by Christine | Life, Observations
Thanks to David Hood for the photo - http://www.hourglasses.com/
I will not lie. I LOVE the time changes. I hope the government never gets rid of “Spring ahead, fall back”. There is something so urgent and hopeful about spring, moving the clock ahead, seeing daylight after getting home from the day job. Having the soft spring light in the early evening to wander in the garden, or to plant, weed, hover, dream in the half-light that happens (for me) between getting home from work and having to start dinner.
In fall, it’s even better. By November I’m tired of the heat, the unrelenting sun, the dry winds. Give me rains, and chilly weather. Give me a reason to wear sweaters here in southern California. I’m ready for it to be light at 5am. Let me enjoy the rare night fire, the family gathered around, mulled wine and hot cider available for everyone. (Trader Joe’s has a WONDERFUL spiced apple cider that is FABULOUS when heated.)
This year, I was doubly blessed on the night of the time change. Hubby and I went to an L.A. Kings game last night (hockey – we lost to the Penguins, waddle waddle) and due to overtime and a shootout, plus some nasty traffic on the 5 northbound (a big truck overturned and leaking oil/fuel/something flammable anyway, closed ALL lanes), we didn’t get home until 12:30am. Hubby had to leave home again at 4am, due to working on a USC grad student’s film in the Angeles Forest.
Luckily, because of the day, we just set the clock back. Which gave us time – him to figure out where he was going and to play his new Taylor GS Mini (which he ADORES), and me to make a quick breakfast for him to eat on the road (peanut butter and honey sandwich, apple, banana, and two tangerines). An hour (and a couple glasses of wine – oh, and some fresh popcorn) later, we were in bed. I think I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.
When I woke, Hubby was long gone. I looked outside – it had rained in the night. The clouds were still thick in the sky – I went back to bed for another hour, because I could. For me, “winter” had arrived. It stayed in the 50’s at my house today; the sky was dark by 5pm. Tomorrow morning, when I leave for work, I’ll have to re-learn how to drive when the sun is barely on the horizon and then SLAMS me in the face unexpectedly. When I come home, I’ll have to deal with driving in thick traffic at night along with everyone else, who has forgotten how. In a month, we’ll all have adjusted.
But my day today was an enchanted one, filled with the dripping eaves and a rainbow, the scent of fresh rain and rosemary and a woodfire in someone else’s hearth. It was a day for dawdling and indulging. I dawdled over the newspaper, reading every section of the Los Angeles Times (thin though it is nowadays). I made breakfast for my even later-rising son. I indulged in watching a video, and then did some writing/editing. I made plans for dinner, thanks to romance writer Christina Dodd’s post about macaroni and cheese. I took my son driving, and then went on a long walk (and I even did some very slow jogging – the legbone is feeling strong now).
The hubby came home, having spent the day being snowed on, rained on, sleeted on, then
thanks to http://www.bigfoto.com/themes/nature/winter/
more snow, all while they were filming. He had a big grin on his face though, and the merrily crackling fire in the fireplace just about made his night. Until I handed him some hot spiced wine. Then he fell in love with me all over again.
So, yes, I LOVE the time change. Yes my body takes awhile to adjust – it’s not even nine pm where I am and I was ready for sleep 30 minutes ago. But you know what? I don’t care. It’s a definite shift of the seasons for me, and in a world of perpetual sunshine, the fall’s “fall back” is a lovely signpost to slow down. A breather, if you will, between school starting, and the full swing of the holiday season.
~ Until the next time, cheers – and remember to drink responsibly! ~
My first novel, Demon Soul, is available for the Kindle and the Nook! It makes GREAT Holiday gifts!!! *hint hint* lol!
by Christine | Life, Wine Friday
While I was at Cypher a couple of weekends ago, the sexy ex-computer-geek-turned-tasting-room-guru T, let me in on the secret of Primitivo. Primitivo is a grape identical to Zinfandel and grown mostly in Italy, Argentina, and Chile.
