Happy December!

Where has the year gone? I know I get a FAIL for the last 6 months at this blogging thing, but I am committed to try and come back now that things have calmed down at work.

Harvest was great this year. We just threw ourselves a little post-harvest BBQ at our sister-winery, where we had great food (from our own caterers), fantastic wine (ours, duh.), and awesome company. I think I’ve lucked out with being able to work with people I actually *like*. We ended the event off at one of the big-wigs place next door for more wine, a pool table, and live music- double points for working with those that are also musicians.

Unfortunately I had to head off early to make it to the tech rehearsal for a show at a little thing called The Dickens Fair. If you haven’t been you should make a point of going- all the cool kids are doing it, so you know you want to.

Being back in the North Bay has been great, although I must admit that I’ve been so busy it really wouldn’t matter where I live for the most part. I’m looking forward to my down time in January.

Well Hello There..

I've obviously got a new position at work. Long time no type- and I don't even have time now. Hope everyone is well. I'm hoping to start blogging again, but with Harvest getting into gear it's doubtful it'll be consistent.

In the mean time, here's a little blurb I found interesting:

Part of that comes from a lifetime of mixed messages about what it means to be
strong. We've grown up watching the Hillary Clintons of the world vilified for
being pushy, while our soft-spoken colleagues struggle to rise up the corporate
ladder. Society, pop culture and the media all encourage us to be tough but sexy
in the process. In a way, we're hybrids of the 1950s woman, who was forced to
conform, the 1970s woman who refused to, with a bit of 21st-century porn culture
thrown in. We live with outdated expectations about what's acceptable, while
pressuring ourselves to achieve it all.

The rest found HERE.

Cheers!

I'm Rubber You're Glue

I don't know why I should ever be surprised at peoples rudeness and ability to be inconsiderate.

To sum up the latest example, one of the managers came to me yesterday and asked if I would have a few of the workers change their voicemail. The person's position I took over was his girlfriend, and she passed away about a year ago from cancer. She was the one that recorded the voicemail messages for the work phones, and so now when he calls the guys and they don't answer, it's his dead ex-girlfriend's voice he has to listen to if he wants to leave a message.

One guy refused.

I get that the guy that asked is a bit of a dick, so you may want to be a dick back. But really- isn't there a line?

Good thing it's a work phone and he ultimately doesn't have a choice.

Hump Day

The Hubby is away, and after a delicious long bath I'm now sitting in front of the TV eating hot & spicy beef jerkey. To add to the evening I found a little gem of a show on the gospel channel called Clash of the Choirs. WTF?
I can't decide if I'm in heaven or hell.

Sent from my iPhone

Second Annual Big Sur Camping

This last weekend was the second annual camping trip to Big Sur. Due to the huge fire last year we had to pick a new campground that wasn't burnt down and settled on the lovely Plaskett Creek. (I say this like I had anything to do with it, when in fact I had nothing to do with the planning.)

The group is about 20 people with the most thing in common being that we all like to eat good food and drink lots of booze. With every couple having a weekend assignment everybody ends up well fed and super hydrated.



We purchased a new tent this year, since I was sick of having to sleep on top of my bags as well as The Husband. Behold, the new castle:

We arrive in the early afternoon and begin to set up camp, while the first crew prepares dinner. What's great about this group is that cooking for 20 people always turns out great, in part because of every ones planning, but also because our neighbors take grilling very seriously and we always show up to the campsite with a full tow-behind pit. Yeah, professional. This is only one side of it:
Every time we go camping we end up with people walking by telling us they want to come with our group the next time. The Grill is impressive and shows people that we mean business, we've now got a good showing of very large tents, and always a plethora of games. The glow in the dark bocce ball didn't make it out this year, but we did have Cornhole and some ball throwing game that I was horrible at.
My favorite part of the weekend had to be our Booze Guy. After setting camp up we start drinking, and when The Booze Guy gets there he slams a large container of margaritas down. The next 24 hours was a bit of a fast-paced blur, but I did manage to take pictures and label them for every ones convenience:

Somehow a few of us started talking about gin, and when I mentioned the Bombay Sapphire was the best, The Booze Guy stood up from his camping chair, spiked his open beer into the fire and stormed away, only to return with a fabulous Costco bottle of liquid deliciousness.

We didn't tap into it the first night, but instead drank the rest of the margaritas, beer, and Crown. I woke up still under the influence at 6AM to start preparing for breakfast, and The Booze Man showed up at 7 and began making his magic Gin Fizzes. We finished the bottle well before noon, and after breakfast a nap was in order.

