Right after I graduated from Yale, there was a massive wave of weddings as college sweethearts tried to give it a go in the real world — or, as my four-year-old boy likes to say, “for real life.”  I was clueless about weddings.  Honestly, I don’t think I’d ever been to one my entire life until I graduated from college.  My parents both had very small families and relatively few friends. 

I had no idea about wedding etiquette and I recall today with much shame a wedding invitation that I didn’t even have the decency to RSVP “no” to.  I had decided (in my own mind) not to go.  It was in Detroit or someplace out of the way like that and what was the big deal anyway?  My friend (the bride to be) called me a few days before the wedding. 

“Are you coming?” she demanded.  “We haven’t heard from you.”   

“Um, no, I guess not,” I said in the halting tone of voice used by someone gradually coming to the realization that they have fucked up royally.

One wedding that I didn’t miss was held in New Orleans, one of America’s great cities.  My friend, Christine, was getting married to a complete lunatic named Tom.  I always carried a torch for Christine.  She was a Southern girl — smart, pretty, funny, the whole package.  I never did anything about it, of course, but then was horrified to think she was going to marry someone that I didn’t know very well at all, but who seemed like a bit of a jerk, at least compared to me.  (I believe they are still married, some 20 years later.  Guess I was wrong.  Or Christine really likes jerks.)

Anyway, I flew down to New Orleans for the wedding and was pretty much hammered for the duration of the weekend.  It’s not hard to do in New Orleans, of course, where you can walk down the street with a drink in your hand or in both hands, for that matter.  (They should try this in Baghdad.  Why blow yourself to smithereens when you’ve got a nice little buzz going for yourself?  Get McCrystal on the horn, stat.)

The night of the wedding merely ratcheted up the drunkeness to a new level.  The groom had his arm in a sling, having fallen off the roof of a house the previous night at his bachelor party.  (Dude, you NEVER schedule the bachelor party that close to your wedding, come on.) 

At some point, my dear friend, Liam, and I were wandering around the streets of the French Quarter, looking for something to eat.  I’m guessing it was about 2:00 a.m. and we had it in our alcohol-soaked heads that we wanted to experience some real New Orleans barbecue.  I remember (vaguely) deciding this while sitting on a park bench eating beignets from Cafe du Monde.  I believe I burned my fingers reaching into the bag of beignets and not really caring because they were SO DAMN GOOD.

But it wasn’t barbecue.  And so Liam and I set off into the New Orleans night.  We asked a few locals where to go.  By this time, it was probably about 3:00 a.m. and, even in the Big Easy, most of the places to which we were directed were closed.  We ended up VERY far away from the French Quarter, wandering around in search of one last mythical barbecue joint.  I’m not sure how we didn’t get killed.  Two fancy white boys from Yale.  Drunk off our asses.  Lost and well outside the tourist district (which itself isn’t the safest place on Earth).

But there is a God and apparently he likes white boys from Yale and he LOVES barbecue because we found the place and it was OPEN, baby.  To call this place a hole in the wall is to disparage all other holes in the wall around the world.  The entire place basically consisted of a giant fat man standing behind a little glass counter.  No tables, no chairs.  Nothing. 

“We want some genuine New Orleans barbecue!” we said, thrilled to have found this place, any place, really, that would satisfy our fix. 

The man served us some chicken.  We stood there on the other side of the counter and started eating. 

“Holy shit, that’s good,” I said, or maybe Liam said it, I don’t really remember.

“Mm-hmm,” the fat man responded.  “That’s Cajun spice.”

Liam and I still use this line with each other today, typically to indicate that something is excellent or, alternatively, disastrous.  A pretty girl walks by.  That’s Cajun spice.  A pretty girl walks by and you have a giant booger hanging out of your nose.  That’s Cajun spice, too.

I’m laughing as I type this and wondering if it will make sense to anybody but me and Liam.  I guess I don’t care. 

Because that’s Cajun spice.