Bells went off in my head. No WONDER I was drawn to Primitivo! I’d found it at Fresh & Easy, for $5.99 a bottle, and couldn’t understand how I could so love that wine. But it was hiding its true colors; and now that I know it’s a Zinfandel by another name, I’m SO on board. (Of course, the last time I went to Fresh & Easy, they didn’t have Primitivo any longer. Sigh.)
Tuesday night at Casa Ashworth, the Santa Ana winds blew. Hard. They blew hard enough to force our double front doors open wide; they blew hard enough to take lots of white picket fencing off my front fence, leaving an already-worn fence looking like an old woman’s mouth with teeth missing. The winds blew so hard, that it toppled – and split – a 30+ year old tree, narrowly missing landing on the corner of my bedroom. The power went out. I was late to work, disoriented by the winds I could hear in my sleep, and grumpy from lack of coffee.
Landscape with Windblown Trees, by Vincent Van Gogh
That afternoon, with the power still out, I found true parafin lamp oil (the other stuff is crap, don’t buy it unless it says PARAFIN lamp oil) and some new wicks for our many oil lamps. My boss, sensing my uneasiness, let me go while it was still light out, so the hubby and I could get our act together before darkness descended.
Yes, we have battery lanterns. But which would you rather gather around – the mellow yellow light of an oil lamp, or the harsh, blue light of a flourescent camping light? Yeah, us too.
By the time darkness descended, I was happily puttering about in the kitchen with three lamps burning so I could see what I was chopping, what was going into the pot on the stove, and what I needed out of the fridge. (Thank goodness for gas stoves!) I made soup from leftover veggies in the fridge, plus the rest of a Costco chicken. For those who want to know, I sipped on the last of a bottle of La Gioiosia Pinot Grigio ($7.99 a bottle at Fresh & Easy, tiny bubbles but it’s NOT a prosecco), and we opened a bottle of Rose from Adelaida to go with the soup – and that was yummy!
But there was the sense of primitivo about our night. Every room I went into, I flipped on the light – only to remember, too late. We made sure we had flashlights with fresh batteries easily available (our family’s prediliction lately is for headlamps – keeps your hands free), we charged our phones in our cars as we drove during the day, and used them as our morning alarms. It was nice, if slightly surreal. It wasn’t cold and we had water and gas; we weren’t that disabled by lack of electricity (except the hubby and the youngest didn’t get their NaNo words in, and grumped about it all night).
To revel in the winds and the darkness, at about ten I went outside. The winds had died to mere puffs of air; the stars were half-obscured by the bright quarter-moon. And the silence I’d been expecting?
Filled with the hum of generators. I much preferred my lamps.
Next week I promise I’ll get a wine blog together – this week, life’s been kinda crazy!
~ Cheers – and remember to Drink Responsibly! ~
by Christine | Uncategorized
Thanks to http://www.chalicecentre.net/samhain.htm for the picture!
The Harvest has ended and summer is officially over. The light wanes; the darkness creeps on ever earlier. All Hallows’ Eve is the night where the veil is the thinnest between the worlds; when the dead can speak again to the living, and the living can hear them.
Pile your bonfire high. Circle it at least once without looking over your shoulder. Ward your home with hag stones and crystals, or plain table salt; and keep a courteous tongue in your mouth to all who cross your path after dark. You never know if you speak with the living or the dead, when the light has failed.
Be vigilant. Keep your loved ones close, your small pets closer. There is but a sliver of moon in the sky to light your way when the streetlights go dark.
This year has been different; people, strangers, are wishing me Happy Halloween in droves. More people in my neighborhood have Halloween lights and decorations up than ever before. But the goblins knocking on my door range from the sweetest young princess to a towering ogre – all, of course, being properly “treated”. One young witch even rested her broom in the “Broom Parking Only” space by my front door.
The year turns. Sometimes it seems to me that I celebrate the start of a new year two or three times, once school has started in the fall. But that’s okay with me – it gives me more chances to get it right.
