Wine Train and Whine Train

Friday was Wine Train day. Nine of us piled on a train from 1915 and took a 50 mile round trip ride through Napa Valley while munching on five gourmet courses, all of which I took pictures of, none of which are worth showing, because it's just food. Delicious food, but yeah. I am not a food photography, and you are not here to see poorly lit pictures of something someone else ate. If you want beautiful pictures of food, go to Tastespotting and spend the next hour licking your monitor.

The food was good, but the experience was was made the evening, from my husband playing "king of the world" on the back of the train to the waitress not believing my brother and his wife were celebrating their 20 year anniversary. And while Lurane looks like that would make her 10 when they started dating, she was actually 16. They mark their anniversary from the night they were riding back from a football game, Harv in his football gear, Lurane in her cheerleader outfit. She'd been wearing his letter jacket for a week, but November 23rd, 1991 was the night they finally kissed. And they've been together ever since. But the beard is only 8 months old.







Saturday we piled everyone together for a family picture. We were missing one chunk of the family (Forest, his wife, and the nieces stayed in LA for the holiday), but we did our best. And devoted a fair amount of time to trying to guilt Harv and Lurane into flying down for a few days over Christmas. It gets harder and harder to get the whole family together for holidays, now that people have their own families. This is why it's important to marry a foreigner or an orphan. I prefer foreigner because it means you have free vacation lodging somewhere in the world. Score!







I spent the rest of Saturday in various lounging positions around the house, catching up on the internet, playing card games, watching the History Channel (you guys, the world is ending next year, holy SHIT! Also, why do all Nostradamus scholars looks like Nostradamus? It's creepy.), and imagining the variety of ways my stomach is eventually going to kill me. Then I puked up stomach bile and slept for 11 hours.

So, I was a philosophy major in college, which, let me tell you, is hugely useful and I'm stoked to have a job as a philosopher. Oh wait. I did love my major, though, and would do it all over again. Occasionally philosophy does spill over into my day to day life. Bits and pieces have stuck with me over the last 9 years of non-collegiate life.

For instances, Bertrand Russell was dear friends with my favorite philosopher ever, Ludwig Wittgenstein. Russell wrote once, of Wittgenstein, "[h]e says every morning he begins his work with hope, and every evening he ends in despair." That struck me in college. It prompted a fair amount of discussion with my philosophy peers. Most of this discussion was while shitfaced, but that's what college was about. My best friends took almost all the same classes as I did my senior year, and we spent out free time staying up all night roaming around campus chain smoking, drinking the cheapest interesting alcohol we could find, and discussing philosophy, Eminem, and Harry Potter. Life was good.

Anyway, every morning I wake up fine. Something about the act of sleeping or fasting or who knows what reboots my whole system. Mornings, I feel normal. I'm not hungry, I'm not nauseous, I'm not anything. And it's wonderful.

But, inevitably, I have to eat. And then.

And then.

It's been worse the last two days. At least I can call the doctor tomorrow morning when the office opens up. Because I'm so tired of having to think about this and deal with it, I'm tired of talking about it with people, and hiding it from other people so I don't have to talk about it. I don't even want to write about it here, but I am, because if I can't complain to the internet, what's the point?

Anyway, I feel great right now. I was planning on a long bike ride with Sky, but he decided he wanted to watch football more. Still planning on the bike ride. Just waiting for my husband to wake up so I can grab a change of clothes and my bike. It's overcast but bright outside, and the route I have plotted out is lovely.

Tomorrow we drive back to LA. I miss the cat (Who loooooooooooves the woman we hired to feed her). Other than that, I could probably stay up here forever. It's beautiful, my mom washes all the dishes, and everything is walkable. Then again, there's no heater in the bathroom, so getting out of the shower is SO COLD. How do people in cold climates live without bathroom heaters? I live in Southern California and I can't function without one. I just really, really hate being cold.