One is silver and the other's gold
Happy Birthday to ME!
When I was but 15, I befriended a lass some months older. We confided in each other, and over time became sweethearts – largely of the handholding and kissyface variety, but trending toward heavy petting. ("Heavy petting" -- you gotta love that euphemism.) We’d no doubt have progressed further along the route of physical intimacy, given enough time and privacy . . . but alas, our parents learned of our budding romance and nipped it in the bud.
Actually, they chopped it with a blunt-edged axe, threw it in a sack and dumped it in the river. It was the ‘70s, and our parents were of the military persuasion (Air Force), and there was nothing in their playbooks that allowed for same-sex romance. It’s a familiar story, but still painful enough that I don’t want to go into it. Besides, it isn’t very funny. Although there was that time when my little sister came home unexpectedly and we hurriedly threw on our jeans and tried to act casual in our flushed and flustered state, only to realize that Linda seemed to be wearing highwater pants and that the jeans draping my shorter frame were WAY too long. I hope you get the joke. We still laugh about it.
We still laugh about it because Linda is still in my life, 34 years later. Thirty-four years! And she’s still very lovely, still looks like the 16-year-old who crept into my heart and refused to leave. Lovely, and sweet. Almost scarily sweet and thoughtful.
We just got back from the Grand Canyon, me and my sweetie, Linda and hers. Now Linda has been with her partner for 18 years, and Andie and I are mere babes next to that sort of relationship longevity – but the four of us had a grand old time. The weather was perfect, the hikes great good fun despite my cramped little toe and its daily tantrums – and really, the views were unbelievable. I’ve never been to the GC before, and we were at the much-less-touristy North Rim, which is SO COOL, even though the only coffee for sale was swill, unless you ordered a double espresso on ice as an afternoon pickup, which I did. Again and again. Because Linda did, and we were on vacation, so there.
Linda and Daniela schlepped along a coffeemaker for me, along with a coolio insulated tumbler from the Summit Hut, our favorite Tucson store. Also my favorite coffee, Starbucks Anniversary blend. Every night, they bought us dinner at the Lodge, where reservations have to be made many months in advance. They paid for our cabin. They paid for the gas to GET to the GC, which is a fur distance, lemmee tell ya. They were, as they have always been, the quintessential hostesses, which is just to say that they spoil me rotten, which I love, and they do so in such an understated, gracious fashion that I almost don’t notice it.
Almost. See, when the Tucson girlz picked us up at the Phoenix airport hotel, they showed me the sixpack they’d stowed away for me. Three white wines, three red, and with the ho-hum exception of the Hess Chardonnay, they were winners. Hoo were they winners! And poor Andie not drinking wine on accounta I’m trying to knock her up.
Herewith my Grand Canyon, bestest-buddy wine list: The Brancott Sauvignon Blanc (2005, I think; or perhaps it was the Babich, or the Dashwood;) is a knockout example of the uniformly exceptional New Zealand SBs from Marlborough County: lime and grapefruit, gooseberry and passionfruit, delicious sip after sip, forcing me to drink it along with Linda, which wasn’t quite fair as she’s the white wine drinker, but what could I do? Ditto for the Kim Crawford SB we cracked a few nights into the trip.
I was happy to share my first red, Seven Deadly Zins (2004 I think), which was a classic Zinfandel fruit bomb, but Linda doesn’t like reds and Danny drinks the TEENSIEST glasses, so it took me 3 nights to make a measurable dent. I packed away the Seghesio bluecap Zin, which I know and love, then fixed my spoiled little eye on the remaining red.
Oh my. Ladies and gentlemen, I hereby urge you to go out IMMEDIATELY and score yourself the Mollydooker, The Boxer Shiraz 2005, the BEST wine I’ve had in recent memory. It is luscious, and I can’t find any back here in Kansas City. It’s a deep purply black , this full-bodied wonder from Australia (McLaren Vale, Langhorne Creek and Padthaway, go figure), exhibiting pure blackberries and chocolate, and with a finish worthy of the Grand Canyon.Robert Parker gave it 95 points, and who am I to argue with Robert Parker?
Yeah, I know, it doesn’t get any better. Except that it does. On our final night at the North Rim, the Lodge offered, and I accepted, a glass of Stags Leap Petite Sirah. Sigh and swoon. Good God Almighty, would that all birthdays were as memorable as this one.
