I'll Have the Lucky Combo #7

We all have our demons. Some live inside a bottle, some inside a bag of potato chips. My biggest demon is the myth of My Inner Disfigurement. I say myth, because even though I embraced it as doctrine for most of my life--having adopted it, as most do who are accompanied by this imp of Satan, in childhood, or maybe it is better said that I was taught to believe it, just as I was taught to believe in the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse--I've loosened my grip the last year or two or so. You see, I was holding on to all the things I thought was holding me, in the immortal words of Gift of Gab with the Blind Boys of Alabama. (I've written about this before now, so you may want to yawn and click yourself away.)

Sometimes I try to banish my demon on my own. It's old news, I hate to keep calling the committee with the same old song (in the immortal words of the Four Tops)--even though it is inevitably the same old song that gets me every time, and even though I do eventually break down and call the committee for reassurance. Sometimes when I am walking the aisles of Walgreen's and wearing sunglasses to hide the tears. Sigh.

And then there is that I sometimes discover new and not so charming traits in my demon. This time, my demon got its warty toe in the door with a phone call I received a few days ago at 4:30 a.m. in the morning (intentional redundancy to emphasize the ungodliness of the hour--4:30 a.m. in the morning is happy hour to demons, as anyone who's ever experienced insomnia knows), and seeing my demon in the dim light of dawn gave me some new insight into its character. (I think it is new insight; it may be repetitive learning. I am a slow study in that regard.)

I've got this book on the coffee table, a book I'd picked up for a quarter at the library book sale, a book on Chinese astrology. I love Chinese astrology. You would, too, if you were a Dragon. See, I like to look at the descriptions of the Dragon, my favorite adjectives in the list being "lucky" and "blessed." In a way, it's like reading Thich Nhat Hahn:

The Milky Way doesn't say, "I am the Milky Way." It is the Milky Way. In reality, the wonderful reality is life. We are that wonderful reality. We ourselves are present here with a clear light that can illuminate and reflect everything as it is.

Reading the dictionary, which I habitually did as a child, would probably have the same effect. Or any other book with lots of nice words. It's not like fortune-telling or psychic readings, it's more like thinking about archetypes, it's a way to see how it might be possible to choose something to believe other than the baloney peddled by my demon. Why not decide to feel lucky and blessed and then look for supporting evidence. Why not.

Read the Book

As soon as I finished reading Judgment of Paris, I called the local Blockbuster (my Netflix subscription is on hold, as I found I was sending movies back unwatched--I just didn't have the time) to see if they had Bottle Shock. They did.

I went and picked it up. Then I stopped by the local big liquor store. I meant only to browse--and I did browse, for so long that every single employee in the store asked me if I needed help--but came home with a bottle of Vinho Verde, one of Moscato d'Asti (Moscato d'Asti is happiness in a bottle, all sparkly and peachy) and one last, a little beauty, a late harvest Zinfandel from Dashe Cellars. Can you believe that going to the big liquor store is such a source of pleasure to me? It's like going to a bookstore, it's that kind of diversion. Part memory, part daydreaming, part wishful thinking. I saw all these bottles of wine, wines that I know and love, and wines that I know only by reputation, wines that I would love to love, if you know what I mean.

And then I came home and spent two hours cleaning out the closet in the upstairs family room, a closet that is so filled to overflowing with art supplies and wrapping paper and games that when I opened it two days ago, everything came spilling out. First, the rolls of wrapping paper and cellophane. Boxes of crayons. A plastic Halloween pumpkin. Markers. Cardboard toilet paper rolls that B. uses for art projects. Colored tissue paper. Rolls of ribbon. Shoe boxes. Mosaic tiles. A deck of playing cards with pictures of sushi. A deck of fortune telling cars. Construction paper, glue sticks, jars of glitter. Origami paper. Foam pieces. Googly eyes and little metallic puff balls. A toy car and a mood ring and a broach with Mona Lisa. Anyway, it is all straightened out now.

My reward was to watch Bottle Shock. Some reward. What a mess of a movie that was. The producers took a perfectly good story and messed it up beyond all repair. Don't bother, is my opinion. As is sometimes the case, real life is so much more interesting than the fiction made of it.

Wineau Book List

I may be alone in that I find it difficult to read while on a plane. (I will not discuss what happens when I try to read--or even look at a map--in a car, but I will say that it invariably concludes with a sudden need to pull over to the side of the road.) Motion sickness is a curse, I tell you. A curse.

