Random Nothings

I have nothing to do today and I love it. 

We had plans for a friend to visit, but she's being a good friend to someone else so that's understandable that she canceled. So here I am, sitting on my couch, watching TV and playing on the Internet. It's so relaxing, it's nearly divine.

I think I'll read some today (my new book is a George Washington biography), start a spreadsheet for a new fantasy baseball league or maybe pop open some wine.

Here's to a lazy Saturday. 

We Don't Need No Water....

There's always one night on a vacation that turns into the party night. Organically, there's that one evening where things conspire, drinks seem to pour themselves and wine flows like the Euphrates.

On this particular excursion to Napa, it was Friday night. Blame what you want. Maybe it was Ricca's deft working of the iPod dock and the sultry tones that flowed all night. Maybe it was the nine bottles of wine split between the six of us. Or that fifth of Remy Charlie and I polished off. Or the dessert wine/vodka drinks that Denise made. Blame is unimportant. What's important in a situation like this is to rebound quickly the next morning.

Charlie did so like a champ, running to the story to make a hearty breakfast for all. Eggs, cheese, maple sausage, biscuits and coffee. Dear God, coffee. Most everyone was still in bed or gussying up for the day when Charlie began his culinary quest. I happened to be in the kitchen so I was helping. Charlie was mixing eggs, I was popping open the biscuits and laying them on a baking sheet. Charlie was making scrambled eggs with cheese, I was microwaving two boxes of sausage. Coffee was poured for all and breakfast was had. Delicious. Stuffed, we all ran to the car and made our way an hour away to Sonoma.

The day progressed naturally. A vineyard here, a vineyard here. Driving around on the narrow roads of the Russian River Valley, we all joked about the remnants of our hangover and how we enjoyed the day to come. Then, it happened. Charlie, sitting shotgun in the minivan that was our carousel, turns around and looks at me. His face, white as the driven snow. The car is literally silent, as everyone waits to hear what could possibly be so important to Charlie that he practically screams, "Rich!"

"We didn't have any biscuits."

Now, to everyone else that statement was pure poppycock and gibberish. To me, it was instant recognition of a grave mistake. See, we didn't eat any biscuits because we didn't take the biscuits out of the oven. We didn't take the biscuits out of the oven because we forgot they were there. Which meant we also forgot to shut off the oven. Fear permeated the car. Had we burned down the house? Destroyed at least the kitchen? Would the biscuits be Ok? Being an hour-plus away in Sonoma, we figured our best option was to call the property manager and have her check over the house. Unfortunately, we waited for an hour-plus to hear what had happened because she was far away, too. In that hour, Bich freaked out about the possibilities, given that our name was on the lease. Charlie tried to soothe things with some moronic story of how ovens shut off when it gets to hot, which is a culinary twist on the old "Major League" line of a baseball hit too high.

The property manager calls back.

"I'm amazed the fire department wasn't called." The house was filled with smoke. Curtains stunk. Smoke belched from the windows. Neighbors had to wonder what was going on. The biscuits were removed from their literal burning hell. Our moods were lifted and our day continued. We arrived home - Charlie and I sharing the blame equally as we were the only two who knew the biscuits existed - and the house stunk. We worried about damages after the fact - actually, still not sure about the safety deposit - and vowed never to make the mistake again.

Well, unless we forget something.

Drinking w/o Driving

One of the greatest parts of Napa Valley is hiring a chauffeur.

Yeah, it's an extravagance, but once in a while, you've got to do it. And when we hit Wine Country, we only use one guy. His name is Tac, short for Tracy. He's a former restaurateur who homebrews beer and has relationships with half of the wineries from Sonoma to San Fran. We hired him on our honeymoon as part of the special package deal we got. Since then, we've used him as our Sherpa through the grapes. And without fail, he has introduced us to wineries we will never forget.

In this year's trip, we decided to hire him again. Now Tac normally drives a Mercedes SUV to ferry around his clients. But when he has six people, he has to rent a larger Mercedes minivan. Unless you're good riding around his own personal Sienna. You know, the one with the kids' stains on the backseat, the broken handles on the back of the driver's seat and the feeling like it was driving us between shifts at the soccer pitch. But who cares, because the guy behind the steering wheel wasn't one of us.

Tac arrived at our rental house at about 9:30 or so to get us to our first appointment at about 10 a.m. It was a private winery called Vine Cliff, with caves built into the mountain and some really good Cabernets. It was nice, but it in no way prepared us for the next place: Saddleback Cellars. This isn't one of the greatest wineries in the valley based on taste. But for $5, they let you taste 9 wines. And then the winery manager gave us a 10th on the house. 

