very little problem.

A couple of weeks ago a man was driving down their street and a dog ran in front of his car. He had to swerve sharply to avoid missing the dog. This, in turn, caused him to spill his hot coffee all over his lap. At that point he wasn't paying to much attention to the road, dealing with the pain in his nether regions. So he ended up sideswiping a car on the other side of the street.

Now everyone on the other side of the street parks all their cars in their driveway. Apparently they believe that if they leave them out chances are pretty good that some dog-swerving, coffee-spilling freak is going to hit their car.

*Oh Spokane, you lawn parking town, you.

Yes, Someone Did Die And Leave Me In Charge

I am a rat, a narc, a total tattle tale. I was driving to see friends and family in the Kan and saw a white pickup truck driving erratically. Lane changes without signals, veering clear to both sides of the road, speeding and then going slow.

So I called 911 and ratted them out. I was a little scared to drive near them so I slowed down and let them get ahead. Right as I got to Spokane I caught back up (a full 90 miles later) and there they were. Still weaving slightly, but not near as bad as before.

My phone call was totally useless.

The Great White

No, I am not reading the Great American Novel* along with Defective Yeti.

Instead I am the lucky recipient of an Italian white truffle. I put my name on a list a couple weeks ago not believing that I would get lucky this late in the season. Still, I got the magical phone call today and since I was only 3 blocks away I headed in. (side note: deli manager, "that's the fastest response I've ever seen!")

Now what to do with this beautiful (or not so) creature? At first I was going to go with the easy risotto option. Then I decided to go a little more complicated and do risotto as a side with a roasted chicken with truffle under the skin. A nice salad with some truffle infused oil would be good too. Now, how to use the truffle with dessert?

*Um, is Moby Dick an American novel? Oops! I guess it is!

The P Word

What in the world is wrong with me? For the past couple days I thought I had this big gas bubble in my stomach. I have been cranky as hell and every cupcake, cookie, and piece of pie looks totally awesome.

Oh. Yeah that thing. Sorry to the guys reading. Why is it that I am consistently surprised when my period comes? I am really annoyed because I haven't ever experienced that type of bloating before. It is god-awful.

When my mom was in her mid-30s (like me right now) she became sorta psychotic a couple weeks out of the month. Seriously, scary psychotic. She finally went to the dr. and got some of that new fangled PMS medicine. Now the week before my period everything sets me into a rage. I just don't want it to be that. But I suspect.

It is that, or I am losing my mind. I am definitely alienating my husband.

But More Importantly

Yes we won back the House, yes the Republicans are in jeopardy in the Senate. For the first time in history we have a female Speaker of the House. Ridiculous land-use bill was defeated in Washington State. All great news.

However, the most important issue won in Seattle. Lap dances remain legal within the city limits.

With a no vote on Seattle Referendum 1, voters were firmly rejecting the city's "four-foot rule," which would have banned lap dances by requiring exotic dancers and customers to keep their distance.

The rule was part of a strict new strip-club ordinance approved by the Seattle City Council last year. The ordinance also would have banned direct tipping of dancers, forced clubs to install brighter lights and prohibited private dances some clubs offer in "VIP" rooms or booths.

Supporters of stricter rules, including Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, had argued that the laws would allow police to more easily inspect clubs and spot illegal activities. But the city produced little evidence to suggest that strip clubs cause significant crime problems.

So let's raise a glass now, because I am sure that Nancy Pelosi will stick her foot in it in the weeks to come, and the House will start a bunch of infighting and in 2 years the Dems will be asking how they lost that great momentum. But at least lap dancing is safe in Seattle.

It's A Small World After All

The wine industry in Seattle is very small. People have similar territories despite working for different companies, so in some cases you see your opponents a lot more often than you see your buyers or even your co-workers. So you make friends. As a previous buyer in both retail and restaurant I started with a pretty wide pool of acquaintances. I also think it makes a new buyer feel more comfortable with me as a wholesaler if a lot of their sales people know me. Therefore I go out of my way to engender relationships with everyone.

I think it is a nice testimony when someone says the Seattle wine industry is really friendly. Maybe we are playing against each other but, more or less, we don't backstab or play dirty tricks. I have heard it is a lot more cut-throat in the 'burbs.