However, during my travels last week, I was so absorbed by The Billionaire's Vinegar: The Mystery of the World's Most Expensive Bottle of Wine that I made the attempt and suffered the inevitable consequences. This story, a parade of human vanities, is a classic tale of the con, acted by characters who fit beautifully into their roles as a despicable villain puffed up with hubris and rich victims whose arrogance and insatiable appetite for status turn them into easy marks.

Now I am reading Judgment of Paris: California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting That Revolutionized Wine. Also a terrific read. The writer gives the histories of now legendary winemakers--Joe Heitz, Mike Grgich, Warren Winiarski-- and describes how this event that really did change the wine world came about. It was the flap of the butterfly's wings felt round the world. When the event was conceived, no one--NO ONE, not even the organizer--had any idea that this event would change the course of the pour forever.

(Which is an idea that forms part of my inner landscape: that we never know which of our words or actions will have the greatest influence or significance or effect, which means it is all the more necessary to both keep the faith and keep on taking steps in the directions of one's dreams, and to guard oneself in one's habits.)

However, I was a tiny bit disappointed to notice this error in Judgment of Paris:

High-quality grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon do not travel well because they have thin skins and are easily damaged in transport.

In fact, Cabernet Sauvignon is a thick-skinned grape, which the writer must know if he drinks wine (and his loving descriptions of wines indicates that he does), because those thick skins are what gives the wine those hallmark tannins. So odd, it seems like such a basic and preventable mistake. Then again, what I've learned from lo, these many years in publishing, is that "error-free" tends to be more theory than execution, as "error-free" is labor-intensive and thus expensive. The writer may have been thinking of Pinot Noir, which does happen to be a thin-skinned grape.

[UPDATE: Toward the end of the book, I just ran into another mistake, in which wine writer Jancis Robinson is given a masculine possessive pronoun, indicating that she is a man. Uh oh. I bet there was some hot water around that one.]

Not that I mean to sound like an obnoxious know-it-all; we all make mistakes. But I'm not just reading for fun. Because I understand that I am behind the curve in my wine knowledge, I've dedicated this summer to furthering my wineau education (which furtherance extends to the Frahnch and Espahnish and Portuguese) in preparation for the sommelier diploma program that begins in October, and to which I have not even been formally admitted (which I confess does make me a little nervous).

When I finish this one, I'm moving on to a book about the Mondavi empire, and then another about the Nazis and French wine.

Those are the fun books, you understand. I am still plodding my way through The Art and Science of Wine, Alexis Lichine's Guide to the Wines and Vineyards of France, and The Wine Bible. Still waiting for that moment when I feel as if I know something. That is a wonderful feeling, when you come to a deep understanding of whatever it is you are studying. It's going to take some time, in the immortal words of the Carpenters.



UPDATE: Fixed my mistake in verb form. And added a missing conjunction. So much for error-free publishing, eh.

Not Enough Demerol in the World

When we moved here, just outside the Gates of Hell the Den of Iniquity Las Vegas, I had to give up my title as The Last Person in the World with No Cable. Because I run my business from home and deliver all my work through email, I must have a reliable ISP, and I was told that the cable provider was far more reliable than the telephone company.

It hasn't been so bad. The girls and I watch What Not to Wear, and for a while, we were overindulging on Top Chef. Sometimes I would watch the news. Sometimes we would try to find a movie. There are one or two other shows we might watch if the television were already on. Maybe we watch two to three hours a week.

Oh my goodness. Am I sorry I have cable now? I'm not sure, but I am taken aback. I am very surprised no celebrity has yet broken a leg trying to get to the phone to call Larry King to describe his or her feelings of sorrow and bewilderment about the death of Michael Jackson. But it is early in the spectacle and who knows what will happen before it is all over. (We do have a pretty good idea, now that I think of it.)

What people are saying is so awful, so silly, so ridiculous and so focused on themselves that one can hardly keep one's countenance. And yet, I confess that I was right there watching, from the moment I first read the alerting email from Chicago C. until I finally went to bed.

The blame is already gathering in the distance. We won't know anything for weeks, though--even though we do know. Vultures were buying memorabilia today. Some horrible person on CNN basically said that the positive thing about Michael Jackson's death was that it put an end to the accumulation of debt.

One thing that would be funny if it weren't so terrible is how people try to brush past the child molest accusations on their way to the podium. "It's all academic now," said Kenny Rogers impatiently.

But people who were abused as children are the ones who grow up to abuse others, in whatever manner. It's so sad. As everyone can't help but point out, Michael Jackson was such a beautiful child. Then when the evidence of plastic surgery started showing up, he seemed like the illustration of a bad joke. It's always seemed obvious that he was suffering. To do that to yourself, to live as he did, to do all that one can do in order to try to burrow back into childhood--a childhood he never had. And then, he had to live out his suffering in front of the world. Well. It's over now.

