Take This Club and Shove It

On Monday it was announced that, for the first time ever, two women were invited to join the exclusive all male golf club known as Augusta National.

Located in the state of Georgia, Augusta National is a private golf club that was opened for rich white dudes in 1933. In 1990 they decided to break up the 'vanilla sausage fest' by allowing black male members into the club. Despite pressure from woman's advocacy groups in the early 2000s, Augusta National maintained it's all male status until....two days ago.  "Hooraay! Hooray!" said someone who is not me. Pardon my lack of enthusiasm, but I find this long overdue membership extension neither exciting nor inspiring. Congratulations Augusta National, 2 out of your 300 members have vaginas. That's a whopping .67 % of your total membership. How progressive!

The thing that irritates me the most about Augusta National is not its historical policy of exclusion, but rather its dichotomous position in the public/private debate.  To me a private club, like Augusta, should be allowed to include or exclude whomever it wants as long as no laws are broken.  I value the idea of privacy as a right. The problem for me is that Augusta National is a so called "private" club that hosts a very public (and very popular) golf tournament called The Masters. The Masters tournament is sponsored by publicly traded companies which make money by selling products to the entire population in a public marketplace. By hosting The Masters, Augusta National made a choice to step into the public arena, and as such, should have forfeited its right to exclusion on the basis of privacy a long time ago.


So, congratulations to Condi Rice and Darla Moore on your token acceptance to the all boys club. I wish you the best as you play golf and hang with the fellas.  Let me know when they get the tampon machine installed in the ladies room. Oh wait.....there is no ladies room!

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It's Too Early for A-holes!

This morning I went to Walmart (save your judgement) bright and early to do the family grocery shopping and pick up a few last minute back to school supplies. I'm not really a coupon shopper, primarily because I always forget the coupons I do cut out at home, but today is different. Today I have a coupon for 1.00 off 2 boxes of Pop Tarts Mini Crisps. I must take a time out here to tell you that even if you don't like Pop Tarts, you really should try the Mini Crisps.  They come in 100 calorie packs and they're a great little mid day snack.  Plus, the kids love them. Anyway, as I approach the checkout counter and greet the lady working it, she asks me if I have any 'price matching.' I tell her, "No, but I do have this 1.00 off coupon (hand her the coupon) that I'm excited to use." We proceed to exchange a short dialogue about forgetting coupons. I can tell that she's tired, probably at the end of her shift. As I continue loading my stuff on the checkout conveyer, a man with no merchandise in his hands comes up in line behind me. I assume he is there to buy cigarettes, and my assumption is correct.  If the checker wasn't already midway through ringing my order up, I would have let him go in front of me. I know how much it sucks to be in line for one or two items when the person in front of you has a cart full. Letting him cut me is not an option, so instead I offer some peace via a friendly greeting. I say, "Oh man, you picked the wrong line. I'm Sorry." He says nothing in return and gives neither a smile nor a nod.

The lady in blue finishes ringing me up and I pay for my order.  As soon as I do she says, "Oh shoot! I forgot to use your coupon.  Hang on, let me get you a dollar.  Unless you want to just use it for next time?" I tell her it is my preference to use it now and she proceeds to call for a manager. I forgive her mistake and I stand there waiting patiently as she calls for backup. Being the considerate human that I am, I ask her if she can ring the cigarette man up while we wait.  She says she can't, unless he has cash, which he doesn't.   Now comes the fun part. As we wait for the front end manager to come rescue us, the following dialogue transpires:

GUY: All this is over a dollar? I'll pay the dollar.

ME:  I'll take your dollar.  You got cash?

GUY: No.

ME: You don't have to be a jerk about it.

GUY: I'm not being a jerk.

ME:  Yeah. [nods] You are.

GUY: [long pause] (angrily) Well, you don't have to tell me how I'm being.

ME: (calmly) That's fine.

GUY: (angrily) Yeah it is fine!

ME: (calmly) You're right. It is.

The point of this story could be simple...don't be an a-hole.  This is certainly an appropriate point.  Treat people kindly and leave room for patience in response to small mistakes. After thinking about it some more though, this situation becomes amusing to me.  I ask myself, "Why would this man travel all the way to a 184,000 square foot retail store to buy a single pack of cigarettes when he probably passed about 3 gas stations on the way here?" The answer is, "Because the cigarettes, like most things are cheaper here." So now he stands there resenting me for wanting to do the exact something thing he wants to do - save a little money. Oh sweet irony...

Enjoy your cigarettes pal, have fun turning your lungs as black as your soul!

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RWW: Twofer and a Bonus Edition

This is a Red Wine Wednesday catch up blog. Where I once fell days behind in posting these RWW entries, it seems the days have slipped into weeks.  No worries my friends, a few short paragraphs from now we'll be all caught up. Let's do this...

