Category: Wine

Sore arms and sunshine

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
Sunny, warm, and windy. Don’t smoke ’em if you got ’em, please.

Well, here we are, enjoying our first Monday of total vaccination.

Not really. It’ll be a couple weeks before we’re deemed properly armed against The Bug® v1.0. But we’ve both had both shots, and so far the side effects seem mostly minimal.

Herself required a longish nap the day after she got stuck, and so did I. Sore arms for both of us, too. But the procedures went even more smoothly than before, zip and zip and zip. I’ve seen slower Golden Pride drive-thrus.

Before bagging some Z’s yesterday I went out for a short stroll to keep all the pivot points well oiled. It was shorts weather. The official high was 83 degrees, three short of the record and 11 above normal. Less than an inch of precip’ since Jan. 1. “No significant weather was observed,” adds the NWS. Ohhhhhh-kay.

Today we have more of the same, with single-digit humidity and winds from the southwest that could hit 50 mph. We’re already had a couple small fires in Torrance and San Miguel counties and it would be nice if we didn’t have any more, please and thank you.

In other weather news, freak cold snaps devastate vineyards in France. In The Washington Post, Rick Noack writes: “By the end of France’s big freeze, at least one third of this year’s wine harvest and many other crops were lost, in what by some estimates was the country’s worst agricultural disaster of the century. It may take years for some vineyards to recover.”

I guess we’ll all be smoking weed before much longer. That shit will grow anywhere, under any conditions. The roaches will be toking up long after Gaia has given us the shove.

Shocktober!

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 2 Comments

How the hell did it get to be October already? Herself and I were just enjoying some adult beverages on the back deck, watching the critters gambol on the lawn, and had to beat it indoors before the sun had truly set because we were freezing our whatsises off (of course, anyone wearing shorts and sandals on Oct. 1 deserves to freeze his or her whatsis off).

We had to fortify ourselves with largish glasses of Domaine Vindemio, a powerful red from Ventoux. Then I put the last of the green chile stew on the range. The low tonight could dip into the 30s and for that one needs green chile and red wine.

Come Wednesday, of course, we will need distilled sustenance — tequila, single-malt Scotch or a solid hit of uisce beatha from the auld sod. El Prezbo and the RomneyBot v2.012 square off that evening for their first debate, in Denver, and there is no way I can possibly watch that sucker stone cold sober. (See Charles P. Pierce for a guide on how to watch a presidential debate.)

The RomneyBot is in full kernel panic, crashing and rebooting and giving off a strong whiff of ozone, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see him in mid-flail offer Obama a couple of billion to move out of the White House and set himself and the family up in style elsewhere.

A sound of thunder

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments

Again with the “snow,” just enough to glaze the streets like a cop’s doughnut. I’ve seen more white powder on a proffered mirror, sighting along a rolled-up dollar bill. At least the wind is barreling down out of the north at 22 mph, with gusts to 31. So we’ve got that going for us.

Weather like this sends me straight back to the Mexican cookery for its natural-gas component. Last night it was posole and chicken-and-jalapeño quesadillas; tonight I’m simmering up a pot of beans with chipotle chile. I should whip up a batch of green chile sauce, but I think I’ll save that for tomorrow — I have a quart each of Anaheim and New Mexico chile thawing in the sink, and then we can greet the day over breakfast burritos with leftover chicken, beans and spuds smothered in green.

So, yeah. A day without beans is like a day without thunder. Just in case you thought Fort Carson was engaging in a little holiday artillery practice.

Black Friday blues

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 2 Comments
Equal time for dogs
My sister's dogs, Maggie and Riley. Hey, we can't have cats on the site all the time, y'know. The joint's called Mad Dog Media, after all.

I camped out all night in my bed and when I arose this morning there was free coffee in the kitchen. Talk about your Black Friday bargains!

There was toast, too, but I had to make that myself. Ditto the eggs. And come to think of it, I had to pay for the eggs, bread and the coffee. Full retail, too, as I recall.

Damn. I think I’ve been screwed by The Man yet again. And without so much as a good-morning kiss.

Herself and I drove to Fort Fun and back for Turkey Day, served up by my sis’ and bro’-in-law, and a delicious meal it was, too. Turkey with all the usual suspects, including Brussels sprouts with bacon and a glass of one of my favorite rosés, Mas de la Dames Rosé du Mas 2009.

En route we missed “Alice’s Restaurant” on KRCC, but caught up with Arlo on KUNC out of Greeley, then followed that up with some “Sam Kinison: Live From Hell” (yeah, we have some odd holiday traditions).

As is traditional, the trip also served up a few contenders for the annual Darwin Awards, including an eight-car smashup near Larkspur, in broad daylight and on dry roads; a pickup driver with his lights off after sunset; and my personal fave, some dipshit fool in dark clothing astride a motorcycle sans taillight speeding in the left lane through Bibleburg as we approached Chez Dog at dark-thirty.

Ride on, brother. Hell ain’t half full, and I hear Sammy throws a swell party.