Today was Show the Pain Day on television. I wanted to hear the coroner's press conference, so I turned on the TV and learned nothing I couldn't have guessed myself. I left the TV on, kind of like how I went to the casino that one time with S., to see what all the fuss was about. I cried when I watched Oprah. The guests were several obese teen-agers who had tried to kill themselves, along with a couple who runs some kind of therapy group. The clips from the therapy session are what made me cry. Those poor children are suffering so much, and not just because they are fat. They are suffering because life just hands it out sometimes. One kid's dad left his mom on the young man's birthday. Another girl kept trying to tell her mother that it wasn't the mother's fault the girl's father had abandoned them. The pain was so raw and real. If someone can see that kind of pain and not feel anything in response, I am not sure I want to know that person.

And then. Why, dear Lord Jesus, did I do it, I watched ten minutes of Jon and Kate Plus 8, a show I have never ever watched. It was a rerun, and seemed as if it may have been the pilot. If you have never seen it, it is a monstrosity wherein a family of 10 (mother and father and one set of twins and one set of sextuplets) lives in front of cameras from dawn until dark.

I knew the couple is now divorcing because I'd seen the headlines on yahoo or somewhere, but I didn't know anything about them. Dear sweet Lord Jesus, I say it again. I watched that man talk about how his wife's appearance had changed since the birth of the sextuplets, and could not believe she could remain sitting next to him without cracking him on the head with a cast iron skillet. Then she went into another room and showed her post-partum abdomen to the camera and said sadly, "How beautiful."

That brought tears to my eyes, too. Why do people hate themselves so much? She gave birth to 8 children. (We are not talking about the wisdom of her decision to bear 8 children, remember, nor about her personality, which does seem a little inflexible.) Her body was not going to be the same. Of course, part (maybe all, who knows) of the reason she hated herself was that her husband no longer found her beautiful because she no longer had the long blonde hair (no time for the cuts and the highlights and the blowdrying) and centerfold body she had when they first met.

It's back to that, is it. The only way is to learn to love yourself. Otherwise, there is not enough Demerol in the world, there is not enough food in the world, not enough booze, not enough money nor fame nor attention nor whatever we can use to try to deaden that pain.

The Hustle of Two-Buck Chuck

Yesterday, I stopped by Whole Foods and had a chat with Darrel, whom you may remember from our last chat a month ago. We talked of the wines he was pouring, all 3 all right, but forgettable--I don't remember any of them now. I asked him for a vinho verde, and bought the only one he had, and it was fine: light, spritzy, very pale green tints, a perfect summer afternoon wine (Casal Garcia Vinho Verde). I paid $9.99, but apparently it is an excellent alternative to Two-Buck Chuck (or Chateau Cardboard, as those Aussies like to say), as you can pick it up for $4.99 with a case price of $59.88--which I would do in a second if I did not live in Hell, where it is hot and will get even hotter before the summer's through with us.

Darrel is a bit of a cynic. He freely expressed his beliefs that artists--and he includes winemakers in this category--must and do sell their souls in order to achieve success. We had been talking of Two Buck Chuck. I asked if he had read the article in The New Yorker, which E. had given me. When he said he hadn't, I hit the highlights for him. Fred Franzia is a real piece of work ("Take that and shove it, Napa.")

First, a little history. Charles Shaw wine came to the market introducing itself as a Napa wine. It's got Napa on the label. And then there were all the stories about why it could be so cheap, stories that turned out to be false. The reason is, of course, that the wine is made from cheap grapes--think $60-200 a ton, with Napa grapes coming in at $2000 a ton. You may be wondering WTF with the label? Franzia and his crew can put "Napa" on the label because they bottle the wines in Napa. Basically, these bargain wines really are Chateau Cardboard, really are the same as buying those jug wines favored by an alcoholic singer of my previous acquaintance, one for whom I actually went to 3 different stores in a small town in the South in order to find him some booze. Those jug wines that were all the rage in the 1960s, before Americans knew anything about wine.

Also, the labor is cheap. Except when a worker dies in the field:

Trader Joe's feel good atmosphere suffered a blow with the death of 17 year old illegal immigrant Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez. Maria collapsed after working 8 hours in the blistering heat tending vines for Merced Farm Labor, a independent contractor, who provided workers for West Coast Grape Farming co-owned by magnate Fred Franzia of Bronco Wine and "Two Buck Chuck " fame.