In the afternoon we walked to the beach- one of the nicest on the central coast in my opinion.

This was our sunset:

*Sigh* Gotta love California.

I have no good excuse for a blogging absence. I think about it in fleeting moments during the day, but for some reason playing a game of spider solitaire takes precedence.

Harvest is slowly approaching and I'm sure three months from now if I have a lapse in blogs I will actually have a reason for it. I love the look of the vineyards this time of the year- it seems they go from their dormant state to buds in a week’s span- gotta love chemicals.

This past weekend was Fab's birthday. We had planned to go camping, however FabRic decided to come to Monterey for the night instead.

Naturally, The Hubby and I wanted to meet them and make the most of the beautiful coast, and-of course- when presented with the options for the day they chose wine tasting (somehow it never gets old). The plan was to cruise by Cannery Row since Fab has never been there before, followed by a drive to Carmel Valley to continue wine tastings. Yeah...Lets just say we didn't make it out of Monterey.

Cannery Row wasn't as busy as I thought it'd be, and our first stop was Baywood Cellars. I've never heard of them but they had a nice tasting room and a great guy and his dog working there. One of the best things about working in the wine industry is that at most places I don't pay for tastings (if they charge) and I often get about 30% off. Why would I not buy something if it's delicious?!
The guy had a heavy hand. Not to mention that we hadn't eaten lunch yet. I had to get the 2007 Termpranillo because its hints of smokiness demanded that I serve it with something that had bacon in it. Don't ask.

Our next stop was Scheid. I can't even count how many times I've been there since it is the closest tasting room to our house- and we are surrounded by their vineyards. They just opened up a tasting room on Cannery Row- and if you're in the area you have to stop by at least to check out their bathroom. They guys sure didn't care about it, but Fab and I were impressed. Of course we get to talking, the tasting room guy gets to pouring, we get to drinking. We leave happy.

I think we realized that we weren't moving on to Carmel Valley- so we improvised and we to A Taste of Monterey. This is the view from the tasting counter:

More wine was of course purchased- I'm not sure what they tasted like, but apparently we thought they were good. I was disappointed because they weren't pouring any Pianetta winewhich is one of my favorites (plug for Caitlin and her fam.), but none the less we were content.

We were not too intoxicated to come to the conclusion that we had some of the best calamari. Ever.
Unfortunately, that coincided with this:

On one hand I was smart enough to forgo the temptation of a delicious dirt sapphire martini, on the other I will concede that the pink sugary booze thingy I got in lieu of a martini was not a smart idea either. I cannot be sure, but I think we had a bottle of wine during dinner also. Why don't I learn?
The next event I was about to mention, bay in fact not have been the next event. In writing this it has occurred to me that I can't recall if the bar came before or after dinner. Either way it was another bad idea. I don't know WHY THE HELL this would happen:

Even worse, The Hubby claims that I am the one that got Fab the birthday shot- which I ended up drinking part of. What I am also failing to understand is why these next to pictures occurs, but here they are for your enjoyment:

I didn't even have to crop them. Somehow, Jaeger=boobs. Things get fuzzier from there, as we headed to the hotel where FabRic were staying so we could hit up there classy bar. (Why are people still serving us?!) I am told martinis were in order (WHY?).

Next thing I know, I'm on a dance floor. The Hubby is pissed off.

From what I gather I had gone to the bathroom at the hotel, which happens to be in front of the entrance to the ballroom...Where an event is going on. Yeah, I crashed it. I was dancing like I belonged, and still have no idea what group the party was for. I may have been the youngest of the group, the only one in casual clothes with tattoos showing, but I'm sure I had fun, if not at least provided some of the guests with something to talk about amongst themselves. The Hubby said we went back to the bar and FabRic were nowhere to be found.

We hit up the Jack in the Box drive-thru, and then rented a hotel room down the street from where we used to live. I was up and at'em at 7AM with a raging headache- but quite happy we had a hotel room and weren't stupid enough to drive.

Well, Happy Birthday Fab! At least we got some cute pics before things got sloppy.

Attitude

"The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than success, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company...a home...a relationship. The remarkable thing is, we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past...we cannot change the fact that other people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the strength we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10 percent of what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it."

"Have no fear of perfection. You'll never reach it." ~ Salvador Dali

I Smell You

We need to talk about this and it needs to be serious.

Who the f*@k came up with the concept for the Hollister stores?