I spent Thanksgiving in Connecticut with my mom and dad, my sister and niece, my two children, and my girlfriend.  Here are our ages, from oldest to youngest: 80, 69, 44, 41, 41, 9, 6, and 3.  What could possibly bring us all together?  Well, it wasn’t turkey, since Mom opted, for no apparent reason, to make pot roast (which was delicious).  No, it was the Wii, the greatest videogame system of all time. 

I’ve had my Wii for about two years now and it continues to amaze and delight me.  I decided to bring it to Connecticut, thinking my kids might need a diversion.  Instead, the whole damn family got involved.   My niece and my daughter had a bowling match.  My dad and my son had a sword fight.  My son and I played some hoops.  At one point, my girlfriend challenged my Dad to a bowling match and then — God bless her — she challenged my MOM to a match.  Who do you root for in THAT one, sports fans?  The woman who birthed you or the woman you’ll be in bed with that night?  (Sorry, Mom, a boy’s gotta’ do what a boy’s gotta do.)

It was big fun and I strongly suggest that you ask Santa for a Wii this holiday season if you don’t have one already.  Assuming you’ve been good, that is.

You wouldn’t know it to look at me, but I love a good hard rock song as much as the next tat-covered metal-head.  I have always struggled to control my foul temper and there is something about the pure expression of raw anger in many hard rock songs that I love.  I’m pissed off – and so are they!

As you’ll see, many of the songs on this list are by “the usual suspects,” but I have tried to pick songs from these bands that are a little less obvious.  “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is a brilliant hard rock song, but you already knew that, so what’s the point of putting it on my list?  OK, then, dear reader, please turn your amplifier up to 11 and let’s kick it…

• Nirvana, “Lithium” – These guys changed it all, didn’t they?  The hilarious thing is that “Nevermind” knocked off Michael Jackson’s “Dangerous” to become the #1 album in America.  With all due respect to the King of Pop, Kurt Cobain was dangerous.  “Lithium” is classic Nirvana…Slow, then crunchingly fast, then slow, then fast.  Toward the end, Cobain screams, “I like it, I’m not gonna crack/I miss you, I’m not gonna crack/I love you, I’m not gonna crack/I kill you, I’m not gonna crack.”  Is it any wonder he eventually cracked?   
• Cracker, “Low” – Whatever happened to these guys?  Who cares, they left us with this amazing single, which includes this lyric: “I’ll be with you, girl/Like being low/Hey, hey, hey/It’s like being stoned.”  I’ve never been stoned, but I’ve been low, baby. 
• Smashing Pumpkins, “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” – Is there a better voice in rock than Billy Corrigan’s?  Not when he sings this lyric: “Despite all my rage/I am still just a rat in a cage.”  Yes, Billy.  Me, too.
• Rage Against the Machine, “Guerilla Radio“ – Yes, yes, I know.  I AM the machine. But I can bite the hand that feeds me, can’t I?  Actually, this song takes the hand, rips it from the arm, chews it up, and spits it into a gutter.  The menacingly whispered, “It has to start somewhere/It has to start sometime/What better place than here/What better time than now,” leads to the repeatedly screamed, “All hell can’t stop us now.”  Oh, baby, turn that shit up.
• Metallica, “Enter Sandman” – This is the quintessential hard rock song, so I was tempted to pick another Metallica tune until I had the opportunity to attend Game Six of the World Series a few weeks ago.  They play this song when Yankee closer Mariano Rivera jogs out from the bullpen to the mound and it was EPIC.  52,000 people banging their heads.  Say your prayers, Phillies, you won’t be with us much longer. 
• Silverchair, “Tomorrow” – I can’t name another Silverchair song, but this one kicks ass, Fatboy.  Here’s a lyric that always makes me think of my ex-wife: “You say that money isn’t everything/But I’d like to see you live without it/You think you can keep on going, living like a king,/Ooh babe, but I strongly doubt it.”  She actually HAS kept on living like a king, but, oh, well.  Maybe tomorrow…
• Foo Fighters, “Monkeywrench” – How do you go from being the drummer of Nirvana to the front man of another kick-ass hard rock band?  I don’t know, ask Dave Grohl.  This song is about being gay (I think), but it really hits on all of the classic hard rock themes – not fitting in, persecution, and just being absolutely ripshit about the whole thing.  Take a deep breath and sing along with this lyric: “One last thing before I quit I never wanted any more than I could fit into my head I still remember every single word you said and all the shit that somehow came along with it still there’s one thing that comforts me since I was always caged and now I’m free.”  Remember, you need to save up enough air so that you can scream the word “free” for about 20 minutes.