Frankly, it reminds me of that show You Know Who and I used to love to watch, Hustle, the one about the devastatingly handsome brilliant con artist and his lovable team of swindlers. The swindlers' justification for their way of life was the motto "You can't cheat an honest man." See, people think they are getting something for next to nothing when they buy Two Buck Chuck, but they forget that basic adage about no free lunches.

You know me, I love a bargain. But some bargains cost way too much. That's how I feel about Wal-Mart. With rare exceptions (once in the past 3 years), I don't shop there. Bronco Wines, the owner of Charles Shaw and the steamroller that is owned by Franzia and his family, buys up failing labels, sells what stock is left, and then pours whatever liquid crap they got into them and keeps selling them. The consumer is none the wiser. And then Franzia blows all this smoke about how other winemakers are simply charging too much, which taps into the consumer's fear of being conned and makes the consumer cling even more tightly to Two Buck Chuck.

Here is a list of the labels owned by Bronco:

Albertoni Vineyards Alexander and Fitch Almond Creek Bad Dog Ranch Bears' Lair Black Mountain CC Vineyards Cedar Brook Charles Shaw, AKA Two Buck Chuck Chateau California Coastal Ridge Coastal Vines Congress Springs Crane Lake Domaine Laurier Domaine Napa Dona Sol Douglass Hill Down Under

Estrella Fat Cat Forest Glen Forest Hill ForestVille Foxbrook FoxHollow Grand Cru Grove Ridge Hacienda Harlow Ridge JW Morris JFJ Winery Laurier Montpellier Napa Creek Napa Crossing Napa Landing Napa Ridge

Napa River Oak Vineyards Pacific Oasis Quail Creek Quail Ridge Raymond Hill Redwood Rock Brook Rutherford Vintners Salmon Creek Santa Barbara Crossing Santa Barbara Landing Sea Ridge Silver Ridge The California Winery Thousand Oaks Three Knights Vineyards Trellis

Darrel spoke volubly about the label issue, about Bronco (and other big wine distributors) buying up the little wineries and their labels. He says that Bronco doesn't just buy the failures; Bronco targets the ones that are struggling and wipes them out. I just don't want any of that in my glass.

P.S. Darrel also told me that some of the wineries in Napa and Sonoma are not really wineries. They nail up their little shack on some unused land rented or bought from a local vineyard, bottle similar liquid crap pressed from grapes sourced from God knows where, most likely the Central Valley, and pour it for the tourists, who, after drinking all day and not spitting, truly don't know the difference. I thought about the wineries we visited over the weekend. All were genuine: Trentadue (solid wines, reasonably priced, though the pouring staff mispronounced "Tempranillo" and didn't know which grapes made up their sparkling wine, nor which method was used to produce it); Truett Hurst (already raved about); Jordan, Lancaster (rewind); Unti, where the owner talked to us for a long time and we loved the Sangiovese and the Barbera and the Grenache. We also went to some tasting rooms: Rosenblum (we agreed we have NEVER met a Rosenblum wine we didn't like); Murphy Goode (solid, I bought a bottle of Petit Verdot, a varietal I never see all by itself); and La Crema (Darrel agrees completely that La Crema has priced itself out of its market for the value--he also said that their case production has gotten so high that he wonders where all those grapes come from). So the point of all that is caveat emptor, one just has to do one's research and not stop at every winery one sees on the highway.

UPDATE: Fixed a spelling error. It's Petit Verdot, not "Petite." I knew that.

Wine Hell

You might think Hell is bad wine. Oh, no. If the wine be bad, spit, pour out the bottle, and crack open another.

Last weekend was my first trip to wine country since I began the wineau wino sommelier training. I was very much looking forward to having a new experience, not only with wine, but in coming to the vineyards and wineries with my beginnings of an education about viticulture and vinification and maybe start to push into place some new understandings of what I've been studying.

E. and I were of one mind that we wanted to soak up as much experience as we could, and so I made appointments at both Lancaster and Jordan for sit-down tastings. The appointment at Lancaster was private, meaning that the group consisted of the young lady from Lancaster and E. and me. We were given a tour of the vineyards and wine cave before we sat in a wine library, this wonderful but surreal minimalist modern room with mile-high walls lined with bottles of Lancaster wines, and tried four wines. At Jordan, we sat with 8 others in a room of baroque nouveau riche vulgarity meant to pass for elegance while an older woman with manners to match the furnishings who knew very little about wine talked at us for what seemed like an eternity (it may have been an hour, but, believe me, it was the hour that stood still, yawning and chewing on its cuticles). And we tried 3 wines and ate a couple of bites of yuppy artisan cheese.