This can sometimes backfire.

Last week I was handing out invitations to our tasting that we had yesterday. As I did, the buyers would say, "Oh hey, that is on the same day as so-and-so's tasting." Or they would say, "Oh are there any other tastings on that day?" Since I was given that info by both salesmen and buyers alike, I would usually say, "Oh yes Small Company is having their Sauternes tasting that day, too."

So there is a really funny and interesting buyer for a small wineshop. He goes to every tasting, which is nice from a PR standpoint. Especially when you have a nervous winemaker breathing down your neck. Bill* is always happy to go. The best part is that he will buy based on wines he tasted. When I gave Bill his invitation I think he said something like, "Oh that will be easy, I think Australian Importer is having their tasting down the street on the same day. I can make both."

I replied, "Oh, and Small Company is tasting their Sauternes that day, too."

"I didn't hear anything about that," he said.

I sorta figured I misunderstood the information and basically told him that I must have made a mistake. Since this seemed like a non-event I promptly forgot the whole thing. The very next day I get a call from Joel* the owner of Small Company.

"Kerewin, this is Joel."

"Oh hey! How are you?" I replied, thinking, "how the hell did he get my number?"

"Good. Hey I need you to stop telling people we are having a Sauternes tasting on Monday. It is a small, invite-only list and I don't have that much wine to show. So since you don't know who we invited, please stop telling people."

[Non-interesting conversation later, turns out Bill called Joel to ask for directions and time of the tasting and let Joel know he heard about it from me. Joel asks Bill for my phone number so he can admonish me.]

In a situation like this I am not good at thinking on my feet. I usually need a few minutes to process the information before coming up with any good response. Since we are all so friendly to each other I just apologized, not even remembering who exactly I had told. Said I had heard from other buyers about the information and chances were that Bill wasn't the only one I had told, but it wasn't malicious. He said he understood how that exact circumstance came up and pretty much left it at that, but asked me not to tell anyone else. I made some joke about calling all the people on my account list and also all the other salespeople I knew. Ha, ha, ha. Pretending that we're all good, this seems like a normal conversation.

After I hung up it started to get on my nerves. I don't even WORK for that guy. If he had a special invite-only tasting, then maybe he should frickin' tell that to the people he invited. What did calling me accomplish, other than to make me feel small?

This I learned: I will not work for someone who makes me feel small. I've done that before and I won't do it. Ever. Again.

*Not their real names.

[For those of you who know about my number OCD, this post is number 333. So cool.]

PSA

I already voted this weekend (absentee so that there is at least a paper trail) but this is a good thing to remember tomorrow when you hit the polls:

When you go to the polls on November 7th, 2006, don’t forget what the Republicans have been doing to you and your family for the past six years.

It’s easy to get distracted in our attention deficit disorder world. We need a pill to help us focus, another to keep us sane, some to raise our level of arousal and others to put us to bed at night.

There are a lot of people vying for our hard-earned nickels.

The most sinister of the strangers trying to steal our hard-earned nickels are called “politicians”.

We are five days out from election day {editor's note, this was written 4 days ago.-kn} and the sound bites are flying. Polls don’t look good for President Bush, but the Pit Bulls have clamped down hard on John Kerry. They are trying to distract voters.

---

Now back to me, we had six winemakers in town from Spain (four of them women!). So as to use their time most efficiently we had a trade tasting and I spent a good portion of my work day pouring wine and talking about it. Before that I got to take them around downtown and show off the Pike Place Market (although the pissing down rain was a bit depressing).

Upsides: I got to speak in Spanish, I didn't visit customers today - they came to me, I met 7 remarkable people (the other one was the importer of the wines), I tasted great wine most of the day, and now I have 6 places to visit the next time I go to Spain.

Downsides: Are you kidding me?

If Thine Enemy Offend Thee

I managed to offend a woman within a few minutes of meeting her last night. It is a rare gift of mine, but not something I ever do intentionally. It was the Seattle wedding reception of our friends who were married in the Bay Area in September. The groom is a very good friend of mine and we have a somewhat adversarial relationship due to both of us believing we are right all the time. We don't ramp it up too much to make others uncomfortable. Usually we get a good laugh out of it ourselves.