I realize that I am missing several worthy artists: Guns-n-Roses, Pearl Jam, Van Halen, Hole, and Def Leppard, to name just a few. But I am out of time, and so are you.  Please add your ear-bleeding suggestions to the list.

Here was the scene in my apartment about two hours ago…

My nine-year-old daughter was sawing away at her viola, playing, among other all-time favorites, “Hot Cross Buns” and “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”

My three-year-old son was working diligently with my girlfriend to assemble a Lego Star Wars “Republic Gunship.”  There were about 4,000 pieces to this dang thing, all threatening at any moment to fall to the floor.

My ex-wife’s new dog, Pixie, was attacking her toy, Mr. Squeaky, hurling it around the apartment, growling ominously, and chasing after it.  (We are babysitting Pixie this weekend, while my ex-wife, hopefully, is off getting remarried.)

There was a time when this type of scene would have pushed me to the brink of a nervous breakdown.  Tonight, I loved it, and only wish I could have recorded it on film somehow.  It is recorded in my brain camera, though, so I wanted to share it with you.  Cut!

Is there any product on the face of the planet more perfectly named than the McDonald’s “Happy Meal”?  It’s rather arrogant if you think about it.  THIS meal — not some other meal, cooked by you, perhaps, or purchased elsewhere — is so certain to produce happiness in the consumer that it is NAMED after happiness.  

For once, the wizards at McDonald’s decided to pull back on the whole “Mc” thing and not call it a “Happy McMeal” or a “McHappy Meal.”  No, there is no need to bastardize the meaning of it all. 

It is a meal. 

And it makes you happy.

At least it does if you’re under the age of ten, as both my children are.  (Nine and three, to be exact.)  They get happy at the mere NOTION that we might be heading to McDonald’s to get some grub.  And who can blame them?  It’s perfect, really.  You get your protein in the form of some Chicken McNuggets.  You get your fruits/veggies in the form of french fries or apple dippers.  (What’s the ratio there, do you think?  Seventy five orders of fries for every one order of apple dippers?)  You get a drink, which can be milk or juice.  And, best of all, you get a toy.  A toy made in China by a child half the age of your children, but, hey, it’s a global economy and toys are important.  We like toys in this country.  We NEED toys.

Today, the toy for boys was an Astro Boy action figure and for girls it was a My Little Pony.  (There is not even a hint of gender sensitivity in the toy selections.  At McDonald’s, boys like to blow things up; girls like to play with dolls.  As a father of a boy and a girl, that’s pretty much right, but do they have to be so OVERT about it?)  

My kids figured out a few visits ago that the bottom of the Happy Meal box tells you which toys are up next.  (The DaVinci McCode.)  This is a great way to keep abreast of pop culture, but also indicative of our tiny lil’ attention spans.  A whole lot of people probably worked for five years on Astro Boy — a perfectly fine film, by the way.  Doesn’t it merit more than a week or two in the Happy Meal line-up?  Apparently, it does not.

In Astro Boy (as in so many other movies for children these days), we have completely befouled the Earth and now use it largely as a giant dumping ground for worn-out robots, discarded from the floating city above where all the cool people live.  Someday, a thousand years from now, an archaeologist will stumble across my garbage from this afternoon.  She’ll carefully dust off Astro Boy and Iris, the My Little Pony, with a delicate brush.

“My God,” she’ll say, her voice barely above a whisper. ”They had rockets coming out of their feet.  And really gay looking horses.”

About five or six years ago, I was down in St. Thomas with my then-wife and daughter.  We were staying at the Marriott Frenchman’s Reef, an absolutely lovely resort, and we were enjoying a lazy day at the beach.  One moment I was sitting on my towel, catching some rays and nursing a pina colada, and then, suddenly, I found myself in the surf, desperately trying to pull a drowning woman to shore. 