What was disagreeable about both experiences was a lot, so much that I have trouble organizing my thoughts around this, as each thought is greeted with a chorus of Yeah! in my mind, but what I can say is that I would have appreciated authenticity rather than the presentation of wine as status symbol, which reduces it to being an accessory for the I Got More Than You And I Want To Rub It In Your Face crowd--I guess it is no accident that our fellow tasters at Jordan were all card-carrying members. And I would have appreciated humility, instead of the arrogance at both establishments, the promotion of the notion that these vintners have elevated and refined the art of winemaking in some mysterious way. The preening! The inflated self-importance! Give me Gary Vaynerchuk, whose knowledge is solid and vast and whose attitude is humble, over the people at Jordan and Lancaster any day. (Also, Gary makes me laugh, and you know how that do me.) (Not everyone at Jordan was like that--E. and I very much liked the security guard and the young men who greeted us upon our arrival.)

If I could talk to the Big People In Charge at both Jordan and Lancaster--if I thought they might be interested in some constructive feedback--I would offer these observations:

1. People have been making and drinking wine since the Neolithic period. Which means thousands of years of labor and study and science have gone into what you've been doing for 33 years (Jordan) and less than 20 years (Lancaster)You didn't invent wine or wine-making or even the happy thought of eating triple-cream cheese while drinking wine (that last belongs to Jordan alone).
2. The wines at Jordan and Lancaster are wonderful, truly, they are some of my favorite wines. However! They are not none of them no Pétrus, no Romanée Conti. (How could I even hope to taste such wines? But unlike the people at Jordan and Lancaster, I am aware of their existence.)
3. Be aware that there is that of which you have chosen to remain ignorant ("Mr. Google, could you please tell me something about wine and its history?"), and speak only of what you know. Christ Almighty, the nonsense was unbelievable. To hand out that platter of baloney as if it were ground and sliced from actual fact is inexcusable. (Again, this is for the ears of Jordan only. In spite of her habit of speaking of Lancaster wines and the owner of Lancaster with veneration best reserved for someone like Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr., the young woman at Lancaster did not spew forth a fount of nonsense like that which flowed at the Jordanian fount.)
4. When you invite people to taste wine at your winery, you might consider there is a protocol to wine-tasting, a protocol that includes spitting. How can it be possible that I had to request a receptacle at both places? Let me put it like this: E. and I tasted 67 wines in two days. I spit every single time. I should not have to ask for a cup/bucket/spittoon. Again, this is inexcusable. (The young woman at Lancaster did not treat mine as an odd request, but the woman at Jordan--and all of our fellow tasters--looked at me as if I were Nelly Mae Magoo from White Trash Holler. Also? She gave me a transparent plastic cup to spit into, which out of consideration for my fellow tasters, I could not put on the table and so I had to hold it in one hand or put it on the floor. Again, repeat it with me: inexcusable.) If you don't want people to spit, then you should specify that the Suck-Ass Spectacle (the woman at Jordan also donned an attitude of veneration to the Jordan family) of Vulgarity is a wine-drinking event.
5. The Lancaster wines were, in my opinion, overpriced. Yes, they are great wines. But I have unquestionably drunk plenty of wines equally good for half the cost of what you pay at Lancaster.

From Jordan, we went straight to Truett Hurst, which is like going from Hell (if Hell be a vulgar room overstuffed with pretension and prosperous arrogant white people) to Heaven. The grounds are pretty, the wines are terrific (and reasonably priced), and the people there are knowledgeable and friendly, and there was none of that pretension nor arrogance nor nonsense.

P.S. Yet again, I managed to inspire a sudden and intense aversion in at least one other, simply by my presence. Sometimes, yes, my exuberance can be a big pill for some to swallow. But at Jordan, I was subdued and kept my observations to myself (except once, I could not refrain from whispering to E. that the woman was not only babbling gibberish the likes of which I've not heard since the last time Sarah Palin opened her mouth, hogwash that if you saw the words on a page would make ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE, and everyone was sitting around the table with serious and equally pompous attentive expressions, nodding as if they understood, but she made these pronouncements that were undeniably inaccurate, e.g., that phylloxera was a virus spread by the glassy winged sharp-shooter in the early part of the last century, thus hopelessly entangling and mixing up the two big threats to California vines, i.e., Pierce's disease and the phylloxera root louse, which may seem like no big deal, but it's like telling everyone you are an expert on World War II and then giving Archduke Ferdinand's assassination as the cause for the war, and also saying that it started in 1492), and yet, E. informed me that one woman was mad-dogging me from across the table. At the time, I didn't notice any stink-eye action, let alone that I was the object, but E. reported that the woman's attentions were marked. In our post-mortem, we tried to figure out what I had said or done; however, as I had said and done nothing, we chalked it up to that maybe her golf-shirted, big-gold-watch-wearing, rich white paunchy sexagenarian husband had checked out the landscape when I wasn't looking--I was wearing a dress with a bit of a view of the hills. (Not much. Just enough to keep life interesting. It's not like I went to the wineries looking like Anna Nicole, God bless her--although I wouldn't put it past myself if I had what she did. We all have an obligation to use what we've got.) Or maybe it, like so many things, has nothing to do with me at all and I just happened to bear a slight resemblance to that one neighbor with whom she squabbled over parking 20 years ago and has lain awake nights resenting ever since. Who knows. One of life's little mysteries.