When I was but 15, I befriended a lass some months older. We confided in each other, and over time became sweethearts – largely of the handholding and kissyface variety, but trending toward heavy petting. ("Heavy petting" -- you gotta love that euphemism.) We’d no doubt have progressed further along the route of physical intimacy, given enough time and privacy . . . but alas, our parents learned of our budding romance and nipped it in the bud.
Actually, they chopped it with a blunt-edged axe, threw it in a sack and dumped it in the river. It was the ‘70s, and our parents were of the military persuasion (Air Force), and there was nothing in their playbooks that allowed for same-sex romance. It’s a familiar story, but still painful enough that I don’t want to go into it. Besides, it isn’t very funny. Although there was that time when my little sister came home unexpectedly and we hurriedly threw on our jeans and tried to act casual in our flushed and flustered state, only to realize that Linda seemed to be wearing highwater pants and that the jeans draping my shorter frame were WAY too long. I hope you get the joke. We still laugh about it.
We still laugh about it because Linda is still in my life, 34 years later. Thirty-four years! And she’s still very lovely, still looks like the 16-year-old who crept into my heart and refused to leave. Lovely, and sweet. Almost scarily sweet and thoughtful.
We just got back from the Grand Canyon, me and my sweetie, Linda and hers. Now Linda has been with her partner for 18 years, and Andie and I are mere babes next to that sort of relationship longevity – but the four of us had a grand old time. The weather was perfect, the hikes great good fun despite my cramped little toe and its daily tantrums – and really, the views were unbelievable. I’ve never been to the GC before, and we were at the much-less-touristy North Rim, which is SO COOL, even though the only coffee for sale was swill, unless you ordered a double espresso on ice as an afternoon pickup, which I did. Again and again. Because Linda did, and we were on vacation, so there.
Linda and Daniela schlepped along a coffeemaker for me, along with a coolio insulated tumbler from the Summit Hut, our favorite Tucson store. Also my favorite coffee, Starbucks Anniversary blend. Every night, they bought us dinner at the Lodge, where reservations have to be made many months in advance. They paid for our cabin. They paid for the gas to GET to the GC, which is a fur distance, lemmee tell ya. They were, as they have always been, the quintessential hostesses, which is just to say that they spoil me rotten, which I love, and they do so in such an understated, gracious fashion that I almost don’t notice it.
Almost. See, when the Tucson girlz picked us up at the Phoenix airport hotel, they showed me the sixpack they’d stowed away for me. Three white wines, three red, and with the ho-hum exception of the Hess Chardonnay, they were winners. Hoo were they winners! And poor Andie not drinking wine on accounta I’m trying to knock her up.
Herewith my Grand Canyon, bestest-buddy wine list: The Brancott Sauvignon Blanc (2005, I think; or perhaps it was the Babich, or the Dashwood;) is a knockout example of the uniformly exceptional New Zealand SBs from Marlborough County: lime and grapefruit, gooseberry and passionfruit, delicious sip after sip, forcing me to drink it along with Linda, which wasn’t quite fair as she’s the white wine drinker, but what could I do? Ditto for the Kim Crawford SB we cracked a few nights into the trip.
I was happy to share my first red, Seven Deadly Zins (2004 I think), which was a classic Zinfandel fruit bomb, but Linda doesn’t like reds and Danny drinks the TEENSIEST glasses, so it took me 3 nights to make a measurable dent. I packed away the Seghesio bluecap Zin, which I know and love, then fixed my spoiled little eye on the remaining red.
Oh my. Ladies and gentlemen, I hereby urge you to go out IMMEDIATELY and score yourself the Mollydooker, The Boxer Shiraz 2005, the BEST wine I’ve had in recent memory. It is luscious, and I can’t find any back here in Kansas City. It’s a deep purply black , this full-bodied wonder from Australia (McLaren Vale, Langhorne Creek and Padthaway, go figure), exhibiting pure blackberries and chocolate, and with a finish worthy of the Grand Canyon.Robert Parker gave it 95 points, and who am I to argue with Robert Parker?
Yeah, I know, it doesn’t get any better. Except that it does. On our final night at the North Rim, the Lodge offered, and I accepted, a glass of Stags Leap Petite Sirah. Sigh and swoon. Good God Almighty, would that all birthdays were as memorable as this one.
posted by Winetaster | 2:53 PM
|
0 comments
