good day sunshine

two-thirds

The Beatles once sang, "I get by with a little help from my friends," and then moved swiftly into a phase of pschyedelics and yellow submarines. Personally, I'm going to stick with staying up late and playing with my friends and skip the drug induced spurts of creativity (I've got more than enough mental anguish to keep me churning out new work to need any further aid).

this pretty much sums up the evening

So Monday night mom and I headed down to San Francisco to fetch Sir Knight for his rapid, 24-hour, talk-and-lovingly-abuse-her-off-her-ledge, whirlwind visit. His flight was delayed so we didn't get back to The Burrow (mom's house, yes, a reference to the Weasley household in Harry Potter, the place where no matter how crappy life is, it's always a little bit better once you're there) until after eleven. A normal person would have gone straight to bed to prepare for a busy following day but we've never been accused of normalcy and we're not about to start now. In lieu of that then, we decided to make margaritas and act like idiots. Idiots how? I took the opportunity to somehow drop the bottom out of the blender thus causing the Great Spill of 2011 (photos of Blake and me slurping beverage off the countertop with straws to follow) and the other two decided to channel other worldly spirits with the damn Ouija board (I took no part in it other than to sit at the table with them because I choose not to mess with things beyond our realm, but that's just me).

mumm napa... bubbles & sun

The next day was a first for me. Growing up in Napa (and in the wine industry for that matter, with Dad's business taking us out to wineries on a daily basis from the time I was seven weeks old, curled up in a little snuggly pack... I was a great mascot) it surprises even me that I have never been wine tasting in the Napa Valley. Sure, I now know the Willamette Valley left, right and sideways but my own hometown? Ha. I was out of here before I turned eighteen and kept far away unless a holiday demanded my return for the better part of the last seven years (I think it's fair that most people stray from their hometowns, at least for a while... I had a certain bitterness about Napa though, another story for another time). But you know what I discovered? This place is lovely! Holy moses, I got to grow up here and I completely took it for granted! Sure, I always knew how beautiful it was and would often request a quick spin up valley on the not-so way home from school, but this was a chance to see it from a new vantage point.

prager port winery - one of my favorites, even as a kid (they had winery cats)

Everywhere we went Dad saw someone he knew (no joke, whether he was sticking his head into a cellar, walking through a crowded restaurant or just entering a tasting room, he knew everyone). The day was just about perfect - even the sun came out to play! After months and months of rain, I had almost forgotten what it looked like (and boy, I must have thrown it for a loop with the blinding quality my alabaster skin has developed this winter!) So we made our rounds - Mumm, Conn Creek (yum!), lunch at Rutherford Grill, Prager and Stag's Leap. Conn Creek and Stag's Leap are both part of Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, which owns Erath as well, so it was fun to get to a couple of our "sister wineries". I was really impressed with Conn Creek in particular. The folks in the tasting room reminded me of the people I work with and were so welcoming! And the wine was amazing (I bought a bottle of 2006 Anthology which is a blend of everything Bordeaux and it made me melt). And then a stop at Prager, of course. The family owned winery has been one of my favorites for as long as I can remember (my dad is friends with the family and as a kid I spent a lot of time chasing the old cellar cats, Use and Less, around the barrels) (also, one infamous luau party where they buried and roasted a pig... big fun when you're six). One of founder Jim Prager's sons was in the tasting room along with one of his son-in-laws as well. It's so wonderful to know that as corporate as some of the places in Napa have become, there are still the strongholds. The character of the place is fully in tact and shows no signs of waning... When you're there, you're family. And the port? Leapin' lizards. The ruby, the tawny, the white port! Hell. Nothing tops it. I've actually had the privilege of meeting and tasting with the winemaker of a port winery in Portugal and it didn't touch the quality Prager has harnessed. It was definitely a highlight of the day.

the boy riding the "circus bike"

Nothing helps to take your mind of the more craptabulismic (word origin: Sean) times of life than to be surrounded by family and one of your best friends. Of course my mind wandered many times throughout the day to places beyond my control, but having Blake lurking around corners to pop me on the back of the head or make an inappropriate comment about, er, everything really... Helps.

The Beatles were right. I do get by.

(more photos to follow, these were the immediately available iPhone shots)

pestering the boy

After knowing my dear, sweet Blake for over five years years, I’ve realized there is no one on earth who is easier (or more fun) to aggravate. It's kind of like bothering a cat when they're trying to sleep in the sun so that they growl and hiss and then go back to sleep.

That being said, this list is just the tip of a rather formidable iceberg. We’ll start with 50, just to get things rolling. 