So some of us were hanging out in the very nice living room of the University of Washington professors who were hosting the party. One of the people there was talking about how he went to a cool bar where they did belly dancing once a week and how much he had there. I said, "It seems like belly dancing is really coming back into style right now." (Based on my mother being really into it in the '70s and then it pretty much dropped out of my peripheral vision until this year.)

Groom replied, "It never went out of style."

"Oh that's why I didn't hear about it at all during the '80s and '90s," I smartassed back.

"Well the bellydancing expert is right there," he said, pointing to a girl who was not participating in the conversation as she was looking at wedding photos, "Just ask Samantha (not her real name)."

"Well I was doing it all that time," she said.

Then she proceeded to tell us all about it. I just listened to her talk about belly dancing, blah blah blah. Ok I was proved wrong, but I didn't (and still don't) really think so. I didn't say that, just kept my mouth shut. I nodded in the appropriate parts and Mmmhmmm'd a bunch.

Then AmigaBoy decides to jump in. "Yeah, there is a Greek restaurant in Portland where they have bellydancing." Then a long conversation of all the places you can watch belly dancing now. He followed with, "Yeah, isn't there a Greek hotel downtown on 1st somewhere? Kerewin, you know all the hotel names, what is it?"

Gee thanks, honey! Glad you are participating in my embarrasment.

"Ummmm, I don't know," trying to think of whatever in the world he was talking about, "The Sorrento?"

"No, come on you know it, you sell all of them wine. Oh! I know! The Alexis."

With great disdain I say, "But that's not Greek!" (Meaning the hotel isn't a Greek hotel, but that's not how it came out.)

Samantha turned her head towards her boyfriend and did a deep eyeroll. She left the room shortly after that and never talked to me again. So there is this woman wandering around believing that I am both ignorant and rude. Awesome.

It's a gift, people, but I didn't ask for it.

Girls Gone Wild

Last night was the second night of a special girls' night out with my friends. Ramona and Mia (and Sandra who hasn't been able to come yet, but she better next month, since we decided she was hosting) wanted to set up a night a month where we got together. After some 30+ emails, and 2 weeks we figured out the first Friday of the month would be perfect. The deal is we trade times hosting and cooking and the guests bring the wine.

It was my turn to host and Mya on her first time out raised the dining bar pretty high. She made an iceberg wedge salad with homemade blue cheese dressing (mmm extra lemony!) cornish game hen wrapped in bacon with a balsamic/raspberry reduction sauce, and horseradish mashed potatoes. We stayed up until 1am and generally had a rousing wonderful night.

So I felt as if I had to at least cook as well, no dashed off pasta sauce and salad. Instead I had a baked brie appetizer with honey and almonds, followed by oven roasted chicken, butternut squash risotto, and romanesco with a reduction sauce made from the chicken drippings, stock, and some garlic and white wine. I made a pretty easy clafoutis (with figs) for dessert with fresh whipped cream.

But really who cares about all that? I should have seen the foreshadowing when the first bottle of sparklling wine was poured out entirely into 3 glasses. We had such a great time talking, covering history, old familiar stories, and oh lord. We played "I Never" and I have to say, I know these ladies and they know me, yet we still managed to learn a lot about each other. All sex related, of course.

When we worked together in a restaurant we would all take the occasional smoke break together (if you don't smoke, you don't get to take breaks, you do the math on that one). So one of us still comes with a pack of smokes handy and even though it isn't regular, we all smoke on Girls' Night. So a good portion of the evening was spent on the porch, glasses and cigarettes in hand. A lot of laughter. One of the most fun nights, especially in the middle of this very busy work week.

In our brainstorming on the porch, we told the stories of how we met our mates, or how it wasn't working out with our mate (in one case) and also the perfect Christmas present for my husband. I seriously love to tell the story oh how my husband and I got together. It is a long, long story. Or as I said, "A three cigarette story." (Which it actually wasn't, more like a 2er.)