Cheap Wine of the Day

I don't agree that life is too short to drink cheap wine; life is too short to drink bad wine. Not all cheap wines are bad. That having been said, have I got the cheap wine for you: 2007 Gypsy Chariot, Trader Joe's, less than $10. (I think it may actually be $4.99 or $5.99, but I can't find my receipt.) It's a blend of grapes from central California and Sonoma: Cabernet Sauvignon, Petite Sirah, Zinfandel and Sangiovese, so it's got deep color and, it bears repeating, dense fruit. The finish is full of spice and pepper, and lasts longer than you'd expect when you spend this little money.

The caveat: to dig this wine, you have to like the big, high-alcohol fruit bombs--it's not an elegant wine--and you have to be willing to give a little on the structure. The tannins are light for a big red, so for my palate, it's just barely on the right side of lush versus flabby. If you love tannins and acids, if you love delicate Pinot Noir gazelles, then you will see this wine as the hippo.

But me, I might offer this wine to people who are not wine drinkers, because often people who say they don't like wine are reacting to the tannins and/or acidity. And also because the big fruit has such immediate appeal. It's accessible, it's like the 70s pop music of wine. Or it's like the buxom barmaid with the cleavage and the big hair and the gold bangles and the black eyebrows and red lipstick. I love it. Not every wine must be complex. Some wines are simple or unbalanced or wacky, and I have to say that I am starting to develop an appreciation for wines in their many different forms. You don't want the perfect universe in a glass every night. What to pair it with? Big, simple foods, e.g., Pizza, burgers, pasta with marinara sauce, charred grilled items.

Of course, I am the same person who today downloaded an England Dan and John Ford Coley album from iTunes, so my judgment may be suspect. Consider yourself warned.

UPDATE: Here's a second opinion, posted a few days after I posted mine.

I've Been Loving You Too Long

. . . in the immortal words of Etta James.

That Etta James.

Tudo Bem

Yesterday I put A. and B. on the plane. They will be away for a month. I came home and got into the Brazilian Portuguese software. That is a beautiful language. I studied it all four years of college, from beginning Portuguese all the way to advanced Portuguese literature. I confess I do not remember any of the literature studies.

The teacher was a young grad student, very enthusiastic, but very, very nervous, and what I chiefly remember about him is that his shirts were always damp with perspiration. Also, he had very thick, wavy brown hair, and his head seemed a little large for his body. I was young and stupid, you know, these are the kinds of things that captured my limited attention.

You might think that after four years of Portuguese study with the same group of students, I might have made some friends, but no. Remember what an oddity I was. The only other student who sort of became a friend was a woman in her 30s who was the mother of a 3-year-old. Once we went to the beach together, and I was a little shocked that she was still breast-feeding. Again, evidence of my youth and stupidity.

There was, however, one male student of Portuguese who took an interest in me during freshman year. That may surprise you, given how deeply I was steeped in my awkward phase. And yet, there is no accounting for taste. This student lived in married student housing, so I assume he was married. We sometimes bumped into each other on our way to or from campus, as I lived in a dorm off-campus that was just across the street from the married student housing complex. Like our teacher, this student was short. He was older, though, maybe in his early 30s, and had thinning pale orange hair and very white skin with freckles. He wore little round glasses and was given to wearing khaki shorts. Whenever we talked, he stared at my chest. It made me so uncomfortable that eventually, I pretended he did not exist. I sat as far away from him as possible, and when we met on the path, I made believe I did not recognize him. This went on from mid-freshman year until I graduated.

I am happy to say that the Portuguese seems familiar and comfortable, though. Which is not to say that I am at all fluent, or even that I remember enough words to find my way in a country where people mostly speak Portuguese (one hopes that country will be Brazil), or even enough words to order a decent meal in a restaurant, it is only to say that my pronunciation of Portuguese is so much better than my mangling of French, and that I remember basic grammatical principles.

