never drinking again

at least until tuesday.

i took brian wine tasting yesterday. we went to armida, lambert bridge, ferrari-carano, and wilson. it was a gorgeous day and all the wineries offered something a bit different, which made the tasting experience a full one. armida is a more hip, younger crowd type place. for example, during our tasting i overheard two girls talking about the movie bottlerocket and our taster started talking about how much she hated napoleon dynamite. as far as their selection, i recommend their pinot noir. lambert bridge is a smaller winery with a more traditional feel to it. in the reserve tasting room, i had a bordeaux style merlot (bordeaux = mixing merlot and cabernet sauvignon) which was awesome! their flagship wine is a dessert white called viognier, which i actually liked which is rare. ferrari-carano is by far the nicest property in sonoma county, with sprawling gardens and the enormous mansion housing the tasting rooms. this time, i wasn't impressed with anything we tasted, which is weird because last time their merlot blew me away. because we were running a little bit behind we stopped at wilson winery rather than try to make it to chateau souvrain in time. although their tasting room wasn't air conditioned, the view over the dry creek valley was beautiful, the atmosphere was cozy, and the fellow drinkers were jovial. all in all, it was a great time. i liked showing brian why i pay so much money to live in this area, and i love getting my friends excited about wine.

after coming home, we barbequed and drank more wine. brian then needed a nap, which is understandable since we had been drinking since 2 pm. i decided i wanted to go out, so after talking to dylan we decided to head over the belvedere. a good time ensued, with some sloppy drunk pool playing and some slurred conversations. i paid for my debauchery today with an intense headache when i woke up this morning, so i decided sleeping would be best. i neglected work and spent the entire day in bed mixing sleeping with drinking water. it was actually really nice, all things considered.

i woke up proclaiming i will never drink again. but i know that's a knee-jerk reaction and not how i actually feel. i just won't get so drunk next time.

anyway, brian is going to spend tomorrow with pat and on wednesday we're going to see the giants play the braves. i thought we could spend the rest of the day in the city, but it ends up that pat's girlfriend is throwing him a birthday party, so we'll have to hustle back to santa rosa. oh well. it's worth it just to spend time with brian. it's crazy how you forget about how much you miss someone who lives so far away until they are here spending time with you. it's nice to have someone around that i can reminisce about old times with and have some validation that they actually happened.