To this day, I have no recollection of how I made the transition from Jimmy Buffett to David Hasselhoff.  I don’t remember anyone yelling for help, I don’t even remember running into the ocean.  And yet there I was, along with another guy about my age, fighting the waves and tugging this poor old lady up onto the beach. 

What I do remember is how HEAVY she was and how her husband just stood there watching us, a look of profound sadness and confusion on his weathered, old face.  I realized later that the woman was so heavy because she was full of water.   

We dragged her up onto the beach and it was pretty clear to me that she was dead.  Every time we moved her, water came spilling out of her mouth.  She wasn’t the right color.   

In an incredible stroke of luck, an emergency room nurse happened to be vacationing at our resort and was sitting nearby.  She began CPR.  I ran the length of the beach, hollering for a doctor.  One brave young man told me that he was in training to be an EMT.  “Let’s go, brother,” I said and we ran back to the old lady.

She was alive!  The ER nurse had brought her back from the dead – quite literally.  An ambulance arrived and they took the old lady away.  I later learned from the hotel manager that she and her husband were visiting our beach from a cruise ship.  They kept her in the hospital for a day or so and she was able to continue on with her vacation.

I tell you this story not to portray myself as a hero, but only because it stands in ridiculously stark contrast to how poorly I have performed under similar life-or-death situations involving people that I actually know and love.

A few years ago, for example, we gave my daughter (about three years old at the time) her first-ever Lifesaver and she promptly proceeded to choke on it.  I was with her at the time, along with my then-wife and then-mother-in-law.  Three seemingly capable adults vs. one fucking Lifesaver.

We all stood around for a few seconds in a total panic.  Madeleine is choking!  Holy shit, somebody do something!  Somebody!  Anybody!  Hello? 

I eventually stepped up to apply the Heimlich Maneuver.  Bear in mind that I am 6’3” and 200 pounds, while my daughter, at the time, was probably about three feet tall and 30 pounds.  I gave it a go and nothing happened.  I tried again.  Nothing.  My daughter had survived open heart surgery when she was 13 months old.  Now, we were going to lose her to a piece of hard candy.

“Call 911,” I said to my wife and about 10 seconds later, my daughter managed to swallow the Lifesaver, which, thankfully, had melted down a bit (though not as much as me).  The firemen arrived a minute later, God bless them, but it was all over by then and everything was fine.

Something remarkably similar happened a few years later when I was out to dinner in Hoboken with my good friends Andy and Suzy.  Suzy loves to talk, so I knew something was wrong when a silence descended over the table.  Sure enough, she was choking – not on a Lifesaver, but on a piece of skirt steak.  I looked at Andy and he looked at me.  Neither of us moved a muscle.  Suzy looked at the both of us, desperately fighting to breathe.  Her eyes said it all – “Would one of you fucking clowns get off your ass and help a sister out here?!” 

I looked at Andy again and he at me.  Our eyes said it all, too – “Dude, I don’t want to do it.  YOU do it!!”

Suzy was standing up now and really struggling.  Andy and I remained seated, engaged in our game of Cowards Chicken.  Who would blink first?  Not me, man.  I couldn’t get a Lifesaver out of my daughter.  Now, I’m supposed to get a skirt steak out of Suzy? 

Like Madeleine, Suzy eventually took matters into her own hands and down went the skirt steak (or maybe it came out, I don’t remember).  What I do remember is my deep sense of shame and embarrassment afterwards.  A dear friend of mine had been in deep shit and I did nothing.  I didn’t try and fail.  I didn’t even try.  Suzy, I apologize.  Andy, you suck.

One more quick story… Last weekend, I was with my kids, my girlfriend, and her kids in Warwick, NY, visiting friends who have horses.  We were feeding apples to the horses and there is a bit of technique to it where you hold the apple in the palm of your hand and provide a little resistance when the horse leans in to take a bite.  The horses were slobbering like fiends (“Sour apples,” our friend explained), but we were having a good time. 

