Life in wine country, plus weekend plans
A very nice weekend! Action packed!
Friday I went on the Connecticut wine trail with my new friend Rebecca. (That's right: Connecticut has wine country, and I may have made a friend after a year of bumming around Bristol.) We visited a couple of vineyards, tasted wines, went traipsing about. And it couldn't have been a better day. Eighty degrees, cool, sunny and great.
I bought four bottles of wine: a sweet Reisling, semi-dry red, honey apple wine and an "ice wine" where the grapes are picked while frozen and made with four times the amount of grapes to make.
The first place, Hopkins Vinyard, was just covered in money. The kind of place where you talk in hushed tones all the time.
It's up in the hills off a lake, everything lush and green. The big red barn is the main building. There didn't appear to be much to walk around in, though. But it was beautiful country!
We drove up on the next place, Haight Vineyard in Litchfield, to an empty lot in front of an old-looking farm house. We opened the big wooden doors, and were greeted by the smell of must, dust and wood. Nothing but the faint whispers of classical music. Stuffed animal heads line the walls. A wax statue stands in the adjacent room holding a clipboard. His face is dropping, the eye sockets hanging past the eyes. One hand is missing a finger.
We go up the stairs, and an old Asian woman about 5 feet tall asks us if we want to taste some wine. It's a bit nicer up here, though still a little run down. Hand-written signs are on all the merchandise and bric-a-brac saying "CHILDREN DON'T TOUCH!" Still, it was pretty nice. The very nice part was that we got to walk through some of the grape patches.
Rebecca dropped me off at home, and I spent much of that time napping. We met up later that night to go dancing in Hartford, but Rebecca wasn't feeling the scene too much and wanted to go home, so we did. Was about maybe an hour or so, spent as much time on the road. It was a real bummer, but it was still nice to get out.
We made plans for me to come over her house for a bonfire party Saturday night, but she never got back to me. I've had a lot of experiences with Connecticut people being flaky, and part of me chalked it up to that, but I had a feeling something had happened. The next morning I found out she had fallen and hit her head, and was kept in the ER all night with a concussion. We're trying to meet again soon, but we'll see.
Otherwise I spent the weekend hanging out, watching TV, cleaning, etc.
This week is busy. I have begun packing up for my three-day weekend. There's a lot going on:
Thursday: Meeting and hanging out in New York with a media maven and Yahoo! exec I know, who is visiting from California. Friday is my business meeting; clothes-wise I'm going for corporate but stylish.
Friday: In Philly in the afternoon. Will try to see my grandmother, then Rosemary. Sex Dwarf is that night, and we're wearing red and black for the anniversary. I don't have a lot of red clothes, and I don't want to dress up a lot. I rather liked wearing just an undershirt and swim trunks last time! All those other times in suits and ties and crap, forget it! I have some little black shorts that might be fun, but I don't know. I don't want to scare anyone!
Saturday: Planned photoshoot with Carly. I'll likely have to go out to Doylestown for it, so lots of travel time. Get back to Rosemary as soon as I can, and then a night in with her.
Sunday: Bus leaves at 11, and then back to Connecticut and work that night, bleary-eyed as all hell. Whee!
Friday I went on the Connecticut wine trail with my new friend Rebecca. (That's right: Connecticut has wine country, and I may have made a friend after a year of bumming around Bristol.) We visited a couple of vineyards, tasted wines, went traipsing about. And it couldn't have been a better day. Eighty degrees, cool, sunny and great.
I bought four bottles of wine: a sweet Reisling, semi-dry red, honey apple wine and an "ice wine" where the grapes are picked while frozen and made with four times the amount of grapes to make.
The first place, Hopkins Vinyard, was just covered in money. The kind of place where you talk in hushed tones all the time.
It's up in the hills off a lake, everything lush and green. The big red barn is the main building. There didn't appear to be much to walk around in, though. But it was beautiful country!
We drove up on the next place, Haight Vineyard in Litchfield, to an empty lot in front of an old-looking farm house. We opened the big wooden doors, and were greeted by the smell of must, dust and wood. Nothing but the faint whispers of classical music. Stuffed animal heads line the walls. A wax statue stands in the adjacent room holding a clipboard. His face is dropping, the eye sockets hanging past the eyes. One hand is missing a finger.
We go up the stairs, and an old Asian woman about 5 feet tall asks us if we want to taste some wine. It's a bit nicer up here, though still a little run down. Hand-written signs are on all the merchandise and bric-a-brac saying "CHILDREN DON'T TOUCH!" Still, it was pretty nice. The very nice part was that we got to walk through some of the grape patches.
Rebecca dropped me off at home, and I spent much of that time napping. We met up later that night to go dancing in Hartford, but Rebecca wasn't feeling the scene too much and wanted to go home, so we did. Was about maybe an hour or so, spent as much time on the road. It was a real bummer, but it was still nice to get out.
We made plans for me to come over her house for a bonfire party Saturday night, but she never got back to me. I've had a lot of experiences with Connecticut people being flaky, and part of me chalked it up to that, but I had a feeling something had happened. The next morning I found out she had fallen and hit her head, and was kept in the ER all night with a concussion. We're trying to meet again soon, but we'll see.
Otherwise I spent the weekend hanging out, watching TV, cleaning, etc.
This week is busy. I have begun packing up for my three-day weekend. There's a lot going on:
Thursday: Meeting and hanging out in New York with a media maven and Yahoo! exec I know, who is visiting from California. Friday is my business meeting; clothes-wise I'm going for corporate but stylish.
Friday: In Philly in the afternoon. Will try to see my grandmother, then Rosemary. Sex Dwarf is that night, and we're wearing red and black for the anniversary. I don't have a lot of red clothes, and I don't want to dress up a lot. I rather liked wearing just an undershirt and swim trunks last time! All those other times in suits and ties and crap, forget it! I have some little black shorts that might be fun, but I don't know. I don't want to scare anyone!
Saturday: Planned photoshoot with Carly. I'll likely have to go out to Doylestown for it, so lots of travel time. Get back to Rosemary as soon as I can, and then a night in with her.
Sunday: Bus leaves at 11, and then back to Connecticut and work that night, bleary-eyed as all hell. Whee!