Doing as the Romans do

Now that I'm moved in, I feel this responsibility to learn about what fuels this area. This means, I'm going to have to drink a lot of wine. Last weekend, I took a basics wine class from one of the wineries here. This weekend, I went to help a local backyard wine club bottle some of last year's crush. I sat on an assembly line, filling bottles or using a device to push a cork into them. All the while, I pestered the guys in the club with questions. That showed great patience with my amateurism.

Lessons learned: Winemaking is way above my head at this point.

Fitting in

I've been settling into my new home the past couple weeks. I have a great place near downtown that actually has a spiral staircase in it. No joke. The job is fun and interesting, with great people. My first day my boss brought me to a desk with a typewriter and a kitchen chair and told me to have at it. Once they replaced it with a computer, I noticed they'd also left me a vase with two roses. I've been busy trying to adapt to the differences and meeting all of the new people my beat includes. It is a little bit like going from eighth grade to high school. I'm suddenly at the bottom of the food chain. But it's a fun challenge.

Lesson learned: A new one every day.

Power wedding week

One of my best friends got married a couple weeks ago in Montana. In true Joe and Anna style, the week prior was packed with climbing, hiking, swimming, etc. Anna's bachelorette party was 16 hours long, including lunch on Flathead Lake, boating, a fiesta, and a band. By the day before the wedding, we were all a wreck. But we managed to rally, and their wedding was beautiful. They had the ceremony on the top of Big Mountain, with the reception at the base lodge. We rode the chair up, then the bridal party rolled into the reception on scooters down a slide that goes the length of chair 6. It serve as a pseudo high school reunion as well. It was great to see everyone.






Lesson learned: Clare and I are power bridesmaids.

Moving day

Moving sucks. There is just no sugar coating it. In five years, I have accumulated way beyond what a single woman should own. It took ages to go through all my stuff, get rid of a ton of it and pack the rest into about 439 boxes. One slight complication is that I have a piano. Not just any keyboard. This is a full-sized console piano that weighs about 700 pounds. The thought of selling it was just too painful. It's like my pet.

I think this is the prime reason I had to bribe people to help me move with beer and pizza.

A group of my friends/co-workers loaded up the truck Sunday, right after my going away party the night before.

We started with some boxes, then my couch. My piano sat in the corner like an elephant we were too afraid to confront with less that full mental preparation. We finally got it onto the dolly, wheeled it to the edge of the sidewalk, practically dragged it through the gravel to the connecting sidewalk, went down the long side of the apartment building, down a shallow set of stairs, across a parking lot and up a ramp into the truck. I think every one of us was sweating out all the beer we drank the night before.

I nearly had a panic attack at least three times.

The next day, I drove the truck to Napa Valley, with two of my friends following me. A few people from my new job met us the next morning to heist the piano up another set of stairs into my new apartment.

It sits against a wall, with a few more scratches, but in tact. So now, with the help of Sean, Vanessa and my mom, I am pretty much moved into a cute apartment on the second level of a house right downtown.

Lessons learned: I have really good friends.

Summer craziness

Right after lofty promises of frequent posts last time I wrote, I have gone the longest ever without updating this blog. I have some good excuses. In the past two months, I've been all over and lots has changed.

Here are a few highlights:

• My friend Megan and I went to Los Angeles to celebrate my birthday. We went to the beach, went out, went shopping — you know, all the things you are supposed to do in L.A. It was fun to celebrate turning 29 by getting out of town.

• At the last minute, I booked a trip to Montana for my high school friend Jessi's wedding on Flatehead Lake. It took some masterminding, and a mix of trains, planes and automobiles to get there, but I made it. It was worth every kink in my back from wrestling my luggage from one mode of transportation to another.

• I've also been back and forth between Sebastopol and Napa a couple times. More about why later.

• I helped my friend Lakes edit his book.

• My friends Sean, Vanessa and I took a road trip to the Seattle area for the Fourth of July.

• I got a speeding ticket and had to take traffic school. Don't get me started.

• I have been ghost writing a book for another friend. (There will be more about this later as well).

• I have been going to open mic night at a local bar and recorded a demo record of six songs I wrote.

• I got a new job and moved to the Napa Valley.

• Right now I am in the airport about to board a plane back to Montana another wedding. This time it is Anna, who is one of my closest friends, who is getting married.

So there are my excuses. Not bad, huh?

Lessons learned: I've good at excuses.