Really- I need to know. And not only that, but who approved it? Are the sales for a store that you are unable to not only see in, hear in, but even smell in, really justifying it?

In a desperate search for khakis last night we decide to walk in and take a quick peak around. Besides the over-powering perfume smell, the music was so loud that when an employee asked us…uh, something, we obviously couldn’t hear fuck-all.

I will concede that I am not necessarily their target shopper. I am not 14, my wardrobe does not consist of 22 pairs of the same but different show-my-cooter-booty shorts and skirts and leave-nothing-to-the-imagination-shirts (OK, I still have a few of those), nor do I feel like dropping my panties at every pre-pubescent surfer boy that works there. That does not mean that they should make it impossible for me and those like me to peruse their wares and perhaps by a gift for somebody other than myself.

But let’s continue to be honest here. I really don’t think they want me there. First, you smell the store 200 meters before you can even see the damn store front, which smells like they have spilled a gallon of what I can only compare to the present teenagers version of our Cool Water Cologne. When you finally do come up to the store the only thing you can focus on is the insanely over-sexual headless mannequins. The pants on the males are so low you are barely spared the sight of his mock junk.

Why yes, my grandma would totally buy things for her grandkids here, thank you for asking.

There is one 15-17 year old girl by the front of the store who is apparently stuck behind a table, and as I walk around the women’s half of the store I realize…I can’t see a damn thing. My eye sight is impeccable, but I’d be damned if I would be able to search for a specific color because there was nothing but low lighting. We quickly leave since The Hubby claims he’s rapidly loosing brain cells and may strangle a small boy.


Our mistake was coming back a short time later since one shirt on the girly mannequin was so cute I decided I had to try it on.

We walked in and the aforementioned girl is complaining to some surfer boy about how cold it was behind her little table (of course it’s cold, we’re in Monterey. Maybe wear something that would indicate that you understand we’re not in San Diego. Like a sweater. Do they sell those here??) I see the shirt I like on another mannequin in front of Girl, and although I am polite and say "excuse me", they fail notice despite being a foot in a half away. The Hubby says it again louder, and when they look up he asks if they work here, and the girl gives him a dirty look since they obviously do. We ask where the shirt in question would be located and they said they were out.
“What about the one on the mannequin?”
“We can’t sell clothes off the mannequins.”
"Excuse me?"
"We can't sell the clothes that are on the mannequins."
“Well that makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“Uhh…Sorry.”
As I was dragging him out of the store he began to ask if we could just steal it off of the mannequins since they didn’t care to pay attention to their customers anyways. I’m not sure how much they heard, but when we were completely out he proclaimed that that store is an example as to why some people commit suicide.

I found this on the web, comparing Hollister and Wet Seal:
DIFFERENT WORLDS.
Within the first five feet, Hollister's total experience (left) envelops you with its clean beach smell, faux beach shack facade, and outfitted mannequins all leaving no doubt what's inside for the 'dudes' and 'bettys'.
The Wet Seal experience (right) is the polar opposite of Hollister with its bland gray walls and overwhelming clutter leaving the shopper feeling bewildered and unhinged.
© 2006 Haynes & Company

Um, what Hollister did you go to? I spent part of my time during university living by the beach and I can assure you- THAT is not a clean beach smell, but rather it is an “I’m high and I need to cover the weed smell from my mom” smell. And apparently “outfitted” excludes shirts for male mannequins. Furthermore, this “faux beach shack” is more like a faux private beach house in Laguna Beach.

Love Me Some Vulcan

Is it weird that I want to do naughty things to the new Spock?

Just wondering.

On a related note, Star Trek was amazingly awesome. I was always more of a Next Generation kind of girl who shunned Deep Space Nine and Voyager like the original Star Trek fans must have shunned TNG. Jean-Luc Picard may be categorized as the first older man I had a little thing for (who, for the record, does not compare to the Delicious Silver Fox himself- Anderson Cooper- and now that I think about it, he doesn't have the age difference that Patrick Stewart has).

I wasn't terribly excited to see the new Star Trek movie, besides that the special effects looked like they'd be best on a larger than life screen. Holy crap was I wrong. Without giving too much away about the movie: the special effects were fantastic, the story was wonderful- not only feasibly fitting in with the other movies, but have a little bit of romance, and comedy tossed in perfectly. Casting and even the music was great.

And I want to do naughty things with the new Spock. Did I mention that already? (Sorry hun, but let's keep it real, right?) I have yet to determine if it's how Zachary Quinto plays Spock, or if Zachary Quinto is my new celebrity crush.

