BIG Saturday

Hi. It’s Sunday now and I am writing about Saturday. I gotta get caught up here. We do have alot planned for today. First and foremost, is another advent gift. I received a container of peanut butter cookies. So, guess what I had for breakfast? Thats right, the cookies. The oerfect accompaniment to coffee and newspaper. Its the weekend, I get a weak paper.

We are leaving at around 10 to go to Auburn to meet our contractor, George, for the first time. I have spoken to him several times on the phone. Not a total stranger and recommended by someone I trust.

But, right now, I am in the front room wrapping Christmas gifts. I need to wrap my dads, his live in’s, my sister and bro in laws gifts because I am headed down to Visalia to see Dad. And Vince the bro in law is visiting so I can do the hand off. I have to wrap about 20 or so things. Includes sissie’s birthday gifts, her day is tomorrow. 59. Ouch. She is still short.

So, I wrapped gifts till 10 am. Emily got done, to an extent, with her glass house work. Truly, she is never really done. Always a project in motion.

We left for Auburn about 10 after. Made a stop for Emily to get a bucket o diet coke at McDonalds and off. We got to the lot very swiftly, well under an hour. Our contractor was there and he was talking to a couple neighbors. Since the only neighbors on the road own the 12,000 sf home at the end of the road, I figured it was them. What kind of person builds a mansion that size? Yes, an asshole. Carl was quite unpleasant, indirectly, in many ways. He went on a rant about how difficult it had been to get his behemoth built with the county and friends of the river, etc. he really was not pleasant. He also clearly stated he thought our property unbuildable and why hadn’t we checked with him before we did anything. Large ego. Thats why he was not wearing a hat. His wife Joan was there as well. She is a balance for him. She was quiet and friendly. Welcome to the hood.

Carl and Joan left. We spent the next hour discussing various aspects of our future construction with George. We both like George. Thats a good sign. This full process is probably a year long. We also concluded that the county will never allow us to put up a yurt. George explained that clear as a bell. I am disappointed but we are moving forward. Emily and I have not lost sight of the goal. We wont be living on the property during construction and may need temporary housing to boot since our house is for sale.

We returned home a little after 230. We will be wrapping Christmas gifts till we leave at 4. If not mentioned before, we are going to a wine dinner in Napa tonight. Our neighbors and friends, Barb and Kirk, are going with us.

Emily is a wine club member at Goose Cross Winery in Yountville. We were at a tasting last summer and she decided we should go to this event. Here we are.

We picked up our friends around 415. We made it to the winery by 530 after a leisurely drive. No real traffic. And we are 30 mins early. But, they had some wine for us to drink, surprise. While we were sitting in the greeting area, other guests arriving, the host passed out some little cards for us to record what we are thankful for. They were going to judge the best responses, with winner taking home the nicest bottle they had. Ahh, a competition, and writing to boot. I thought for a couple minutes and decided topical humor was the best approach. Here is my card, I wrote on the back as well.
May not be my best work, I am never satisfied, but ok. Barb really got into the competition factor. I love a competitive game and this was a good one. No rules, write what you want, as much as you want. She was even trash talking. That Barb.

The dinner will be served in the winery/barrel room/wine room whatever you call it.
This dinner is fancy. With well thought out wine pairings. The menu:

The venue:

As fancy as it can get for a wine room. I can say, the entire meal was superb. I got full and kept eating. Good thing there was only five courses. This is what last meals are made of.

We sat for awhile after the meal was done. None of us were able to move anyway. Kept drinking wine and they kept pouring it as well. A fine time was had by all. People were just sitting around in post orgiastic feast, groaning. Like I said, it was good.

So, we got to the part of the evening where the host had a few words to say. Our host, Nick, is a Brit. Has a nice sense of humor, some would say he is funny. Not me. As a matter of fact I compared him to Steve who went to Belize with me a couple months ago. Not funny. Anyway, he got up and said a few words. Then he started into the cards. Remember the cards for what we are thankful for? He had about 50 to 60 entries. He said it was difficult to pick just one blah blah then he got down to it “and the winner is..is Bill Vivier here?” Yep. I won. Take that Barb and your attitude. Ha. So Nick read a few lines of my entry, I got some applause and a very good expensive bottle of wine. Yay Bill. I spoke to Nick afterward, he did not vote for mine. Hence his noted lack of humor. Prick. Several of the other voters (employees) came up over the balance of the evening to tell me how much they appreciated my humor. I have fans. Go figure. When Barb asked earlier if I thought blogging would help me in this contest, lets go with hell yes. And, btw, I am really going to enjoy this wine. And Barb is coming to drink some as well. Which is nice of me. And she is already very upset she lost. Its sad. We love her.

Well, the rest of the evening was short. We went back over to the serving room for wine, coffee and truffles. A nice end to the event. I got a few more congrats while there which is enough to over-inflate my ego a bit. Got to show off my swag bag, the only one in the place of course, when you got the swag, you get to brag. Which is a rhyme, Barb please take note. I rhymed. Love you.

We drove home. I drove. I am least likely to get pulled over. I counted the evenings consumed wine glasses and time. I am good. We had a short trip and really just talked about how nice it was. They did put on a dinner that was a step above everything else. Just fantastic. We are all glad we went.

We got home after midnite. We went straight to bed.