the world is your acorn

The Little Red Haired Girl and I found some Kosher wine for Passover today at West Meade Wine and Liquor over near the 100/70 split. It was a pretty exciting find, since we were completely unsuccessful in locating any last year and had been told that, unless we special order, we wouldn’t find any in Nashville. Anyway, the selection was more varied than we expected - about 5 different bottles of red ranging from something like $35 to $13, and a couple different bottles of white. The guy also told us that he’d order some $9.99 bottles of both red and white (something from Chile but I forget what), which is more in our price range. So we bought a couple bottles of red (a cab from Israel and a shiraz from australia) to bring home for The Little Red Haired Girl’s mom’s seder, and we will go back next week for the cheap bottles for our own seder. Score!

If, like me, you find it difficult to bear watching GWB speak for more than 6 seconds, here is something that might help you through the State of the Union Address tomorrow. Good Luck.

I know that I have not been very faithful to you. In fact, in the past year I have more often than not chosen someone else instead of you. I have been seduced by your brothers and sisters with their brilliant colors and big bite. But now, in my time of most need, I have come back to you, and you are still there for me. You have not changed and you do not treat me differently. It warms my heart and gives me hope to know that I can count on you and your classic formula. Thank you, and I’m truly, deeply sorry for my neglect.

It has been 7 days since we, with the help of some good friends, unloaded our belongings from a Uhaul truck into our new home. Which we own. It’s been a busy 7 days, which is part of the reason I haven’t had a chance to post. Here are some things:

• The Little Red Haired Girl’s mom was here for 6 days. She helped us clean both this place and the old one, figure out where some furniture and pictures would go, unpack a lot of things, do some work in the yard, and buy some things from many different places. She also bought us meals the whole time she was here. It was amazing to have her here, and I’m pretty sure we’d still be swimming in boxes if she hadn’t been here. That said, I was happy last night to finally have the house to ourselves. To be in OUR place, making OUR dinner, setting OUR table, doing OUR dishes. You get the drift. It feels amazing.
• Even though The Little Red Haired Girl took the week off, there has been an emergency situation at the museum and she just went to work. I don’t know how long she’ll be there, but our fabulous plan to grill trout and summer squash in OUR backyard will have to wait another night.
• We bought a new sink, and are getting rid of the stupid double basin thing currently disgracing our kitchen. I know some people prefer them, but I think they are a waste of space. How am I supposed to soak a pan? Or hang a collander off the faucet? Or wash a large platter? Our new sink will be big enough to bathe a toddler in.
• Along the same lines, we bought a garbage disposal. How do people live without one? Now we just need someone to install these things for us.
• We took the afternoon off yesterday to hit Music City Brewer’s Festival. The weather was perfect, the beer was good, and we even ran into some folks we knew. We left after 3 hours, when it was getting really crowded and the crowds were getting really wobbly.
• The dog next door is a barker. We call him Cujo. He is probably actually a she. She spends all day in the backyard, barking at anyone in her line of sight. Which ends up only being us, since all the other neighbors adjacent to that yard have put up privacy fencing. Our neighbor has already expressed her belief that “That’s what dogs do” to us, so we will be in the market for some privacy fencing of our own soon. I feel sad for Cujo, though.
• Our neighbors on the other side are super nice, and I hope to get to know them better.
• We went to Bellevue today to look at furniture at Finders Keepers in the Bellevue Center Mall. That place (the mall, I mean) is so bizarre and depressing. Half the store fronts are deserted, and the place just seems gloomy and deserted. Weird.
• Our new front-loading washing machine is wicked confusing. There are all kinds of buttons, knobs, and dials that need to be adjusted and fiddled with. I have no idea how full I’m allowed to stuff it or how much detergent to use. The manual is even more confusing. And you know I’ve read it.
• I’m going to piddle around and try and be useful for a little while now.

Yesterday we went to The Little Red Haired Girl’s lawyer friend’s place to hang out by the pool. As much as I really like the idea of living in a house, there are definitely advantages to living in a complex like that. They knew half the people at the pool, and everyone was just hanging out with beers and snacks, taking a dip when it got too hot. I’d do that pretty much every day if I lived there.