Looking for the old me

I was reading some old posts today. It's strange, but I barely recognize the girl who wrote them. I was funnier then. Definitely wordier. Maybe I'm just tired.

I realized the other day that in the five years I've worked here, I've never stayed in town for a vacation. I'm always flying out somewhere on Friday night after work and flying back in at 10 p.m. on a Sunday night, getting home at 1 a.m., only to start work on Monday again at 8 a.m. So I've taken the week off for a vacation with the goal that I will just completely relax. No stress. No work.

Yesterday I got a massage. Today I had my hair done. Tomorrow I'm going to the lake.

Some might say this is stupid in the middle of the recession. Maybe. But if I can just regain some of the spirit I had in 2006, I will be a better reporter for it. Hopefully my boss will see that.

Lessons learned: I miss 2006.

Birthday BBQ

Last night I went to a birthday party for one of my co-workers, Margie, who just turned 40. I hope I look as good as she does after 40 years and three kids. She has been voted "hottest woman in the newsroom" before by a previous slate of co-workers, beating out women in their 20s. So we had a barbecue with a menu of spinach artichoke dip, avocado and tomato dip, shrimp, oysters, chicken, salad, garlic mashed potatoes, garlic bread and cheesecake. Margie did a lot of the cooking, which seems a little backwards to me, considering it was her special day.

She also seems to have a much better attitude than I do about my upcoming birthday. Anyway, Happy Birthday, Margie.

Lessons learned: When I figure out how she aged so well, I will come and fill this back in.

Subscribe?

Anyone know how to allow people to subscribe to my blog via e-mail using accounts other than listed in the existing subscribe tool? I know it's possible, but it isn't listed as one of the gadgets under page elements.

Cookies and popcorn

My mom came to visit for part of my four-day weekend. She had a bike race in the region, so we did some hard care race preparation including carb loading and relaxation techniques, i.e. watching movies and playing scrabble. Mom did what moms do: made chocolate chip cookies with walnuts, cleaned my apartment about four times and fixed me breakfast.

My freezer is now stocked with enough cookie dough to hold a bake sale. Hmmm, maybe that is what I should do to raise money for the speeding ticket I got the other weekend.

Anyway, it was nice to have the company and be taken care of for a couple days. I needed it.

Lessons learned: When you're an adult, your mom lets you have popcorn, beer and cookies for lunch.

Farewell to my coffee table

My living room is now empty, my coffee table gone.

I know this sounds like the beginning of an ode. Maybe it is.

Four years ago, my boyfriend at the time, Cavan, left a coffee table he made by hand at my place as he set out for a new job in the Boston area. The plan was, I would bring it out to him when I moved there. Well, obviously our plans never came to fruition, so the table stayed right where it was.

I sort of hoped it always would.

Cavan, who now lives in Kentucky, was in California for the week and came up to pick up what is rightfully his. It was really good to see him, catch up and do a little reminiscing over lunch. It is crazy to think it's been about four years since he was here. Seeing him reminded me that there really are selfless men out there - that there is much more than what I've settled for from my relationships since. I think we both know our lives took different paths for a reason, but our relationship carries a special kind of nostalgia.

I think that's why it may be so hard to let go of that coffee table. Because it is one of the last tokens I had left from that time.

Lessons learned: I will have a hard time replacing that table.

So connected

It's official. I now can write e-mails from two different accounts. I can leave my updates on Facebook, then put them on Twitter. I can then turn around and write all the same friends on Myspace. I can network on LinkedIn. And if I'm still bored, I have this blog. Seriously. What happened to the girl who didn't have Internet just a couple years ago? I could spend all day hopping from one social networking opportunity to another.

Who needs a real life?

Ironically, I was just reading a blog post about why people get stuff done, like write that book, or record music or exercise more. Hmmm. If I thought real hard I might be able to pinpoint some distractions in my life.

Lessons learned: I need to consolidate.

Thought I'd stop by

Fourteen. That's the number of blog posts I've had this year so far. So I haven't been very prolific in 2009. Now that I have lost all of my loyal readers, I thought I would show up.

Anyway, as you can see, Mom and Ben, (the two who still read), I have a new template. It really wasn't my choice, since Blogger decides ever so often to do overhauls. I have to admit, I was over the last design, but it's such a pain to change over links and ads, I just went with it. Till now. I also have added my Twitter updates. Fancy, I know.

Well I'm back for now, and I'm going to try to be better about updating.

Lesson learned: Leave for a minute and they change everything.