PR PTII

Also known as "Paso Robles, Part II."

Yeah, I know...it's taken me awhile to get this posted. Well, all I can say at this point is that it's been a really, really busy week or so as both a lawyer and a writer. I will have very exciting writer news to share very soon (lawyers aren't really allowed to share their news..oh, and it's rarely exciting to non-lawyers)! In the meantime though, I wanted to share a bit more about my Paso Robles week of wine and writing. I mentioned our neighbors in PR. They were awesome. So cute. So well behaved. Perfect in every way. Allow me to introduce you to a few of them:

This is Clover (so named because he has a brown clover-shaped marking in the fur around his butt). He lives at Venteux Winery. (Let me also highly recommend their Hospice du Bone wine...mmmmmm).

This is El Cid from Ambyth Winery (he's a golden-doodle!). Simply adorable. Also, I'm going to recommend the Ambyth Rosada Rose...and just going to this absolutely spectacular vineyard. The views are incredible. The wine is delicious and if you are as lucky as we were, the caretaker Gustavo and his lovely wife just make a deliriously fabulous shrimp Veracruz and chips and guacamole (she put cucumber in the guac! never hear of that but it was fabulous!).

This is El Cid's pal at Ambyth whose name is momentarily escaping me. But he ran way out ahead around the entire vineyard leading the way as Gustavo drove Chris and me around in the Polaris for a tour...wineglasses in hand.

This was our next door neighbor for the week. Never did catch her name; she mostly kept to herself.

This is Cabernet. He lives at Eberle Winery with his less-willing-to-be-photographed sister, Roussanne.

I did not catch these girls names either, but clearly they were having their own girls' weekend.  We'll just call them Lori, Jane and Teresa. (The photo is taken from the car, through the windshield while we waited for them to cross).

Bartender Zachery. Cute waiters are also part of the native wildlife of Paso Robles. (And Zachery was an English major in college. Mild swooning.)

T (heart) PR.

Still in Love

So yeah, second date with Paso Robles was as good as the first date. I'm still in love and wanting to marry it (metaphorically speaking of course). We had a fabulous trip. For the inaugural Forgotten Grapes Paso Robles trip, we couldn't have asked for a better group of folks or a better bunch of winemakers/ vineyard owners, or better weather or anything better. Okay, well, I could have had better hair...but I'm trying to just be thankful that I have hair again.

I was so proud of Chris and truly amazed at the trip he put together for this group. Really, really outstanding. So allow me to share some highlights:

On the first night, Mike Barreto of Barreto wines (that's him standing next to Chris) came to our house (well, the one we rented in PR) and whipped up a fabulous batch of paella that perfectly paired with his Spanish varietal wines. Fabulous food, wine and company.

And that's our group, left to right: Wendy, Michael, Becky, Mike, Chris, Pam and Peter. Yep, you got it. We were Peter, Pam, Michael and Wendy...were were missing John and Tinkerbell. So Becky played the part of Tinker Beck all weekend. Chris was more Captain Hook. And there was an evening of Lost Boys...but I get ahead of myself.

On Friday we toured DuBost vineyard and winery with Kate DuBost. Lovely people, a fabulous lunch, an "insider's tour" and hey, more great wine!

Judy Starr, grape grower extraordinaire and proprietress of Starr Vineyards gave us a tour of her pristine vineyards in her white chariot (aka pick-up truck). Oh right, some of us (those in dresses) were in the truck and some of us (those in jeans or khakis) in the truck bed. Beautiful from every vantage point.

Next up: Barrel tasting with Augie Hug at Hug Cellars. So much fun. And again, the wine was incredible (I cannot tell a lie; I bought 3 cases of his 2007 Viognier. It's a favorite of mine and that was pretty much all he had left. Mine. All Mine!!!).

The day ended (well, um, actually it went well into the night) with Ted & Lisa Plemons at Cass Winery again. OMG--the food!! The wine!! The hilarious stories!!!