In truth, it’s infinite, but we only have a short time here and...Uh... Yep, I see they’re giving me the light so I should get on with it. Thanks for coming out, it’s been real, I'll be here all week. Try the veal. What? No, I am not a proponent for politically incorrect meat, it's just that... And I really don’t appreciate the insinuation! Yeah? Well same to you, Bucko! How dare you! Hey, no! Put that chair down…

50 Ways To Irritate Blake

*Things learned firsthand

1. Saying something stupid*

2. Using the word “little” in the same sentence you mention him*

3. Hand him a penny*

4. Loose buttons… Anywhere near him*

5. Ask him the same question repeatedly*

6. Badger him in any way*

7. Insult him

8. Be taller than him

9. Ignore him*

10. Put him in the same room as a cat*

11. Quote movies he hasn’t seen yet*

12. Olives*

13. Trick him into drinking coffee

14. Spell things wrong*

15. Use bad grammar

16. Be an idiot*

17. Be inconsiderate

18. Sleep when he’s not sleepy*

19. Overstay your welcome

20. Move when he’s sleeping/cuddling with you and he's already comfortable*

21. Excessive promiscuity

22. Throw things at him from across the table*

23. Attack him in the pool during a water fight*

24. Run out of whiskey and/or Dr. Pepper

25. Like cats*

26. Dislike huskies

27. Disagree with him on various things*

28. Have no class

29. Go to Eaton

30. Go to Oxford

31. Be unattractive

32. Be gross

33. Make him wait*

34. Make things more complicated than they need to be*

35. Waste his time*

36. Talk down to him for any reason

37. Be disgusting

38. Be a blond bimbo/idiot/slag/etc.

39. Dislike Disney movies

40. Dislike comic books

41. Be his old Italian professor

42. Make him watch a movie he doesn’t like*

43. Quote a movie as it plays*

44. Disloyalty 

45. Swearing, if you’re a girl*

46. Put trash in his car because he leaves the doors unlocked and how else is he going to learn?*

47. Write on his car with dry-erase markers*

48. Act like an idiot while drunk

49. Anything to do with his big toes*

50. Hang out with someone he doesn’t like*

Oh, and...

51. Move to Oregon*

my other two thirds

You've heard me prattle on at length about how much I adore Portland and the people in it and I thank you for that. In reality, I've held back. So count your blessings folks. You have no idea how loquacious I can be (and if you do, I am genuinely sorry). 

But the time has come, the Walrus said, to remind you all of something Portland does not have: my other two-thirds.

Brigette and I met the second semester of freshman year at Pepperdine. We were the two non-theater majors working in the Scene Shop (the scenic construction and installation heart and soul of Smothers Theater) and got plugged into working on the haphazard jalopy for The Grapes of Wrath. I still have visions of our leading men and women falling through/off that thing due to our shoddy pneumatic stapling job. Anyway, somewhere between air-powered adhesion and John Steinbeck, we realized we were both set to spend the following semester in London. 

Long story short, that was the beginning of what would become the saga of us being "Heterosexual Life Partners". Almost six years later, we've been through just about everything together. We've traveled Europe, Mexico & America; we've had the ups & downs of relationships; we've eaten too much cheese, drank too much wine, bought too many clothes, watched too many Christmas movies (no such thing), played in too many IKEAs, made too many people nervous about whether we're going to fall up a flight of stairs (we're both guilty of that) and had too many smoke detectors sound off at too many attempted cooking feats. She is my sister, my best friend and the only person in the world who understands what it means to watch 101 Dalmatians on the 101. 

As for Blake, he is my boyo. Our Wonderboy. We met in Intro To Creative Writing in 2006 just as Brig and I returned from our first adventure in London. He was the six-foot-something freshman from Texas who looked like he'd just fallen out of the Abercrombie & Fitch Quarterly and while it would be another  few months before we moved on from Instant Messaging about Disney and literature to hanging out in his dorm room watching Star Wars and James Bond movies, that was the humble beginning. And once he and my mom met and she all but formally adopted him, that was it - best friend, big little brother, co-runner-around-Boboli-Gardens-in-the-rain, only-person-who-would-make-me-a-birthday-Frankencake-and-cut-it-with-a-butcher-knife, "...but by God, there'll be dancing!", one of the loves of my life. 

To shorten this long story, it was somewhere between Brig's and my junior year and now that the three of us clicked and became unconditional friends. There are nooo boundaries (for better or for worse, ha) and while I'm positive that we've raised more than a few eyebrows from the people trying to figure us out, we rarely care. It's more fun that way. 

These two people are the other two-thirds of my heart and for all the things I don't miss about Los Angeles, I miss them infinite times more. When we were in college, it was easy to run through our apartment complex and meet in the middle. To crash in Blake's bed when we didn't feel like walking the extra few hundred feet to our apartment. To pound on Blake's door in the middle of the night, Brig and me with hoodies and wellies on, ready to drag him out to puddle-jump in the rain.  To fly down PCH, blasting "Dark Blue"and singing at the top of our lungs. 

It's harder now. We're over a thousand mile apart. The occasional video chat isn't enough! I miss them like I'm missing a piece of my heart. But remember what I said earlier? This is an unconditional friendship. The pictures of them all around my apartment make me smile on even the crummiest day. 

This love isn't going anywhere. 

 (photos of our adventures over the years)