And when we left we were the ones housed. Seriously, knowing that we had a driver sitting outside the door seemingly made all of us throw down real wine like it was Boone's. Denise grabbed a John Wayne cutout from the bathroom and we all started posing with it. Keep in mind, this is at 11:30 a.m. on a weekday. And we're all four sheets to the wind. 

Then we hit a third winery - and the jackpot. The place was Salvestrin Cellars, this family-owned and operated winery basically run out of a cool house. This place was so cool that all three couples joined the wine club. We tasted from the barrel, had our lunch there - sandwiches from Dean & Deluca - and fell in love. The interaction between us and winery owners was so cool that when we left, we were given a $100 bottle of wine to enjoy with our dinner that night. All because we mentioned that we were having lamb and the winery owner thought we should have a real good wine with our dinner.

Our next stop was Benessere, this cool boutique winery where I entered a wine raffle and actually one. No kidding. A bottle of Sangiovese actually arrived at my office this morning. The winery itself was Spartan, but Ricca at least got answers to all his questions about how much field workers are paid. Finally, we hit a winery with no real showroom or wine estate, just a place to taste its wines: Elizabeth Spencer. I bought two bottles. That's how good it was.

And when we left, again, there was someone else to drive. 

The Hurl Heard Round the World

Where's the coolest place you've ever puked?

Off a boat, maybe? In the backseat of a really expensive car? Over the railing at a seaside hotel and 10 feet straight out into the pool?

Passe, my wife says to you. Practically plebeian.

Because when Brooke throws up - which is relatively rare - she does it in style. Which, of course, is how she came to find herself hanging over the porch of a billionaire's home, expunging her stomach on his finely-manicured grounds. Yes, faithful readers, the regurgitator of Wine Country is none other than Brooke. But before we get to the dirty details, a bit of background.

Spring Mountain is just what it sounds like: a mountain in the Napa Valley where wine grows really, really well. One winery has the name Spring Mountain Vineyard, which in truth is actually wine made from grapes grown on the grounds of several mountainside wineries. The winery was vacant for a long time, until a Swiss banking scion bought it, basically as a hobby. The house on the property is gorgeous and has been featured repeatedly in Woody Allen film's, which the Swiss billionaire often helps fund. The house was also the set of Falcon Crest, for those of you who recall that show. (I was a "Dallas" fan myself). The winery also grows olives on the grounds and fresh-presses its own olive oil. On Bich's first trip to the winery in 2008, we were supposed to simply tour the grounds for 45 minutes, taste six wines and be done. 

Never happened.

Instead, we hit it off with the winery manager. One of our friends with us - Denise - was looking over the wine list and noticed there was a 1979 for sale for $300 or so. She mentioned that that was the year of her birth so the manager - our new friend Ted - goes and gets a bottle of it. As we're finishing that one off, he mentions that the wine isn't as tasty as he'd hoped. So he gets a 1987 bottle instead (retail for another few hundred) and we drink that. Needless to point out, we were all as roasted as pine nuts when that experience ended.

So, of course, we signed up to do it again.

Except this time we'd hit enough other wineries that most of us were well on our way. We arrived to have the winery literally to ourselves. No other staff or guests were around. Ted opened the place just for us. We went into the caves and mixed wines straight from the barrel. I made a blend called Qua 07. Very cool experience. Anyway, after Charlie made his own blend, we retired to the billionaire's house. The drinking began and never ended. Along the way, Brooke broke three glasses because she was having that much fun gesturing with her hands. It was only when Ted pointed out the glasses cost $12 each that she finally stopped breaking the glasses. After we enjoyed a flight of every wine Spring Mountain makes - eight in a row - Ted again broke out the 1979. This year it was much better (just goes to show how age affects wine) and when we finished that bottle, too, Ted broke out an extra bottle of one of the reds to push us along.

Then Brooke disappeared. I got a phone call from the woman who manages the property so I went into another room. And the rest of our group went on a tour of the billionaire's home. I got off the phone and couldn't find anybody. Then I walk outside and run into Brooke, who sheepishly admits she has just vomited off the porch of a billionaire's home. I tried to find the spot, but it was too dark and she had wisely found a dark, secluded place to do her business.

In my favorite postscript to a story ever, Brooke didn't close the door behind her when she went outside to hurl. A few minutes later, a bird flew into the house. As we were all leaving the house with Ted, he actually had to leave a multi-million dollar mansion unlocked and the door wide open to encourage the bird to fly away on its own.

Man, I love my wife.

Oops, a Pledge and an Update

As several people have mentioned to me, I haven't updated this blog in nearly a month. And, before someone's sarcasm gets ahead of me, yes, people actually asked me to continue writing.

As such, I will oblige them.

