Yamhill-Carlton District Tasting

I started my day with a very upsetting 2-hour Drop Dead Diva finale.  It wasn't upsetting because it was a bad episode; it was upsetting because they did a great job leaving you hanging and waiting for the third season to answer questions.  This is one summer series I really do like because Brooke Elliott does a phenomenal job playing Jane / Deb the smart & confident plus-size diva.  I have also come to love Jackson Hurst & Margaret Cho.  Their characters are great!

My plan was to continue chilling and taking care of some things around the house while studying my wines for Solena Estate.  But shortly after watching DDD, I got a call from my supervisor asking me to work a special event pouring in NW Portland tonight.  Of course I accepted!  We were going to be pouring just one wine (our 2007 Domaine Danielle Laurent pinot noir) at Yamhill-Carlton's 2nd annual Taste the Place event.

I left my house early to relieve my supervisor since she was starting to come down with a cold.  I happened to arrive right at the start of the event's one-hour break so she suggested going out for food.  When do I ever turn down food?  She suggested Ten 01 so we went there for their happy hour specials.  I ordered a yummy little cheeseburger for $4 and a huge side of amazing french fries for $4.  Definitely a place I want to go back to.

My event was pretty short - just three hours, but I had a blast.  So many people approached me because they already love our wines and many newcomers to Solena came back for seconds from my booth.  I was working a table next to the Shea family of Shea Wine Cellars.  Father & son were both friendly to work alongside.  I asked them about doing a single bottle trade and I was thrilled when they agreed to it.  They got a bottle of my '07 pinot and I took a bottle of their '08 estate pinot.  That's one bottle I am looking forward to trying.

Eddie drove up and met me after the event for a round of beer at Deschutes.  Nothing new to report there since I've already talked about them in this blog.  One sad note: they no longer have my hop in the dark IPA on tap so I had to try a different IPA that I didn't care for as much.

WCWC Wrestling

Tonight I got my redneck on and went to a WCWC wrestling show - no joke!  My friend, Tom, has been into wrestling since I've known him (about eight years).  In that time I have only seen him wrestle twice - once at practice and the other time at a live show.  But at that show he was badly injured during his ladder match and I missed it all because I was coming late from work.  So tonight was a great change to actually see him wrestle for an audience and defend his ACW World Title.

Let me tell you that I had such a blast!  I started getting into WWE wrestling about nine years ago - thanks to my last boyfriend.  So I've always enjoyed knowing that Tom wrestles; hence why I was able to have such a great time tonight.  I never once stopped grinning during the show.  They had some really good characters that were fun & silly and very easy to like.  I was disappointed to learn that "Tommy" was the bad guy in his match, but he makes for a fun and likable bad guy - that could very well be a biased opinion since I know him.

After the show the fans and the wrestlers went to the local Round Table Pizza who was one of the main sponsors for tonight's event.  Eddie was able to meet up with us there and we shared good pizza, beer, and stories.  I am so happy to know that "Tommy" will be making more wrestling performances in Portland so I'll be seeing more of him now.

To change the subject a bit, tonight's media mention is going to be another one of my "bad" summer TV series I was telling you about.  I started watching Persons Unknown because the original cryptic advertisements drew me in.  I was under the impression it would be a summer miniseries event; much like last year's Harper's Island (which I loved).  PU (hehe) fell short in the overall plot, character development, and wrapping things up in the finale.  After doing some research on my end though, it appears that maybe the finale was a bit of a cliffhanger because it wasn't actually intended to be a miniseries and should actually have the story continue.  Like I said, this fell short of my expectations, but that didn't stop me from keeping up with the show each week.  Make of that what you want...

Date Night in North West

Since Eddie and I haven't had much of a routine the past few weeks, we finally decided it was time for our "weekly" date night.  Eddie didn't have any suggestion for dinner so I took it upon myself to plan the evening.  I knew I wanted to go to a sushi restaurant because Eddie has not had proper sushi since we moved up here.  I read through the Yelp reviews and decided on Hiroshi in the North West district of Portland.  Before Eddie got home from work, I saw on my Twitter feed from PearlPortland that there was going to be a free wine tasting at Wine Unwind.  When I realized they were also located in NW, I knew we had to go.

A representative from Sineann, a local winery, was at the wine bar to pour a few of their wines.  It seems like they focus on the warmer varietals which was fine by me because I'm starting to get pinoted-out up here.  After the free tasting we decided we should spend some money in the shop but since we didn't want any bottles of wine, we decided to share a glass of prosecco.  Then we made a very quick three-block walk to the sushi restaurant.  Of course I only ate a bowl of steamed rice, but Eddie seemed to really enjoy the sushi.  We were able to sit at the bar and watch the chef as he prepared all of Eddie's rolls.  The patron sitting next to us made a few suggestions since it was our first time there and they turned out to be excellent suggestions for Eddie.  On our way back to the car we passed Olive Or Twist martini bar.  I think it is such a cute name so even though Eddie had already been here before (without me), I made him take me in for a round of martinis.  I ordered some gin & orange concoction and Eddie had a gin & rose water drink.  Both were very good.  And that was our fun NW Portland date.

