.Erin.’s Neighborhood

So, for the last week or so, Penny's been dealing with the after effects of picking up an infection after having worms (ick).  But after a couple of days of antibiotics, she seemed to be doing pretty well.  And today was the first day back on the mountain after having had her put on a steady diet of bland food, antibiotics (which she will eat disguised in Gruyere cheese --- that's right --- not cheese slices, not cheese sticks, not peanut butter, Gruyere) and boring old leash walks.

She had a great time and ran and ran and ran.  As we were heading home, she still had plenty of energy and ran way ahead and I called her back.  She came running with something being lightly chewed in her mouth.  I think -- oh great, worm-filled coyote poop.  She comes up and I tell her, "Drop It!" and (somewhat surprisingly) she does.  Expecting to see some half-masticated turd, I look down and there is what is pretty clearly something's liver.  About 3" by 2" with what I was pretty sure was the gall bladder port still attached.  Mmmmm....yummy!

I think maybe it was a rabbit's -- though it seemed a little big (though honestly I don't know how big a rabbit's liver is...) -- maybe it was from a raccoon?

Anyway, Penny got some treats for dropping on command -- which I doubt were as appetizing as that liver, and she seemed quite pleased with herself all morning.

Happy Friday!

"The absolute holiness of God should be of great comfort and assurance to us. If God is perfectly holy, then we can be confident that His actions toward us are always perfect and just. We are often tempted to question God's actions and complain that He is unfair in His treatment of us. This is the devil's lie, the same thing he did to Eve. He essentially told her, "God is being unfair to you" (Gen. 3:4-5). But it is impossible in the very nature of God that He should be unfair. Because He is holy, all His actions are holy."    Jerry Bridges, The Pursuit of Holiness

One of my favorite piano pieces is the Schubert-Liszt lied “Der Leiermann” from the song-cycle “Winterreise” (translated as Winter Journey), which describes a man’s journey as he leaves his home and travels through a winter landscape.  “Der Leiermann” is actually the conclusion of the song-cycle.  It’s haunting and beautiful and I love playing it, though – alas – I do not sing along.

Anyway, in contrast to the past couple of Christmases, our little pack is preparing for its own Winterreise – this year, The Beloved, Penny and I are going to go to visit the Beloved’s folks for Christmas.   That’s all good, right?  Lots of people travel for the Holidays.

Ours though is going to be something we’ve never quite tried before.  We’re going by car.  To Virginia.  From California.  Google maps says it’s about 2700 miles and should take about 42 hours to get there.

We haven’t really planned it out yet, but we’re conceptualizing the trip as 5-5-5 (5 days out, 5 days there, 5 days back).   We’ll obviously take a more southerly route and keep a close eye on the Weather Channel before we make some road choices.  Penny has done well in the car (and seems to settle when we hit the freeways) but has never had to do car duty like this.

Fortunately, we have a Garmin and wi-fi enabled devices and lots of websites that cater to finding pet-friendly lodgings.  Hopefully, we won’t need to stay in any mangers.

And so, I put it to you:

We leave in two weeks!

We turned what might have been a lazy Sunday into a very industrious one, getting The Aerie all decked out for Christmastime.   We had the Christmas music playing from the office while we decked the halls and trimmed the trees (our big Christmas tree and our little Monterey pine out back). Speaking of trees, we even added some Christmas cheer to the palm trees outside of our home.

Penny again wasn’t quite so sure about what this was all about, but she enjoyed snuffing the different decorations.  Certainly, all the breakable ones are out of snout and tail range.  We hope.

We finished right as the sun was setting – a perfect cap to a great day of decorating and feeling those first tinges of the Holiday Spirit… :D

This week's warm weather and clear-sky Santa Ana was ushered out today in a big way with rain showers (and even hail!) and a cold wind from the north.

The change in weather was a good demarcation point to change from Thanksgiving into Christmas, which we're getting an early start on this year.  Of course, the first course of action is to get the tree.