At any rate, we had some Nantucket Lemonade as well as some beer, along with delicious snacks, including these little sweet and spicy peppers stuffed with parm. Yum! This morning I was hurting a little, and fried up eggrolls for breakfast. I think I’d prefer lunch and dinner foods for breakfast over eggs or cereal any day. Where do these conventions come from that determine what a breakfast food is versus some other meal? Is it health or nutrition related?

I’m on this Local Wine Events email list, which sometimes offers some affordable things that we try to go to. This morning the email notified me of A Toast to Tennessee, a big wine festival on May 20th, $25 advance tickets at the Nashville Superspeedway. Sounds like it could be fun. Luckily for me this website lists some local Tennessee wineries, so I’ve been clicking on the links looking for other fun stuff:

• Beachaven Winery in Clarksville has Jazz on the Lawn, where there is free music (and parking) from 6:30-9:30 pm on select Saturdays throughout the summer. All they ask is that you buy a bottle of wine to enjoy during the show. Check out their schedule.
• Keg Springs Winery in Hampshire has Sunday brunches, cooking classes, and dinners. Check out their schedule.

Those are the two fun things I found. There may be more. If you know about any of these things, let me know about them, and if you know about similar events, definitely tell me about that too!

I’m at home today, waiting for a case of zin from Napa Cellars to be delivered. The Little Red Haired Girl and I decided to splurge for it when we went to San Francisco. We are assuming that the case will last us a few years, so don’t go thinking we’re all bougey or anything. We haven’t found much wine in that price range (around $20 - these are special occasion bottles for us) that we really like down here, and it’s not like we have money to throw at trying new things. We should check out more wine tastings, maybe. This fall we went to a sparkling wine class over at Sunset Grill for pretty cheap; I’d go again if it weren’t the same night as rugby practice. I wonder if there’s other similar stuff going on around town?

Anyway, I’m excited for that case to get delivered but I hope it comes soon, because I am getting nothing done while I’m at home.

Lady E. and I are spending our day productively: Indiana Jones marathon with KFC and Magners.

Some drinking cues for today’s game, which we are personalizing from a site we found (link below):

• Both: We hear the theme song
• fap: A Nazi dies
• LE: Map/route appears
• fap: Someone’s knocked off a moving vehicle
• LE: Someone jumps on a moving vehicle
• Both: We hear a new accent
• Both: A woman yells at Indy
• Both: Someone onscreen drinks
• fap: Indy almost gets impaled, crushed, chopped up
• LE: A bad guy gets impaled
• fap: Indy hangs from a rope
• LE: Indy gets shot at
• Both: Laws of physics don’t apply
• fap: Indy loses his hat
• LE: Indy defeats a booby trap
• fap: Something is on fire
• LE: A skeleton is on screen
• Both: Yankees cap
• LE: Bad guys is shot in forehead
• fap: Old man gives Indy advice
• Both: Indy uses his whip

Indiana Jones Drinking Game

I just booked a flight home - I’ll have over a week to split between Boston and New Haven in November. I’m really excited to see everyone and eat sashimi and all kinds of other seafood and ride the T and go to The Club and stuff. Yay!

It’s actually been a pretty good week. Last Friday The Little Red-Haired Girl and I had yum Indian food with The Couples, Saturday was a rugby day, then the next two days were frantic homework days. Then last night we went to a wine class where we tasted five different sparkling wines at Sunset Grill (not to be confused with Sunset Grill and Tap). We are so going back for more wine classes; they are $10 each and good wines and fun people and you learn plenty. After that we continued our search for a sushi place, and decided to try Hayashi on 21st. We decided to stick with rolls (to soak up some of that wine), and had a delicious and cheap meal at the sushi bar. In addition to which The Little Red-Haired Girl made friends with the guys behind the counter, and they made us a a couple pieces of something delicious for free. Oh to be feminine, pretty, and flirtatious. The one bummer was that they don’t serve Asahi beer. fyi. Sushi was followed by meeting up with school folk at trivia, where we snagged third place (no thanks to me not knowing anything about Chinese history).

Now I’m basically at the beginning of fall break. I still have class this evening and class tomorrow morning, but I don’t really have anything due (not even reading) for a while, which is a nice respite from the craziness of the last few days. I think I may even clean a little today! Needless to say, I’m feeling much better about being here lately, which is a relief.