Meat for my Baby

When I'm hanging out at a bar/pub tossing back a few Liquid Panty Removers, I will be bold enough to say that meat is not the first thing on my mind. No really- the moo-moo kind, not the every loving tube-steak. OK, OK, maybe the I'm-really-drunk-and-need-to-indulge-in-steak-super-nachos-even-though-I'll-regret-it-later meat, but that's not the meat in question. I'm talking about purchasing dollar raffle tickets so you can win a tray of meat to take home and toss in the freezer for dinner tomorrow. While you're drunk at a bar.

I know what you're thinking (unless you're from Minnesota or the UK). Does this shit happen? Why yes, yes it does. It's a mother-fuckin' meat raffle, bitches.

Isn't Food Network educational? If I was in Minnesota tonight I could justify going out to get shit housed under the guise of trying to get some meat for mother's day tomorrow. I bet you I could get some extra dollar bills from The Hubby for it too. The extra great part about it is that if I come back with nothing but a buzz and some glitter on me all I have to say is that I spent all my money on raffle tickets but stupid Maud down the street landed the rack of lamb. I could be hung over for mother's day but it would be acceptable because I was trying to put food on the table for our celebration.



I can just see The Hubby stumbling in late from a night at the bar, "but honey, I got you some ribeye!" in all slurs.


But let's get serious. The fact of the matter is that I'm in the Bay Area, not Minnesota, and if I went somewhere that advertised a Meat Raffle I don't think I'd necessarily get something saran-wrapped to a tray.

Then again, maybe it just wouldn't be on a tray.

I feel like I've been blogging about a lot of things that bother me lately, so on the way to work this morning I decided to write about something that makes me happy.


Old School Hip Hop. I love me the hippity-hoppity. I was lucky enough growing up that my mom would not only let me listen to it, but she'd sing along with me- even if it was Eminem. (There is nothing like a middle aged woman singing about Eminem throwing his baby's mama in a lake. My mom rocks.)

One time when I was young I was listening to a mixed tape of songs I had recorded of the radio on my Walkman. The song was Salt-n-Peppa's Push It, and when my neighbor grabbed my headphones to find out what I was listening to I thought I was going to get in trouble for listening to a nasty song. She just sang along.

I didn't really know what Cake Boy was about either, but Innocent M and I sure did get down to that Sir Mix-A-Lot jam. (If you're not sure what a Cake Boy is, check it HERE. )

And what about Tigra and Bunny? They liked the Cars That Go Boom. I didn't even know what the name of their "group" was until I looked it up just now. Innocent M and I only knew the one little part of the song, but I'm sure we thought we were bad ass (BAMF if you will) singing that with our florescent clothes and pegged pants.

Oh, and I Like Big Butts and I cannot lie. Why want to?

Only 5% smarter than what you work with, that's all.

I’d love to help you fix your broken phone. Except not only is it not broken, but it’s all in Spanish. I can still figure it out- because it’s not a smart phone, and I did graduate college. I can call in. I can call out. Problem? Nope. I’m thinking it’s user error.

Oh- the next day you still can’t operate it? Um…The thing about a keypad lock- besides it being functional- is that since it’s not a smart phone it gives you instructions on how to unlock the keypad. (Menu-*). Sure, the instructions are in Spanish- you know, the language you put it on and natively speak, but even with my crappy Spanish I figured out the little abbreviated foreign words.

If you put the phone back in English I’m sure I can quickly take your keypad lock off for you so you don’t keep bringing it in to me saying it’s broken. Or you can go in and take the keypad lock off yourself. Or- I know! - push "menu" then "*" before you try and use it next time. I am a problem solver.

And this is me, putting that degree to good use.

I'm not sure why this is one of the things on my short list of those that set me off.

Email forwards.

And I’m not talking “It’s National Girlfriend Day” where I’m declared so-and-so’s top girlfriends and send it back to the sender too so we can all feel validated and have a lot of friends-who-forward-us-shit, or the “I’m packing my bags and moving to Utah (or wherever)” which includes a calendar of scantily clad hotties sprawled across the Utah landscape.

No, I’m talking about the ignorant hate-spewing emails about politics and family values that are full of “facts” that hold up like water in a sieve. Emails that are prejudice and ethnocentric that the sender thinks are moral and religiously righteous. My political party is better than your political party because of “this”. Your President/Senator/ whomever is a douche because “this” happened 15 years ago. Hatemongering lightly veiled by “patriotism”. Even the stupid ones that may seem like no big deal, but are so incorrect that I can’t believe somebody would not pay attention to what they are forwarding on to their WHOLE FUCKING ADDRESS BOOK.

