Getting out of the tasting

Sweet, 7:27. Three more minutes and I am out of here.... I'll be right on time for our reservation. I'm starving...

A man then walks into the store as I busy myself with tidying up the tasting area and getting my purse.

Crap, he sees me. And he clearly knows that there is a tasting going on. I'll make this quick...

"Sir, would you like to taste? Tonight we are featuring great everyday-priced wines from California!"

Please say no, please say no, please say no...

"Of course I do. Now which company do you work for?"

Ugh. I do not need to be the subject of a lonely 50-something man getting his Friday night kicks by chatting up a girl young enough to be his daughter.

Unfortunately, ten minutes later (7:37), that is exactly what I had become. At this point he was grilling me not only about the wines I was pouring, but our company's entire portfolio. Every attempt on my part to wrap up our conversation so that I could make it to dinner with friends was met with another inane question. I was completely torn between my growling stomach and my tendency towards thorough customer service.

"Now, Erin... which of these Pinot Noirs on the wall are from you?"

Bah!!! Stop talking to me you old fart. There is no way I will make it to dinner on time now. Three people will be sitting around waiting for me to arrive.

"Well, we do the Castle Rock, Cartlidge and Browne, and Silver Ridge lines from California. The only one of our Oregon Pinots on the wall is from Walnut City Wine Works."

I wonder if my smile looks totally tense and fake?

"Really... Now this Castle Rock wine says Willammette Valley on it. What does that mean?

Grrrrr.....

"Well, Castle Rock is based in California, but they source their fruit from different areas of the West Coast and always label the bottle with the region that they got the fruit from. So it's a California winery, but they are using fruit from Oregon."

Is this a difficult concept? He looks confused. Or like he's going to make me explain it again just to stall for time.

"Oh.... Now while we're over here, show me which New Zealand wines are yours. You were saying that they have some great Pinots too, huh?"

"Yes, sir. They sure do." Sigh. "Right over here."

Twenty minutes later I was finally out the door and speeding towards the restaurant. I arrived just as our shared appetizer was being delivered.

Don't get me wrong - I love doing my job. But there is nothing better than sinking down at a table with good friends at the end of the day.

I need representation like that...

Um... Ryan Seacrest must have the best agent in the world.

See here.

Mouse spying

I wonder if I should tell someone about the little mouse that is running around on the patio of the coffee shop where I am currently usurping free internet? Safely inside, I'm sitting next to a window watching the tiny thing (probably a baby) scamper around the cement to and from his hiding place.

I should probably be grossed out, but it was just so cute a few seconds ago when it found a piece of food and bounded back to his nook with excitement, I just can't help but indulge in spying on it for a few minutes more.

Yeah, I'm kinda weird.

A Pivotal Moment

January, 2004

The day of my final exam was upon me.

It was a typical snowy, January morning in New York City. Cars sloshed down the streets, and pedestrians ambled carefully so as not to ruin their expensive footwear. Shod in my mother’s old Duck boots (all of my attempts at fashion, which in a city like New York came out half-assed anyway, went to the wayside when it meant that my feet were in danger of getting wet), I stood outside the gray building south of Houston Street and looked up at the sign on the door. This was it. The American Sommelier Association. The locale of the test that I had spent the last five months dreading.

Gulp.

As I rode the elevator up to the sixth floor, I mentally crammed. Name the five first growths of Bordeaux. Got it. What are the major grape varietals in Piedmont? Easy. What does Trockenbeerenauslese mean in reference to German rieslings? I was golden.

After settling into my seat, I flipped over the test in front of me and did a quick scan of the short-answer questions. Panic ensued as I systematically blanked on most of the answers. I started to feel claustrophobic, like I was drowning in a Nebuchadnezzar-sized wine bottle, and my instructor was pushing in the cork.