And did I mention there was a camera crew following Ted around? Right. And us. And um....let's just say we now know just how it is that those idiots on reality TV can forget there is a camera following them around.  It involves wine. And we are those idiots. (Incriminating video soon to follow, no doubt).

The chef at Cass Vineyards, Jacob, was amazing. The absolute best braised short ribs. So tender and tasty you could hear everyone at the table moaning in gastronomic ecstasy.

and  the evening turned into night, and there was wine, and there was laughter, and there was more wine, more laughter, more wine, music, more wine, dancing....and um...that's all I remember. Or at least it's all I'm willing to tell....until the next posting.

Cheers to you!

I'm Off

Off schedule with the blogging.
Off schedule for my follow-up oncologist appointment (it'll happen...just not for a couple of weeks).
Off to Paso Robles for a lovely, much-needed, much anticipated long weekend. 

I will post photos, tell stories, exaggerate, blog, and of course share the dirt on how my second date with Paso Robles goes. Since as we all know, I fell madly in love and was talking marriage after the first date.

In the meantime, check out the next Pink Ribbon Place fundraiser...A "Pink Carpet Premiere" of Sex and the City 2. Chris and his friend Steve Holquin have been the main guys putting this whole event together! It's going to be fantastic and they've already sold over 200 tickets!!

Click here:  The Pink Carpet Premiere.

(and you thought that poster was about my trip to Paso Robles...)

Doctor, Doctor, Give Me the News

Fun day yesterday. I worked at home. Which means that while I'm hyper productive with a lawyer's favorite love (billable hours), I'm also able to accomplish major feats like five loads of laundry and 1,236 phone calls to a variety of doctors' offices.

That's right folks, it's time for my next 3 month check-up. Good news is April 30th is the 1 year  anniversary of my last chemo treatment. Hard to believe isn't it? It would be harder to believe if it weren't for the fact that my eyelashes still haven't recovered. They fall out about every 2 or 3 months. I'm guessing that since losing eyelashes is normal, my problem now is that all of my eyelashes (having all jumped ship together due to the chemo) are now on the same fall-out schedule--they no longer take turns. Well, wait.. 2 or 3 on each eyelid resolutely hang on. I know this because one day I will apply mascara and suddenly realize that I have a mini pitchfork on my eye. Go ahead, picture it. Two eyelashes. Not close together. Heavy with mascara.It's not attractive. But it is a very good sign that another group of eyelashes have headed to Florida for early retirement.

I digress.

Right, so the good news is that it's time for my check-up. The bad news is that I have to see 2 doctors at UCLA. One is Dr. Glaspy, my oncologist. But the other is mostly new to me--a new primary care physician. I saw her last time but as we were running so late from the mammogram scare, I only got my flu and tetanus shot. I didn't get the annual  "lady" exam. One of the few (okay, wait...only?) medical joys of chemo is that you get to skip the annual pap smear. Apparently the results will come up crazy no matter what so why bother. (This makes so much sense but was still surprising to hear.) So now I'm at 2 years and it's time (probably TMI, but I've already typed it so there it is). I've had lots of luck scheduling 2 and even 3 doctors appointments in one day at UCLA but my luck has run out. I couldn't get both appointments on one day for anything. Not surprisingly, the oncologists office wasn't at all moved by my "but I'm a cancer patient" wail. I will be heading into UCLA on April 29th and then again on May 12th--on my way back up to Paso Robles!! (Gosh I hope the check-up goes well.)

That was complicated enough...but not to be outdone, Seamus needs an appointment with his oncologist too. Chris took Seamus to the vet this week because we'd noticed that he was eating a lot, but then also seeming to be off and on sick to his stomach and throwing up a bit. Turns out he had some parasite thingy going on (the vet said "sort of like if you drank the water in Mexico." Oh. Ugh.). Seamus is now on medication for that and obviously already feeling much better. But during the exam the doctor felt a "mass" on Seamus's rear end. The other side from where his cancer was. And the vet wants us to go back to the oncologist to get it aspirated. And well, Seamus was due for his annual oncology check-up anyway. Off we shall go.