Happy Halloween. May your dead rest easy, may your spirit soar on the winds, and may your bonfire never die out – till morning makes the world safer again.
Blessed Samhain. Blessed Be. It’s time to light my own bonfire.
by Christine | Writing
I can’t do NaNoWriMo this year. That’s National Novel Writing Month, for the unenlightened. It’s not that I don’t want to, because I do. But I’m on deadline (one I’ve made for myself) and I am still getting used to writing around a full time job.
Every writer’s loop I’m on, though, is pushing it. “Who’s doing NaNo? What’s your NaNo name? Let’s start a support loop!” The push is from ALL the writer’s groups. Not that anyone denigrates those of us who don’t do it; but it seems like EVERY writer’s loop I’m on, there’s someone putting together a NaNo support loop. Even my publisher has a NaNo loop. But the peer pressure to join the support loops? AMAZING.
If I WERE to do NaNo this year, I could technically join nine NaNo loops; I’d spend more time reading messages from the support teams than I would spend writing. Um, what’s the purpose again? I know, not every writer belongs to nine groups – some only belong to seven. Or maybe a conservative four. Still…I miss the “olden days” of NaNo. Back when only four or five thousand people were doing it.
When I first did Nano, waaaay back in 2003, the only people I knew who were doing it was my best writing buddy Jenn Reese and a couple writers I knew in Texas. It was a mostly solitary endeavor, with the exception of delightful posts from Chris Baty and the NaNo organizers; and I can truly say that my work was a vomit draft, with “no plot, no problem” my mantra. However, I couldn’t fix those 54,000 words to save my life. The book still lurks on my hard drive, waiting to pounce on me when I don’t have anything else to write about. Luckily, that hasn’t been an issue.
I next completed NaNo in 2008, along with my two teenaged sons and my husband. There were more people doing NaNo, but I focused on my own, internal support group. We all finished; we all rejoiced. That book is in much better shape, but because of the books I’ve written in front of it, it will now most likely be mostly scrapped – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I’ll be able to save bits and pieces, just not the whole plot. *wince*.
The good to come out of this go-round of NaNo? My eldest son is taking writing classes in college and really enjoying them; and my youngest is doing NaNo again this year, only this time he’s writing in French. (Yes – in FRENCH. I have strange and wonderful kids.)
So all you NaNo-ers out there, I applaud you. I hope you’re plotting and planning, and that your novel-to-be has some sort of structure before you start (though technically that’s against the spirit of NaNo – or it used to be, anyway). I shall plug away at my novel rewrites and continue my blogging, and not miss the STRESS of NaNo at all. I can stress myself out just fine, thanks.
Maybe next year I will have the freedom to do NaNo again. But for now, I’ll cheer all of you NaNo-ers on from the sidelines – when I’m not busy writing.
by Christine | Wine Friday
For those of you not from California, Paso Robles is the next in line of the big wine counties here. First on the map was Napa Valley; then came Sonoma County. Now Paso Robles is lifting its head and making itself known after being there and growing grapes for umpety years.
Two weekends ago, my boss let me have a half-day off and I went up to Paso with two girlfriends. We got on the road around 2pm and headed north; not a good thing on a Friday. I don’t remember how long it took us to get to Santa Barbara, but we stopped there for burritos at Freebirds, the local hangout on Isla Vista for all the UCSB kids. And yes, we were SURROUNDED by kids. I haven’t felt that old in years.
The youngling with us powered down a huge burrito while the driver and I, of a similar age and body type, split nachos – which we couldn’t finish. And then we were onward.
It was a bit of an awkward drive for me. I sat in the back seat, thinking I would write on the way (HAH!); what that did was put a sound barrier between me and the front seat gals, especially since I only hear out of one ear now. But we did okay.
We finally hit Atascadero, found our hotel room, and settled in – but just for a moment. We needed provisions. We were still full from our late lunch, but a bottle of wine and some snackies wouldn’t go amiss.