Two hours later, I surrendered the exam, brain fried. I gathered up my belongings in defeat and ran to the elevator wondering how I could have done so poorly on the final, when I had an 85 average on the dozens of other tests we had taken? The elevator car finally hit the ground floor, and I sprinted for the door and burst out onto Broadway, gasping for breath. Two completely dazed blocks later, I called my mother, choking back tears, and attempted to explain what had happened.

“Erin, do you need to come home?” she ventured.

That did it. The flood gates burst open. “Yes,” I wailed, “I want to move back home.”

My hand flew to cover my mouth. Had I really just admitted to myself and my mother that it was time to move back to Richmond?

Thanks for making my day, sir

Late this morning, as I was dutifully visiting one of my favorite clients and attempting to not only secure an order, but also pick up some fresh fish for dinner, I found myself in the middle of a conversation with an older gentleman who was waiting for his rockfish to be filleted.

"How are you today?" he asked, innocently enough.

"I'm good," I quipped, wanting to be pleasant without turning the encounter into a full-blown conversation. "And you?"

"Let's just put it this way," he said exuberantly, "I feel like you look."

"I hope that's a good thing," I blushed.

"You know it is," he smiled. "Have a great day!"

And I am.

An overdue apology

Almost two years ago, I met a boy at a party. We didn't hit it off right away, but there was a lot of drinking involved all around, and by the end of the night, as they do, people started pairing off. The boy and I started talking, then we started kissing.

That was about it. Some drunk talking and mild making out. At some point it got boring for me, so I decided to head on home. The boy tried to convince me to stay, but stood my ground and walked out to my car. He walked with me, playfully pleading the whole way, even going so far as to dramatically flop down on his back onto the grass above the slightly sloped curb.

Then his lighthearted begging got a bit more intense, and he did something I hope I'll never forget.

He unzipped his pants, took out his penis, started masturbating in front of me, and said, "Why don't you come over here and give me a hand finishing this?" After a shocked thirty seconds or so, I shook my head in disbelief, got into my car and drove away.

It may seem odd for me to say that I hope I never forget that moment. Some would think that that would be a memory I would like to shelve, and not ever think again about how fucked up and sad of an act it was, what level of desperation someone would have to be at to do something like that. Not even sexual desperation, but desperation for love or some kind of connection. However, since the execution was played out in such an odd way, it seems like it is actually a desperation for the rejection that he must be used to on some level.

On my end, the act was despicable and disrespectful. It was, and still is to this day, shocking that someone would behave in such an... an... well, ungentlemanly way towards me. How has our society become so jaded that this act seems like not that big of a deal, like something to laugh about, rather than an extreme insult to the person to whom it was done? Well, to me it was not funny, and I hope that I never forget it so that I never slip into the mindset where that might in some way be ok. It is not ok for someone to do something like that. It's gross.

So last night I found myself at a similar party, with an all-too-similar guest list. I had not seen the boy since the last incident, although I knew he had been teased about it on numerous occasions by his friends. (Who oddly enough say that he is the one who usually brings it up, probably as a way to circumvent the ridicule. A laugh at yourself before others have a chance to beat you to it, kind of thing.) Needless to say, I was not much looking forward to seeing him again.

A couple of hours into the party, he and I found ourselves awkwardly positioned near each other on the deck outside.

"You don't have to worry about me doing anything obscene tonight," he gingerly began the conversation.

"I wasn't worried about that," I half-joked back.

"I apologize for doing that. I really didn't mean to be offensive that last time."

"Accepted. Thank you."

And then, after a couple more mumbled explanations and apologies on his part, we thankfully moved on.

I was happy that he apologized. As cliched as it may sound, there was definitely a sense of closure on my part. I don't think that my level of disgust was unwarranted, and in this jaded era where acts like that have for some reason come to be accepted, it feels liberating to have stuck to my guns and let it be known that what he did was not ok.

After all, if you don't assign a value to yourself and learn to set your own boundaries, no one else will do it for you. And even if the respect that comes from that is long overdue, it is worth it.

Great, yet another website where I will undoubtedly be able to waste hours and hours

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