My three-year-old son wanted to give it a try, so I picked him up and gave him a small piece of apple to hold.  “Really hold your hand steady,” I said to him as the horse approached.  About three milliseconds later, the horse was eating his hand.  My son started yelling and, for a crucial split second, I did what I always do when the pressure is on: absolutely nothing. 

The best part of this story is that my son still has all ten of his fingers and suffered only the smallest of scrapes on one knuckle.  The second best part of the story is that my girlfriend managed to take a picture of the precise moment when my son realized that a 2,000-pound animal had mistaken his hand for an apple.  I’m also in the picture.  I have a near-total lack of expression on my face.  My left arm dangles casually by my side, while I actually appear to be using my right arm to boost my son CLOSER to the horse’s mouth. 

We had some ice cream later to make it all better.  Nobody choked on a thing.

I traveled this weekend to Pittsburgh to see a baseball game.  I am a huge Dodgers fan, as indicated by my previous post about the happiest moment of my life.  Traveling with me was my girlfriend’s 11-year-old son, who is a huge Pirates fan.  (He is also a huge Yankee fan, thereby ensuring himself at least some happiness in life.) 

On Saturday, the first-place Dodgers played the last-place Pirates.  At stake for the Dodgers was a chance to clinch a spot in the playoffs for the third time in four years.  At stake for the Pirates?  Not much, actually, since earlier this year they set an all-time record for the most consecutive losing seasons.  (Seventeen, I believe, but who’s counting?)

We bought our tickets several months ago, so the fact that this was a game of any significance for either team was sheer luck.  But I am a big believer in luck — in signs and omens from the gods — and so I was feeling rather lucky when it appeared, about a week ago, as though the Dodgers might have a chance to clinch on Saturday.  When they lost to the Pirates on Friday — keeping their “magic number” at one — I was feeling positively flush with luck. 

After all, it’s hard to live on the East Coast and be a Dodgers fan.  They hardly ever play on TV around here and all of their home games start after 10:00 p.m. my time.  Could the stars possibly align to allow me to see them clinch in person?

As we drove to Pittsburgh it became clear that the only thing standing between me and my dream was Mother Nature.  It rained for most of the five-hour trip.  It was raining when we checked into our hotel and it was raining when we sat down to dinner at Atria’s (try the pot roast nachos), right outside of the absolutely gorgeous PNC Park.  It was raining when we first went up to the gate.

“We’re not letting anybody in right now,” the guy at the gate said.  “We’ll be making the call soon.”

Holy shit, I thought to myself, all the while smiling optimistically at my young companion.  They’re going to cancel the game.  We drove 300 miles to be here, my team can clinch a spot in the playoffs, I’m with an 11-year-old dressed in a Pirates jersey and a Steelers cap, and they’re going to CANCEL THE GAME.  What kind of omen would THAT be? 

A few minutes later, the gates opened and in we went.  Thank you, Jesus.  (Best billboard on the trip: “Jesus died for sinners.  That means you.”)

Our seats were ridiculously good.  We were five rows behind the Dodgers dugout — close enough to hear the players talking to each other.  It was still raining a bit — the usher had to wipe our seats off with a ShamWow — but it wasn’t awful and the game started at 7:05 p.m., right on schedule. 

Sitting directly behind us was actor Jake Gyllenhaal of ”Brokeback Mountain” fame, along with some other Hollywood types, including director Edward Zwick.  (I later learned that Gyllenhall is filming a movie in Pittsburgh with Anne Hathaway, who, sadly, was not in attendance.)

I am not a starfucker by any stretch of the imagination, but it was hard not to eavesdrop on some of the dialogue unfolding behind us.  At one point, one of the guys in Gyllenhall’s entourage noted that the Pirates have the least errors of any team in the National League but are still mired in last place.

“That’s just like life,” Gyllenhall replied.  “If you aren’t willing to make mistakes, you’re never going to get anywhere.” 

I can’t quit you, Jake!