We found a Food 4 Less down the highway a bit. By the time we got a cart and made our way in, we were giggling helplessly over something or other. I don’t remember what, I only remember how delicious it was to giggle a tad uncontrollably. All through the store we were that way – and we hadn’t had a SINGLE sip of wine. Not ONE. Amazing, but true!
Finally provisioned with salami, bread, cheeses, and grapes (not to mention a bottle of Eberle Merlot and Barefoot Cellars Rose Champagne), we headed back to our hotel room, did battle with the ice machine and the ice chest, and finally were able to get into our jammies and have girl talk.
I’m going to skip the girl talk. It was fabulous, it was full of the good stuff, and you’ll just have to use your imagination.
The next day, we hit up seven wineries. SEVEN WINERIES from 10am to 5pm. SEVEN. Hubby and I usually only can manage three, four TOPS before we’re too giddy. So I am definitely proud of our prowess. Of course, it didn’t hurt that our driver preferred sweet white wines, and there weren’t a lot of those to taste.
Briefly, here are my notes from the seven wineries:
Eberle – Really enjoyed the whites, not so the reds. Bought a viognier for the hubby. Nice cave tour, but our tour guide had less personality than a grape. The picture to the left? Eberle is German for swine – hence the statue of the pig out front.
Adelaida – Became a club member. Sigh. 3 bottles, 4 times a year; must be a member for 1 year prior to canceling. Bought four bottles here – a white, a rose, and two reds.
Tablas Creek – We’re here because our youngling wanted to pick up some wine for her dad, but they’re all sold out of the wine she wanted. I bought a present here for my brother, and it’s not wine. We had a picnic out front before we went in – two wineries and we’re feeling like we forgot to eat breakfast (which, since it was free, and filling, we most assuredly DID NOT forget to do).
Jada – Pretty winery. I think we’re on the Old Vineyard Road but I’m not sure. I bought olive oil and a zinfandel vinegar here as much for the bottles as for their contents.
Dover – Great dog! A huge St. Bernard is lolling on the grass out front, and there’s a rope swing. Too, too romantic. Bought a port here for Tom but it’s a huge 750ml bottle. Not what I’m used to.
Terri Hoag! Fell in love with their tasting glasses, and bought 4. Also bought a bottle of wine. Don’t remember what it was. Tasted good though I think. Um…
Ecluse Winery We had just an hour left before tasting rooms started to close down, so we hit up Ecluse, which was just up the road from Terry Hoag. They had Blind Dog Wine – one of the owners’ sons had a guide dog because he was deaf as well as a bit autistic I think (not totally sure). The dog was with the son for so long, that it went blind with age. I not only bought 2 bottles of the Blind Dog Wine without tasting it, but I also got a hat. Because a percentage of the proceeds went to Dogs for the Deaf. I also bought a bottle of something else – not that I remember what at this point…
(Did you notice how the more I tasted wine, the less notes on the wine I actually took? Hilarious!)
Sunday We had a great dinner last night at McPhee’s Grill. I had filet mignon in a bordelaise sauce, and we had wine with dinner…I think it was an Eberle. Not sure. I do know we didn’t finish it.
It’s overcast today – we just had breakfast. Soon we’ll head out to Cypher where I’ll spend far too much, and then on to Harmony.
And so it went… We did make it to Cypher, and I did spend too much money. Then we went to Harmony, where I spent more money. All in all, I shouldn’t buy another bottle of wine for at least 3 months…but since they were all over $10 a bottle, I’ll have to, won’t I, in order to keep up the blog?
In retrospect it was the perfect trip. We laughed ourselves silly, we sipped, we ate, we talked about deep and important things. We snored and cleaned our faces with interesting products and slept in and cursed the bad hotel coffee. We drank wine, and we bonded.
When I asked my hubby if he was sure I should go (because it was just weird, thinking about going to ANY wine country without him), he said of course. I needed time with women, he said. I work with 5 men. I live with 3 men. I need the bonding time.
And he was right. Thanks, Adina and Debbie, for a weekend I’ll never forget. Hugs!