By the end of the night we managed to go through almost 6 bottles of wine. Granted this was over 7 hours, but none of us was in the right state to drive. So I went and set up the spare bed downstairs, giving my two stick-figure friends my oversized sweats and t-shirts to wear to bed. They came down and I tucked them in. By that time, the kicked-out-of-the-house Amigaboy was back at home and in bed himself, so I lamented to the girls that I couldn't spend the night with them, to finish it off properly.

Hop in, they said!

That was all the encouragement I needed. Therefore ending a perfectly lovely night with a threesome in my spare, queen-sized futon in the basement. We all snuggled up and laughed and promptly fell dead asleep. I don't remember lacking room or being cold. However around 5am I had a dream (that I can't recall) that made me get out of bed and lie on the floor. Right after, Mya got up to get a drink of water, that made me rouse up and think, "dude, I have my own bed, why am I sleeping here?"

They got up around 10, and we all said our goodbyes and everyone drove home completely sober. I went promptly back to bed for two more hours. It was one of the most funny nights of my life. Now I have a new "I never" for the next time I play that game. "I never slept in a bed with 2 other girls."

I know at least 2 other girls who would have to drink to that. Drink up, my ladies.

Credit Card Companies And How They Screw You

I (read: mostly AmigaBoy) worked really hard to get my less-than-stellar college credit card debt under control. So when it was down to paid off I decided I wouldn't maintain a balance anymore. Pay for play, baby.

This has lead to some interesting scenarios. Like when I forgot that I had an automatic payment go through my supposedly zero balance credit card. Since it was zero, I also forgot to check the balance online. Oops, I was nine days late making a payment of a couple hundred dollars. That threw me for a loop, so I went ahead and paid the entire balance even though I only remembered the automatic payment being $94.60. Odd.

I was online so I decided to check my statement. Oddly not available. I called their 24 hour Customer Service Line. Went through their little hoop-jumping and finally got to where I could choose to speak to a customer service representative. "I'm sorry our offices are closed. Please try back during our regular hours. Click."

That fucker hung up on me! I redialed, thinking maybe there was a long line, or...? Yeah, no. Still hung up. So I checked the website and found their 24 hour Lost or Stolen Card Line. Twenty-four hours my ass. Again I got hung up on. I also got a "your payment is 9 days late" warning and a chance to tell them how soon I was going to pay them.

Later during their "regular office hours" they can call my account closed.

So let's see:

Capital One - screwed in college, won't use them.
• Bank of America - also screwed in college, and then screwed over trying to get out of debt, won't use them.


• Sears/Citibank - Current jerks, won't be using them after this .

That really doesn't leave much in the way of a credit card that isn't a debit card that you can use while travelling. Yes, I have an American Express card, they aren't accepted everywhere.

Pogo

This is Celso pogoing. Celso and Teresa were the couple I lived with in Argentina when I was there for an immersion stay. The whole family was at the "Campo" just outside of Posadas, Missiones. It was his 73rd birthday. In very unusual (for us) fashion they gave small gifts to all the kids. The girls got the pogo's which they had never used before. I am sure I looked ridiculous when I demonstrated how to use a pogo stick. Celso did pretty good, better than the 13 year-olds. In fact, during the week, he was still working. As a HEART SURGEON.

Maybe we need to live more like the people in Argentina? You know, minus all the banks failing and stuff.

Anchors Away!

The husband (whose nickname I am officially changing to AmigaBoy because he is a nerd and likes Amiga computers) has always said that teflon was bad for you. Flaking, he insisted. We were never allowed to have any teflon because he. said. so.

So when it turned out he was right he was fairly proud. I can't say entirely accurately but he might have spent 2 or 3 hours on the phone crowing to friends and relatives. Fists might have been thrown in the air.

He also has been extremely opposed to microwaving anything in a plastic container, or even reusing a plastic water bottle. That's fine. I tend to agree with such things. Until I need to microwave something that is in a plastic dish and we are out of plates that can go in the microwave. Then I might be willing to bend the rules a little. I also happen to think that a lovely paper dish with a plastic covering isn't so bad. However, the jury's still out.

I hope this works out in my favor. I mean, please people, he can be so insufferable when he is right, which is often.