Starting tomorrow will be a weeklong description of our trip to Napa, with the long-promised tale of who threw up in the bushes off a billionaire's porch. I warm you, this person does not come out of the story looking terribly well, other than having a pretty cool answer to the query: Where's the coolest place you've ever puked?

But first, an update on my literal quest. Shamed by Bush v. Roe, I plan to read 50 books this year. In January, I did five. February was a few days short - and filled with Napa planning, Napa experiencing and Napa recovering. That said, I managed to get three books read in the month:

American Pastoral: My first Philip Roth novel and I can tell you I'm going to read more. This man is a genius of interweaving history into one man's life. This is the story of the Swede, a Jewish sports star at a Newark high school in the 1940s. The Swede's life is perfect, or so it seems on the surface. But his life is rocked by a renegade daughter and the trials of self-discovery we all endure over the course of our life. Roth has a way of getting intimate with a character's soul and delivering that to you. The story bounces between time periods and tackles everything from a night at Shea Stadium to the Newark riots of 1967 to Vietnam and Watergate. He's a bit verbose for my taste, and I'm never a huge fan of shifting narrators, but this book was pretty amazing. Time put it on its list of top 100 novels a few years back and I can see why.

Killing Pablo: This is a book written by Mark Bowden, the same guy who wrote Black Hawk Down. This is much less known, though. It was recommended to me by a co-worker who loves Bowden's work. This is the story of how America got involved in the manhunt and murder of Columbian druglord Pablo Escobar. This book, without a doubt, is better than Black Hawk Down. In fact, I'm kind of amazed this wasn't made a movie first. (A film version with Christian Bale is due out next year). Basically, the U.S. government partners with Columbian authorities to eliminate the influence Escobar had on the global cocaine market. Escobar was so powerful at one point that he built himself his own prison in Columbia and agreed to live there for a while. And by prison, of course, we mean palatial castle. Sure it had bars and guards and things for the government to be happy with, but it also had drugs (Escobar didn't do coke, but loved smoking marijuana) and hookers and huge television screens. The picture of life in Columbia is so violent and skewed, it's both shocking and intimidating. Recent stories about the devolution of law enforcement in Mexico, particularly Ciudad Juarez, is written in the same vein.

Born Standing Up:  Comedian Steve Martin's autobiography of his rise through the stand-up comedian ranks. I don't know about the rest of you, but I love Steve Martin's writing. LA Story, as a screenplay, is pretty good. Shopgirl (both the novel and the movie) are great tales of love. This book isn't filled with the insights of Shopgirl, but it's an interesting look into the man. He never pays for things on credit because of his father's hate to be in debt. He long suffered from stage fright. Johnny Carson once kicked him off the Tonight Show because his act wasn't working that night. Quick read, but a good one.  

Napa Redux

So if you're still reading this blog, you know we love wine. Love it like a druggie loves his Floyd, or a right-winger loves his W.

We went to Napa last week and between the packing, the preparation and a bunch of professional life stuff that had to get done on a short week, I couldn't get around to blogging.

Rest assured, good readers, this week will be different.

There will be tales of wine clubs, a five-hour tasting that included throwing up off a billionaire's porch and that cute story about when nearly burned down the rental house.

Ah, Napa.

Weekend Visitors

There's nothing quite so fun to me as having a house guest for a night or two.

Sure, there's the preparation, the post-trip clean-up, etc. - but house guests are invariably people you don't see often. They're staying with you because they're traveling from afar and want to save on a hotel or simply want to include you in a trip of theirs. Whatever it is, it always seems to make for a fun experience.

Take this weekend.

Tonight, a couple we became close to in Virginia is coming by Chez Bich for an evening of chatting, eating and drinking. We haven't seen these folks - or their bouncy baby boy - in the six months since we left Virginia. She's a hoot, who never misses an opportunity to give me shit. He's a beer-loving guy happy behind the grill. Billy Joe, the kid, is less impressive. He doesn't speak yet, and I think he still craps in his pants. I'm not judging him, mind you, just laying out some facts for the record. Anyway, the trio arrives this evening and we couldn't be more excited. (And not just because they're bringing us a framed poster of the evolution of the Frog's Leap wine label). We always have a blast hanging out with these guys, so tonight should be no different.

But sadly, their stay is but one evening. Then again, as soon as they leave, the next one arrives.

My best friend from Virginia, who my best friend from New Jersey refers to as Jewish Mike (or sometimes in a more derogatory tone, Gobot Mike) is passing through for a wedding in Westchester. We're meeting for late dinner/drinks in Astoria, Queens. This is a guy I used to talk to every day for 18 months, so it'll be nice to catch up in person for a change. He'll use the same second bedroom our previous guests used the night prior.

See? Houseguests bring memories and promises of a good time catching-up.

And, if they're nice, they leave quickly.