Now Penny has never had a tree in the house, and I'm not sure she entirely knows what to think about it.  Wait until we put the lights and decorations on tomorrow!

After a couple of days of feeling out of sorts, it seems that Penny’s puppy pharmaceutical treatment has helped out immensely and that there was a very energetic and eager pointer ready for a big mountain hike this morning.

Local mild Santa Anas brought in warm temperatures and clear skies, so it made for a great morning to bring the camera along.

We took a great long hike down and then up to the top of the mountain The Aerie rests on.  There were great views out to the ocean and even down to Point Loma.

Penny sure did seem Thankful to get a chance to run around!  And we were Thankful to see her feeling more like herself.

Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!

I went wine tasting for the first time this weekend.

Like many people who don't drink I long considered it...well...look, we know the kind of people who get way into their wine. I don't need to describe them.

I almost went tasting last year; I was in the tasting room when someone in the party told me "drinking wine is about growing up and refining your pallet."

And I was like, uh, hell to the no.

So this weekend we tried it again.

You know what, for my money, it tastes like sour grapes.
Annie says it tastes like mushrooms & vinegar.

I don't get how someone can get away with describing a bottle as having the scent of "roofing tar".
1) How is that appetizing?
2) roofing tar has a distinctive smell, and that wine did not smell like it.

(That being said, that was a yummy wine. I think it was the last wine where the taste mattered.)

So, after nursing a pretty gnarly hangover this morning, I've decided that wine isn't all bad. I can see drinking it with a meal. I'll go to more tastings. But I don't know if I can drink it for fun.

Also, dessert wines are totally delicious.

So, my sister is coming from Maryland to visit for Thanksgiving.  We did a lot of prep work this weekend to prepare, but I'm always looking for omens as to how the week might go.

Well -- both Penny and my car are sick.  Penny had to take a de-wormer (ick) and my car needs new brake-pads (ka-ching).

At least Penny gets to sleep and I get to drive around in a 1-series loaner.  Now how'd they know I was eyeing up one of those....

Hope everyone has a great week!

So, anyone that spends time here probably knows that we like a good cocktail from time to time here at The Aerie.  But as hard as it is to believe, a good stiff drink isn’t always the right accompaniment for every occasion.  Sometimes you just have to have a good glass of wine.

Wine (as opposed to booze) is something that I’ve come to a little later in life.  When I was younger, I was intimidated by the somewhat snooty air that went along with the growing “wine culture” in America.  I mean, could I really taste “ripe berries” and “burnt oak” and “hints of melon” in the chianti being served at my local Italian joint?  Hardly.

And then I moved to California.

Wine is of course a huge industry here and for good reason – there are a lot of really good California wines.  And so, when I moved here, I started trying some and learned how to say “Pinot Noir” correctly so that I felt better about myself.  And two things happened, a) I began to know what I liked and b) I began not to care what other people (read: wine snobs) thought.

So, about the time we moved into The Aerie, the Beloved and I started taking more of an interest in wine – traveling to Sonoma County several times over the last couple of years.  There, we were able start finding some places that we liked and buying their wines, and over time, we built up a good little stash.

Which bring me to today’s timewaster: CellarTracker.  This is a free (though they ask for a donation) website where you can input the wines you have (and even the wines you want to have…) so that you know exactly what you’ve got, how it’s rated (both by the CellarTracker community and in major publications) and in cases of wines that need to be “laid-down”, when you should drink it.  

I have to say that the website is very easy to use, has a great searching algorithm (so that you don’t have to enter in everything precisely, it will find the wine for you from its database…) and if you’re a data-nerd like me, you can sort and sub-sort your wines in all sorts of interesting ways.

As it turns out, we have ~75 bottles of wine and I was able to get them all entered in maybe an hour and half.  Pretty cool.

There are also fields for you to enter private and/or public tasting notes (which I think would be useful for wines you have in restaurants and would like to jot something down before the next time you go to the store…) – though I give everyone free rein to come smack me if I write one with language like “overtones of ripe plums with hints of chocolate and coffee…”

Bottoms up!