July 10, 2010
I made a bit of a last minute decision and bought a flight to go home to Pittsford for my ten year high school reunion.
Ten years! It doesn’t seem possible. Imagine a decade from now…. 2020. Doesn’t that seem like eons from now? Like, we’ll have flying cars and self-cleaning houses (oooh!) in the oh so futuristic ten years from now, right? Ten years goes fast.
The reunion was so much fun – it was an odd mixture of people who came, I guess since it was in the middle of summer, and a fairly small representation of my class. Maybe forty people? I think we graduated with about 250. It was kind of nice that nobody seemed to have their entire high school posse represented so we all just sort of floated around and visited with each other. Or maybe it was just after ten years, no one remembered or cared who belonged to what clique anymore. No one seems that different from ten years ago, but everyone seems to be doing good things with their lives.
I only took one picture the entire time, and it was in the cab on the way there. This is my best friend, Krissy, and I. We met in eighth grade, in a class called Enrichment. I don’t remember what we were supposed to actually do during Enrichment, but if passing notes was the point, then we were top of the class. We originally bonded over our musical preferences. While everyone else was listening to either Pearl Jam, Dr. Dre or Dave Matthews Band, we had both (separately) discovered a love for the oldies station. We had certain songs we’d call each other when we heard them on the radio: Little Red Riding Hood and Snoopy vs. The Red Baron stand out in my mind.
In other words, we were pretty dorky. But we managed to turn out okay.
10 years ago: Spring Break in Myrtle Beach, April 2000. My sister, Katie, and friends Jamie, (me), Krissy and Tamara. And a waiter who wanted to immortalize himself in this shot too. I don’t think we’ve changed too much in ten years, except that no one parts their hair in the middle in the anymore. So late 90s.
I feel like the advent of Facebook (and the ease of keeping in touch over instant messenger, email, texting, cell phone/no long distance) has made reunions a little bit anticlimactic. I’ve kept in good touch with my closest friends from high school through these mediums, but I also have the ability to spy on almost anyone I’m slightly curious about from high school or other past stages of life via Facebook. There were very few people who I saw at the reunion who I didn’t have some semblance of what was going on in their life already. In fact, I found myself in conversations mentioning something about someone’s life and realizing I only knew that because I had seen it as a Facebook status. Since it happened back to me, I think that’s okay. For example, congratulating someone on a baby they just had when you probably haven’t had an actual conversation with them since sometime around graduation day? Thanks to Facebook. I obviously love the connections that internet/technology allow me to make and keep, but it certainly ruins the “where are they now” moments that reunions are supposed to have. I know exactly where they are; their Foursquare check in just told me.
What was the last reunion you had? Did you attend?
April 1, 2010
The only thing better than spending an entire day touring Sonoma vineyards… is doing it twice in a row.
Thursday dawned, and we were awake (again) to see it. Although I think we slept in til seven this time. By the time DJ, our driver, had backed the Suburban up the long, windy driveway we were ready and waiting for our second day of tours to start.
Breakfast of Champions
We started off at Benzinger, which included a tram tour. Personally, I had a bit of a rough day – criss-crossing the rough terrain of northern California in the back of an SUV left me car sick for the first time in my entire life! When we pulled up to Benzinger, the only thing I wanted to drink was a Sprite out of the vending machine. Unfortunately, the car sickness stuck with me through the next 3 places so I can’t tell you much about the wine, just about the vineyards.
Benzinger was awesome, and definitely a place to go if you ever go out to Sonoma. The tram tour was educational without being boring. We got a tour of the grounds, and they explained their biodynamic garden philosophies which were really incredible – it’s obvious they’ve put a lot effort and money into making their vineyards a sustainable place and I think their success speaks to the idea that you reap what you sow And they sow some yummy grapes. While I didn’t try any that day, fortunately I found a bottle of Benzinger Chardonnay at my local Total Wine when I got back and it was every bit as yummy as my friends had promised.
Various of Views of Benzinger
I’ve always bought wines based on the label (and the price), but understanding where wine comes from and how it grows, and how things like soil, or climate or lifespan affect the grape and thus the wine appeals to me in the same way that understanding where food comes from and how it grows. I don’t fancy myself ever becoming a wine snob (although I do catch myself swirling and sniffing on a regular basis now….) but I like understanding things, and knowing why I like what I like and why I don’t what I don’t. I like understanding what maloactic fermentation is, and that a peachy fume blanc doesn’t really have peach in it.
After Benzinger, we went on to Chateau St Jean which was one of my least favorites of the day – it was more your typical chateau-y looking vineyard. Then our driver asked us if we would be okay going to a really unique place that was a reds only… and I was ready to take a breather (since I’m not a reds only kinda gal), so we went on to Kaz. Kaz was an experience. According to the red drinkers, it was not the best wine they had all week, but the experience was totally unique, in that the wine came straight out of a barrel into your glass or bottle.
After Kaz, we went on to a place called Family Vineyards. Pam and I had actually taken this off our list, because it looked like it was just a house on the road that represented five or six vineyards – and no actual vineyards there. I ended up being very glad our driver had put it back on the list. First of all, our pourer Stephanie was hilarious… she entertained us to no end. I had made a spontaneous recovery from my car sickness and was ready to taste again. Lucky me, because Family Vineyards ended up being home of the Sparkling. I love me some sparkly stuff, ya’ll. Since we were the only ones there, Stephanie tailored the tasting to us – mixing and matching from what she had on hand, diverting from the actual tasting menu – I had three white sand three sparkling, while some of the other girls had more reds, roses and just a few sparklings. I had two sparklings there I had never had – a raspberry flavored Framboise and an almond flavored Almonide. I bought them both to bring home, they were that good . Stephanie also had us do a few “experiments” – drinking a Zin, eating a piece of dark chocolate and trying the Zin again to see how it tasted, and then repeating that with a Late Harvest. Listen, any place that’s going to combine chocolate in its tasting experience gets two pinkies up from this girl.
After Stephanie declared that she was all out of experiments, we headed down the street to Kunde. I liked Kunde, but like Chateau St Jean, it felt more commercialized and our pourer gave us the hard sell on the wine club. This was the first place out of anywhere we went to where we felt like were being “sold” to (and consequently, we didn’t end up buying anything…)
All of us at Kunde
After Kunde, our driver sat in the parking lot deliberating something… then pulled out his cell phone and made a quick call. “Ok, we’re in” he said, explaining that the next place we were visiting was rather picky about large groups and often turned down drivers with groups. When we got to VJB Cellars, I couldn’t help but feeling like The Godfather himself had waved us into his home. VJB was owned by a sweet little Italian gentleman who regaled us with stories of Italy, wine and “the familia.” Even though I’m not a huge fan of reds, I drank every single taste he poured… I’m not sure if it was out of respect or fear! I ended up buying his Primitivo to bring home to Matt. We stayed there until the sun set and until our lovely host, Vittorio, had run out of stories.
Dinner on Thursday night was shrimp and salmon on the grill by Emily, fried goat cheese salad by me and molten lava cakes by Jenny. We did not hurt for calories that evening, let’s just say that. We had a bottle of Prosecco from VJB Cellars to go along with our dinner.
We sat around the table, reminiscing about stories from the ten years we’ve known each other, finishing each other’s sentences and laughing in anticipation as someone would begin rehashing a story we had heard before. There’s no better way to end a day than laughing so hard your stomach hurts and Prosecco nearly comes out your nose (ow) with your best friends.
Thank you, Sonoma, for another beautiful day.