Now for today's media mention.  I'll be honest and come right out and tell you that I slacked today.  This is kind of a back-up mention.  I had been wanting to discuss Pretty Little Liars for some time and figured I would just wait until the summer TV series ended.  I didn't realize until just a few days ago that the last episode I saw a few weeks ago was in fact the finale.  I first heard about the PLL TV show on ABC Family so when I saw it on Hulu I gave it a try.  I had a really hard time following the story because all of the girls looked alike to me and I didn't know who was supposed to be the focus.  I read up on the show and realized it was based on a series of books by Sara Shepard so I bought the first book from Amazon.  I read it that very night.  I'm not sure why I powered through when these books are even cheesier than the Twilight series, but I kept with it.  A week later I had read all eight books in the series and was ready to stick with the show.  I'm still undecided about which version of the story I like better.  I think the novels are more interesting with the stories, but I think I like the characters better in their TV forms.

The Bounty Hunter

I spent a quiet day at home today.  I didn't sleep well last night so I spent most of the day veging on the couch.  After both Hulu & Netflix failed to play on my computer I decided to look for something ON Demand and purchased The Bounty Hunter.  I love Gerard Butler so this is a movie I had been wanting to see for some time.  It wasn't anything fantastic, but it was a fun, light & entertaining film.

I should have a real & better entry tomorrow.  Eddie and I have made plans to get back into our weekly date nights so we should be going somewhere fun tomorrow.

Eat, Pray, Love

No real adventure today - just a media mention.  I had my first interview today for a part-time tasting room associate position at a winery in Yamhill.  When I got home from that I felt like being out of the house so I told Eddie I was heading out to catch a movie at Bridgeport.  I decided to see Eat, Pray, Love - the very first book I read in our new apartment in Oregon.  I didn't even know it was going to be a movie until two months ago.  I think the movie was excellent and I loved Richard Jenkins' portrayal of Richard from Texas.  Seeing the movie was both enlightening and sad.  It made me think about some of the things I've done right in my life, but mostly it made me focus on the mistakes I've made.  So I didn't care for that and I wound up crying through all three countries in her adventure.  But for all who have read the book, I highly recommend the film.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

I loved my second and last day of work.  The air show was once again spectacular.  And even though the three of us working the booth were less exuberant today, we managed to walk away with the same amount in tips as yesterday.  Not too shabby.  We got out a bit earlier today so I drove down to wine country to meet Eddie.  I'm not sure why my GPS told me to take Bald Peak Road but I'm glad it did because I had spectacular views of both the Tualatin and Willamette valleys.  I met Eddie at Stoller Vineyards to watch a small & local production company perform Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.  They had snacks and wine for sale before the show so we armed ourselves with a bottle of rose and a wheel of brie with crackers.  I had a blast except for the twenty minutes I missed due to a power nap.  This was a very funny troupe and I especially enjoyed laughing at some of the more homoerotic scenes.

You might expect my media mention to have something to do with Shakespeare, but it does not.  Several weeks ago I suggested to Eddie that we do our own private book club where we make recommendations to each other.  Eddie read a great book and then passed it on to me and I have not been able to put it down since.  I look forward to finishing it tomorrow.  It is Stephen Clarke's "nearly true, uproarious account of a year in the life of an expat in Paris," A Year in the Merde.  There have been several laugh-out-loud moments for me and I am finding it to be an excellent and fun summer read.  This is something I probably would have never picked up at any bookstore so I am glad Eddie suggested it.  He and I agree that this book makes us want to travel to France but since we don't have the money for a big trip like that, staying at home to drink bordeaux and listen to Edith Piaf will have to do.

Oregon Air Show

I had a fantastic time today.  I started out working my first of two shifts at the Oregon Air Show in Hillsboro.  My only task was to work one of the beer & wine tents so I knew I was going to have fun doing that.  What I didn't know was that I'd be working on prime real estate - one of the tents facing the landing strip with awesome views of the entire air show.  I don't remember the names of any of the planes I saw, but my favorite aircraft was this plane that could hover and move side-to-side just like a helicopter!  I had never seen anything like it before.  I worked my booth with two other gals who were fun to spend the day with.  We were told that our booth was the busiest and made the most money.  I was excited to come home with almost $50 in tips.

After the shift, I went out for a beer with one of the girls, Geneiva.  She suggested meeting at Moon & Sixpence near her home in NE Portland.  I was glad she suggested it because it was a great British Pub.  We sat at one of the tables on the patio and enjoyed the live music they provided.  Very chill atmosphere.  But alas - I have no pictures of either event.  Sorry.

To top it all off, today's media mention is lame.  I picked up a copy of J.D. Robb / Nora Roberts' Fantasy in Death at PDX on my way to San Diego because it was one of the books on the read & return program.  I bought it in such a hurry that I only had time to scan the back cover and read words like "murder" and "death" which is what tempted me to buy the book.  But apparently I should have read closer to find out it is a futuristic story about a holographic game that can be programmed to kill people.  Very bad read in my opinion.