Seamus's appointment was not easy to schedule either. His doctor is about a 45 minute drive if we aren't in traffic. Which means we have a narrow window of an appointment somewhere after 10 and before 3. Before 2 if possible. I really want to take him myself so my work schedule had to be considered and darn it his doctor (Dr. Duetelle, who we love) doesn't work on Fridays. So Seamus goes in on April 20th (when he's done with the tummy meds).

That's a lot of doctor appointments coming up. All I can say is...it had better all be good news.

Passing Time in Paso

Even though 2010 is still the worst most horrible terrible no-good year (if this confuses you, click here for a reminder: "terrible no good year"), we've already had what would be called "an amazing journey" if we were a reality TV show.

Last weekend Chris took me away from it all to Paso Robles in Central California to celebrate my birthday and, well, do a little business. But when your business is wine, that's not a bad thing. A little background for those of you who don't know Chris (and okay, if you're really new to the blog: Chris is my "significant other" of nearly 6 years). He writes a wine column for Area 9 magazine and he also runs a website called ForgottenGrapes.com (yep, that's a link to it--check it out!). Lately he's expanded his wine repertoire  to include wine tasting events at restaurants and wine bars. He puts on a great "show" that's entertaining and pop-culture referenced filled and at the same time educates the audiences on some of the lesser known wines (so Mourvedre, Viognier, Roussane, Carmenere....not Chardonnay, Cabernet or Pinot Noir; you got that right? No? Okay...time for you to check out the website). His next big adventure and expansion into eventual world dominance of Forgotten Grapes everywhere is leading a wine tour through Paso Robles for a long weekend  April 8th to the 11th, 2010. 10 or 12 of us will get to tour the wineries of the Central Coast, but not just hopping out of the van and running into the tasting bars with the masses of humanity. No, we'll be meeting with the winemakers, getting private tours, doing barrel tastings, and in a few cases, dining with the winemakers in their private tasting rooms.  (If you're interested in joining us....and why wouldn't you be??...there's room for a few more. Check it all out at ForgottenGrapes.com).

So this past weekend, Chris and I had the very, very difficult job of scouting out the trip. We went to most of the wineries on the trip, met with the winemakers, ate at the restaurant and checked out the house (well, it's really two houses) that will be the accommodation for our group. Awesomeness everywhere. So many good wines, but the people we met were even more impressive. So kind, friendly and genuinely interested and passionate about their wines. Maybe because Chris is so knowledgeable in an area that most know little or nothing about (another word for "Forgotten" grapes might be "obscure"), the conversations were endlessly interesting. (Another thing to know about Chris is he has an encyclopedic knowledge of just about everything and particularly wine; I'm old so I say "encyclopedic"; our younger friends call him "Chrisipedia.")

I wasn't in charge; I had no duties or obligations; I was chauffeured about, wined, dined, wined, pampered, wined, and generally spoiled and relaxed all weekend long. Sheer bliss. And I fell in love with Paso Robles. Very few places make me want to pack up and move. Paso Robles had me not wanting to even bother coming home to pack up anything (except Seamus; we need Seamus with us). Here's some photos from our trip:

 

This is Chris (right) with Claiborne Thompson of Claiborne & Churchill winery (they're both Princeton grads so they had that in common too)

The house our group will be staying in come April. It sits high on a hill overlooking the wine valley.

The Pinot Noir flight tasting at Wild Horse.

Dinner at the home of Lisa & Ted Plemons, with Alice and Steve Cass. The four of them own Cass Vineyards & Winery. I can't believe I didn't get a picture of Ted...but trust me, he looks just like Richard Branson!

Here's Lisa with their dog Fig. Fig was very Seamus-esque (note his presence at the table and the defiant stare; yep, that's Seamus!)

These were a select few photos from Saturday and Sunday. Still to come, the Monday photos (hint: Monday had gorgeous weather--that's when the photo that is now the blog header photo was taken).

To think, this time last year I had just started my very first chemo treatment. A trip like this makes that all a very distant memory.