Anyway, it was a fine game, with the Dodgers taking the early lead, the Pirates rallying in the seventh to pull ahead, and the Dodgers storming back in the eight to put it away and secure themselves a spot in the post-season.  We saw two home runs and an unbelievable diving catch.  My girlfriend’s son was on the Jumbotron twice and also caught a hot dog launched about 100 feet into the air by the Pirate Parrot.  (No foul balls came our way, but that was OK by me after watching a women behind the Pirates dugout get absolutely murdered by a line drive.  The usher held up a yellow card over her head, as though she had just tripped the midfielder or something.)

It started raining again shortly after we left the park and it poured the next day all the way home.  I must be living right.

Yes, my marriage ended in a puddle of goo, but, gosh darn it all, we had a lovely wedding and the music was good.  We hired a band called the Rhythm Dogs and they, of course, wanted to know which songs we wanted them to play.

“Let’s save some time,” I said, always ruthlessly efficient.  “Here are the songs we DON’T want you to play.”

And here they are for you now:

• “Shout,” The Isley Brothers – My knees are for shit, so it’s always been a challenge for me to “get a little bit softer now.”  Besides, it’s just stupid.
• “Celebration,” Kool and the Gang – This song is way too prescriptive.  If you have to tell people that “we’re gonna’ have a good time tonight,” you’re trying WAY too hard and you’re probably not going to have a very good time at all.
• “Mony Mony,” Billy Idol – I curse like a sailor, so there is no real thrill for me in chanting “get laid, get fucked,” especially in front of my grandmother.  Didn’t we work these sort of impulses out of our systems in high school, people?
• “Paradise by the Dashboard Light,” Meatloaf – The first problem with this song is that it goes on for about 20 minutes. The second problem is that your drunk Uncle Irv is always going to grope a bridesmaid during the Phil Rizzuto part.  Really, there isn’t much else to do.
• “Old Time Rock and Roll,” Bob Seger – I have no problem with people busting out the air guitar on the dance floor.  However, there is no way on Earth to play the “air saxophone” without looking like an absolute ass.

The funny thing here is all the songs that AREN’T on this list.  The “Electric Slide” brings me great joy to this day, and I’m a big fan of the “Macarena.”  If I’m at a party and they play “Hot, Hot, Hot,” I will lead the conga line to the parking lot and back even if I’m sober, sober, sober. 

Hindsight being 20/20, I suppose my wedding should have been banned at my wedding, but what can you do?  Like I said, the music was good.

I spent several days last week in the heaven on earth that also goes by the name of Napa Valley.  My girlfriend and I rented a car in San Francisco – a convertible, of course – and headed North across the Golden Gate Bridge, still one of the most awe-inspiring man-made structures in the world. 

(Two quick Golden Gate Bridge stories.  First, my 80-year-old father told me once that the happiest moment in his life was when he was sailing back to the United States after serving for several years in the Korean War and spotted the Golden Gate Bridge.  “I knew I’d made it home,” he said, a rare display by my dad of… well, of actually speaking.  My dad makes Gary Cooper look like Jim Cramer.  Second, I once biked across the Golden Gate Bridge and nearly froze to death about halfway across.  It was 80 degrees on either side of the bridge – and about 40 degrees in the middle.)

Base camp for us in Napa was the Westin Verasa Napa, an absolutely beautiful property built, rather curiously, in the middle of an otherwise empty field.  I love Westin hotels.  Yes, they have the Heavenly Beds, which are, indeed, quite comfy.  But more than that, I love the Westin vibe, which is sleek and cool and contemporary – just like me.  (Stop laughing, goddamn you.)

After dropping off our luggage, we walked over to the Oxbow Market, where we sat down for an afternoon snack of – what else? – wine and cheese. 

Let me say right here that I am not a “wine guy” by any stretch of the imagination.  When given the choice, I will generally have beer, rather than wine, and when I do drink wine, it’s almost always wine purchased at Trader Joe’s for no more than $7.00 a bottle.  (We actually passed the Hacienda winery, which is one of our favorite Trader Joe’s labels.  It was reassuring to know that it is an actual winery in California, not five guys in a basement in New Jersey peeing into a bottle.)

Still, when in Rome you do as the Romans do and when you are in Napa you drink wine or you go home.  Or, as one local put it, “If you don’t like wine, this really isn’t the place for you.”