I Like'Em Chunky

. . . in the immortal words of Will.i.am and Hans Zimmer. A. and B. and I can reduce ourselves to giggling idiots just by saying, "I like'em chunky." Because we do.

The last few days I did not like how I was feeling. What I was reading in Emotional Intelligence, was how useful is distraction in managing one's emotions. A. and B. and I watched that silly movie, and we read a lot, and we grilled, and then there are the French lessons, and the wine books. I tried a new wine, from Puglia. It was corked, but even that was interesting, as it doesn't happen very often. We went to the library. (Twice.) I found a new place to walk where there is a lot of precious shade. (Isn't it ridiculous to live in a place where one is grateful for shade at 5 o'clock in the morning?)

I even thought about getting a job. There is a job in San Francisco that was actually offered to me 8 years ago or so. My friend and colleague S. sent the notice to me. The job description might as well have been written for me. It would be an increase in pay (which would certainly be necessary), and it would also obviously mean surrendering some of the things I love about having my own business. I guess I could apply, and leave the decision until or if the job is offered to me again. Though the company might take umbrage at a second rejection. At least it is an option.

The theme for today is that it's better to have options.

UPDATE: In a related note, today I found this quote by William James while doing research for a piece I am writing: My experience is what I agree to attend to.

Well, in that case, my experience today will be getting a lot of work done, learning some French, and finding something fun to do with A. and B.

Rest in Peace, David

I was very sad to hear that David Bromige died. (K. told me.)

When I was in grad school, David was on my graduate committee. He was the first professor I met at Sonoma State, and was the one who made me feel that I had made a good decision in going there. I had heard he was a well-known poet, but I was ignorant. I didn't know his poetry. All I knew of him was my experience of him. He was very kind to me.

Once when he was giving a reading in the Bay area, he stayed with my ex-husband and me, and we had such a good time that we hated to see him leave. He liked our cats very much, especially the big fat one. Later, he sent me a book of poems.

I don't know what else to say about David, except to say that he was gentle and thoughtful and very kind and very funny, and the world will be less bright without him.

Au Revoir, Les Enfants!

Last night, we were in the kitchen having a postprandial piece of chocolate (and I was having a glass of 2006 Sanford Pinot Noir, a shimmering wine), and A. and B. put on my shoes and took turns stalking around. God help me, it was a glimpse into the future.

Yesterday was their graduation from elementary school. It took place in the middle school gymnasium. I believe I was the only single parent in the building. Certainly, from what I could tell, I was the only unaccompanied adult.

If you have been to an elementary school graduation, you know that there were balloons in the school colors, that speeches were given by the elementary and middle school principals, that several children read from essays with topics like "responsibility" and "respect," and that the children mostly looked adorable, some looked awkward, and two or three looked like 20-year-olds. There was one girl in knee-high fringed suede moccasins, a paisley peasant mini dress with big floaty sleeves and big aviator glasses (and lots of makeup) who was a dead ringer for MaryKateandAshley. (Her father makes $150,000 a year styling celebrity hair, as I learned from the girls after Career Day.) One boy was six feet tall. One girl wore a strapless electric blue prom dress. Some of the girls wobbled on high heels.

Maternal pride compels that I report that not only did A. and B. look beautiful (A. wore a red T shirt dress in that sort of Greek style that you see everywhere nowadays with pink leggings and black ballet flats, B. wore a green cotton dress with a scoop neck and black leggings and sparkling zebra print ballet flats--the outfits were a million times cuter than they sound--and both girls wore their hair in the kind of buns favored by ballerinas), but they both won 3 academic awards.

After graduation, I took A. and B. out to dinner and gave them free rein with the menu. As they well deserved. The school year has been a rough one, but they managed, and they did an excellent job. I am very, very proud of them. And also? They are kind and loving and basically happy.

P.S. I will say that it was a little awkward being the only unaccompanied adult in the gymnasium. But the principal made a point of looking over at me and waving and smiling a few times during the ceremony, which was so kind of her. (At first, I didn't realize she was waving at me, so I looked behind me, but there was no one there.)

P.P.S. La voiture is still staying at the luxury hotel in the shop. Who knows how much it will cost. Every so often, I try to inoculate myself against sticker shock by naming a random outrageous sum.

P.P.P.S. Haven't found the operating system disks for the computer yet. Oh well. Again, if this be the worst thing that ever happens to me, I am Fortune's Daughter.