The latest one I received asked “Do you remember 1987…Thought you might be interested in this forgotten bit of information…” Since I did not know about the subject is went on about about, I looked it up. Yeah, that’s right- *research*, bitches. With the Internet it literally takes about 5 seconds. Could it be that this “information” may have been forgotten because IT’S NOT FUCKING TRUE?? Yeah, possibly.

So what did I do? I replied “all” and supplied my link to prove the whole thing was misconstrued BS. I was kind in my few words and simply stated “”Forgotten-no, inaccurate-yes.”

I’m a little bit of a bitch. I am aware of this though, and know I should be more tolerant of people I find ignorant. It's not necessarily the ignorance, it's the people who are perpetuating ignorance. Ugh....yeah, yeah, working on it...

You can find a link to the forwarded email in question HERE.

Hippo Birdy Two Ewe

I love to dress up, that’s no secret (not like that- get your mind out of the gutter). I’m a big fan of theme parties and acting silly- life is too short not to.

This last weekend was BigA’s birthday party, and one of the reasons that she and I get along so well is that she’s big into dressing up also. So, while I was at the party store looking for an Anything-But-Pink Birthday Crown I stumbled across some cheesy but fun fiesta attire. They did say they were doing tacos for dinner…The Hubby, however, didn’t think the outfits would be PG13. Dammit. I called her anyway and told her what I had found, and she insisted that I go back and get them. While I was at it I got cone party hats, a birthday crown, and super cute lollipop's for the girls- because I care.

The party was good, consisting of some fire dancing:

Sitting around singing silly songs with a gee-tar:

And of course there was karaoke. For the record I told BigA that it would be fun to have, but I was sure I’d take NO part in it. That was a sack of crap- my voice was horse the next day:
There's nothing like a bunch of drunk girls singing Pat Benatar songs at the top of their lungs.

After all the big kids (and really little) had retired for the night, we headed up to the bedroom to change. Of course we needed to toss on our roller skates too in order to make the outfits complete:

We had to take the bottles of beer out of their little holsters to skate around in order to prevent horrendous party fouls.
Unfortunately, because of the fiesta costumes this came out:
I think I made ConeGirl and her hubby take a few. But it's not "making" them if they want it already, right?

The girls enjoyed putting things in their mouths*:

Everyone enjoyed the hats- in more ways than one:

At one point BigA demanded that the stripper pole be put up- cause really, what is a party without a bolted in stripper pole. (Duh): This was completely innocent, and in fact I believe this took place in order to prove that she won best ass during a scavenger hunt:

Somebody had the great idea to bring a bunch of granny-panties and hide them all over the house (including the freezer). I'm pretty sure she's still finding them:
All in all it was another late night party at the BigA household, which always leads to me taking at least a half a year off my life. Worth it? Usually. Except for the amazingly huge bug bite on my heel.

* I did a little distorting this time instead of cute hearts and stars over faces...a little creepy, I'm not gonna lie. I think I may stick to the cute shit.

P.S. Did you know that smoking kills?

Spring has (kind of) Sprung

We had two 100 degree days, followed by some not so great days and now it's cold out. Mother Nature obviously thinks she's funny.

In preparation for spring The Hubby slapped this together:

We've yet to get the soil to add to it, but we do have green beans ready to be planted, as well as these cucumbers that were gifted to us:We live in the "Salad Bowl of the World", and even though neither one of us works in the produce industry almost everyone else does. This leads to things like getting free plants, free bags organic dried cranberries, loads of lettuce- including some custom stuff you can't get in the specialty stores yet, and watching everybody jump on their Blackberry's at the same time while camping in the middle of nowhere because of a contamination scare (last year it was tomatoes, the year before was spinach). I now know more about produce and the produce industry than I ever cared to.

Speaking of killing things, I thought our poor little lemon tree was doomed by the end of winter, but amazing things happen when you actually start taking care of things. Ya know, like giving it water and taking it out of the container it's been in for a year:

The nice thing is that pretty much anything grows in this damn hard soil we have. We also had some flowers gifted to us that we've yet to plant- let's hope I don't kill those before we can manage to get them in the ground. Why did my mother not pass on her green thumb? Mine is sort-of a faint green-ish, but usually only when in-doors.

Bonus Picture:

This is Innocent M's kid when she went shopping for hats with us before Drag Queen Bingo. We're training her to be fabulous, obviously.