For dinner on our first night, we headed to Tra Vigne, which is on all of the “best of” lists and for good reason.  The food was ridiculously wonderful.  We started with some padron peppers, grilled then drizzled with a little bit of olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt.  One bite and I realized that I was in the presence of genius and that the rest of the night was going to shape up just fine.  For my main course, I took the advice of our waiter and ordered half portions of two pastas: a risotto with sausage and a pasta with lamb.  My girlfriend ordered a different kind of pasta with rabbit.  Should I ever find myself on death row, I will order one of these three dishes as my final meal.

We grabbed breakfast the next morning at the downtown Napa branch of the Model Bakery.  Excellent. 

Then it was time for some pampering at the Greenhaus Spa.  I had a deep-tissue massage and a pedicure.  My girlfriend was exfoliated and then basted with some sort of Chardonnay-based cream.  Smooth as silk.   

And then it was time to hit the road and get down to some serious drinking.  (I’m already a bit hazy on the order of the vineyards we visited.  It doesn’t really matter.)  Our first stop was the Cliff Lede vineyard.  (It’s pronounced “lady,” by the way, which will allow you to avoid making an idiot of yourself, as I did, by asking if Mr. “Luh-day” was still active in the winery.)  We sampled two tasting menus, one of sparkling wines, the other of “regular” wines.  All good.

From there, we went to lunch at another local favorite, Taylor’s Automatic Refresher, which is just downright fun to say out loud.  Go ahead, say it.   The line was about 40 deep, but worth the wait. 

In the afternoon, we visited Sterling Vineyards, which is distinguished by an aerial tram that takes you up, up, and away to where the winery is and to some absolutely stunning views of the valley.  At one of the tasting stations, we met a Sterling employee who chucked his career as a tax man in order to work at a vineyard.  “Is your life better now?” I asked.  “Oh, yeah!” he said, laughing.   Dumb question.

Our final stop of the day was Peju, which I think was the most beautiful winery we visited.  The grounds were absolutely gorgeous, as was the main building, which included a spectacular 50-foot tower.  Oh, and the wine was good, too.

Dinner that night was at Cole’s Chop House.  My girlfriend had the filet mignon and I had the rib eye.  Man, there’s nothing like a good steak every once in a while, and these steaks were VERY good.

The next day, we drove through Sonoma and up to Healdsburg, a sweet little town in the Russian River Valley.  We ate lunch at the Bear Republic Brewery, where we drank…beer.  It was excellent.

Having gone more than five minutes without a glass of wine, we dropped by the tasting room of La Crema Winery, where I ended up plunking down $90 for a bottle of Nine Barrel Pinot Noir.  (That’s a lot of Hacienda, baby.)  I couldn’t resist and the description on the web site explains why: “Each vintage, our winemaking team tastes through every barrel to find the nine barrels which best characterize the distinctive personality of the Russian River Valley for that particular vintage.”  Yes, I am special!  (And, no, you cannot come over for a glass!)

Our final meal was at La Toque, which recently moved to a beautiful new location right there at the Westin.  We decided to let it all hang out by ordering a three-course meal, complete with wine pairings for each course (and lovely descriptions of each wine by the sommelier).  I started with the foie gras (which I always confuse with pate because I’m just that stupid), then the halibut, and, last but certainly not least, the antelope.  Yes, I said antelope.  It was absolutely fabulous. 

On Sunday, we headed (sadly) to the airport, each with a box of three bottles of wine ready to carry on.  Precious cargo.  About halfway there, it occurred to me that if you can’t carry a 10-ounce bottle of shampoo onto an airplane, you probably can’t carry on three bottles of wine.  We decided to roll up the bottles in our clothing, pack them into our checked luggage, and pray to the Gods of Wine for mercy.  At the Newark Airport luggage carousel, our prayers were answered – and how many times can you say THAT?

The perfect end to a perfect few days in paradise.

I checked my stats this evening and was thrilled to see that I have crossed the 10,000-visitor mark! 

I can remember when I hit 500 visitors, not that long ago. 

Who are you people? 

THANK YOU!