Save Me

. . . in the immortal words of Aretha Franklin.

My friend S. used to teach high school French. I called her this morning.

Me: Bonjour!
S.: Bonjour! Ça va?
Me: Ça ne va pas bien.
S.: [in French, I can't remember how to say it] Oh, no, what happened?
Me: La voiture.
S.: [in French, I can't remember how to say it] What's wrong with it?
Me: Je ne sais pas.
S. [In English] I can't believe how much progress you've made!
Me: Merci!

(Which is so nice of S., particularly as my only new word was voiture, and I didn't even use it in a complete sentence. But she is a very good teacher, very encouraging.) I received my superfancy superexpensive software yesterday. This software--oh my goodness. It's so much fun. I'm going to load it on A.'s and B.'s computer, too. I have already been annoying them with the Bonjour! and the Ça va? and the Où est le chat?

I will load it onto their computer as soon as I solve the new problem, a problem that is, I am very sorry to say, one of my own creation. Sigh. Sigh. Sigh. All full of herself after triumphing over the virus, Ms. Smartypants (that would be me) decided it would be a good idea to change the Administrator's name AND add a password. But I must have hit a wrong key somehow, as I am now locked out of the damn thing, though I have typed in the name and password a million times. Oh, and I also disabled the Guest account, which action may be filed under Seemed Like a Good Idea At the Time.

The only solutions I've found are to download free password-breaking software (which seems very risky) or re-load the operating system, which disks I no longer have, as that computer is all of 9 years old. Pantalon!

If anyone has a better solution, break it out.

P.S. Just heard from Dumas Bill at the dealer's, thusly nicknamed because yesterday he called to tell me what wasn't wrong with my car:

Dumas Bill: Well, it won't start at all.
Me: Yes, I know, that's why I had it towed to you.
Dumas Bill: And we know it's not a dead battery.
Me: Yes, I know, because all the dash lights come on and BECAUSE THERE IS A DIGITAL MESSAGE ON THE DASH THAT SAYS,"TRANS PROGRAM."
Dumas Bill: [on the inside, and I am just guessing] What a bitch.

Today, I tried to be a little more pleasant, even though Dumas Bill's message can be summed up as "We still don't know what's wrong with your car, but it's going to cost at least $450 to find out, and that's before the labor clock even starts ticking on repairs, and by the way? You don't even want to know how much parts cost. You know how expensive German stuff is."

Now I have to go figure out about renting une voiture, as A. and B.'s 5th grade graduation is tonight, and S. won't be able to drive us, as she has to get ready for a sudden business trip to the Big-Ass State, and I can't ask my mother because I had a little disagreement with Her Crazy the other day and I'm still not over it.

Je Suis En Forme

If life can be compared to baked goods, yesterday was a crap cupcake. Let me toss out a few key words:

trans program AND towtruck AND new mechanic AND unresponsive car insurance customer service representative SO new car insurance AND new dental insurance AND new dentist AND appointments to fill multiple cavities for both girls THEREFORE much faxing and completing of paperwork AND computer virus

That's not even counting work, which included an impromptu conference call and a proposal due by the end of the day. Je suis fatiguée, so fatiguée that I don't even remember turning off the alarm at 5 this morning.

The computer virus was the frosting. I was at the computer (not mine, the girls') until the wee hours, running anti-virus programs and re-starting in safe mode, and every time I thought I'd solved the problem, there it was again. (Some malware program pinned itself to startup, and has taken over the desktop and disabled task manager and system restore, among other functions.) Today I am going to try the msconfig solution. Wish me luck.

But you know, if these are the worst things that ever happen to me, I am fortunate indeed. Much worse things have happened, and guess what, I lived through it. Hahahahahahahahaha!

Yesterday was, as my friend S. said, a very grown-up day, in that it was a day of TCB. I do what I have to do. Not much makes one feel better than managing one's responsibilities. Although I confess that I can think of a few events that might have an even more elevating effect. If little dollar bill plants suddenly sprouted among the rocks in the yard, for example.

When I was in college, one of my roommates used to bake cookies and cakes during finals, which habit mystified me. Whence cameth the Inner Resources to do such a thing at such a time of stress? But in the evening, I donned my apron and made a dinner of fajitas, after which I baked a strawberry tart. I didn't even think about it, just got out the flour and the sugar and butter and got to work; it seemed like the best thing to do under the circumstances.

UPDATE: I did it! I ran msconfig, then reviewed the startup tasks, and removed those of a suspicious appearance, and the startup mess is gone, and I have control of the desktop and functions again. Hallelujah, and thank you, Mr. Google.