Red Wine Wednesday #4: Cupcake Vineyards Red Velvet

This week we tried a wine recommended to me by a co-worker.  Fortunately for her sake I don't judge my co-workers by their choice in wine. The single word that best describes this wine for me is 'incomplete.' It wasn't terrible, but it really did nothing for me. My favorite thing about this wine was the label.  I really enjoy the choice of font and the use of primary colors. When we tried this wine 3 long weeks ago I wrote a list of reactionary words during my first glass. I have since misplaced said list, but I can assure you none of the words would be appropriate to be include in a glowing review.

Red Wine Wednesday #5: Guenoc Lillie's Merlot
 
 This week we tried a wine that my friend's mom purchased at BevMo's 5 cent (buy 1 bottle, get the 2nd for 5 cents) wine sale.  It's funny because I almost bought this wine myself two days earlier when I spent an abnormally long time trying to decide which new wines to buy during the BevMo sale. The sale is tricky, you see. If you end up liking the wine you choose, the 5 cent sale is awesome because you essentially get 2 great bottles of wine for the price of one. On the other hand, if you end up not liking the wine you choose, then you're stuck with an extra bottle of some shitty wine you never want to drink again.  I guess at that point you just tell yourself, "Suck it up cheapskate, you're only out a nickel!" At any rate, I did not choose this wine and after tasting it with my friend this week, I am very glad I didn't.  It was terrible.  Price wise it was the most expensive wine we've tried so far, but taste wise it was the worst we've tried. I wish I could come up with fancy pants words to articulate precisely what I wish to convey, but alas the only word that comes to me with ease is "gross."  I would only recommend this wine to someone who was in training for a competition in which the contestants had to keep a straight face despite the presence of an offensive external stimulus. If you can drink a glass of this stuff without contorting your face in any manner you would certainly be a champ!


Red Wine Wednesday Tuesday Bonus: Stanza Pinot Noir

As I mentioned earlier, I went to BevMo this week for the 5 cent wine sale.  After reading the labels of numerous bottles, I was eventually able to decide on 3 new wines. The first one was Stanza Pinot Noir.  Simply put, this wine was fantastic.  Smokey and smooth with great character and depth. Classy and sophisticated. The fact that this wine was consumed over dinner on a Tuesday night renders it ineligible for the Red Wine Wednesday rankings, however if it was eligible for the rankings it would certainly be my number one. The only drawback I must note is that the aroma of this wine was not exactly delicate on the nose. I will not elaborate so as not to deter you from trying this otherwise enjoyable wine.

Well there you have it...all caught up!
Here are the RWW Rankings at this point in time:

1. Night Harvest Cabernet Sauvignon
2. Snapping Turtle Merlot
3. Cellar No. 8 Cabernet Sauvignon
4. Cupcake Red Velvet
5. Guenoc Lillie's Merlot

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RWW: The Relativity of Value

This week's Red Wine Wednesday provided a lesson in the relativity of value.  All things have value and all value is relative. I am open to the possibility that there are certain things in life that have an absolute value that is neither variable nor relative, but I'm not sure what those things would be.  Certainly not anything related to emotion. The concept of relative value is a personal favorite of mine, probably because it relies so heavily on one of my other favorite human concepts; perspective.  The way I see it, relativity of value is a five phase cycle being played out on an infinite loop. Phase 1: Know Nothing. Phase 2: Experience Something.  Phase 3: Process the Experience and Determine Value. Phase 4: Discover Something Else. Phase 5: Process New Experience and Adjust Value. Regardless of our level of awareness, this process is happening in all of us all of the time.  It is the heart of life. 

Red Wine Wednesday #3: Night Harvest Cabernet Sauvignon

This weeks activity was a play date and craft session at my friend's house.  For the kids the craft was decorating visors with stickers and glitter glue. For the grown ups, my friend found a neato project of making coasters out of wine corks.  Pretty much the only things you need are some wine corks, a hot glue gun and some ribbon.  It was really easy and fun! Here is my finished product:

 I'm sorry to say that this week the streak of near flawless behavior from my girls came to an end.  We  had a few meltdowns over sharing glitter glue, then some really dramatic animal phobia reactions, all wrapped up together in a general package of sassy-ness. Better luck next week.

As for the wine...

My friend chose a seven dollar bottle of Night Harvest Cabernet Sauvignon and it was lovely. After our first few sips we had a very quick lesson in the relativity of value.  While we didn't originally find the week 1 and week 2 wines to be bad wines, after tasting this wine we agreed that the week 1 and week 2 wines wouldn't be worth purchasing again.  Our favorite wine so far, it will definitely be purchased again by both of us.  Fruitier and smoother than the previous weeks' selections, we both enjoyed it very much. Never thought I'd say it but hooray for Cabernet!

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RWW: Cellar No. 8 Cabernet Sauvignon

This blog 4 days late.  Mediocre things come to those who wait, so here we go...

For this week's Red Wine Wednesday it was my turn to chose the wine. Seeing as my friend unselfishly selected my favorite type of wine last week (Merlot), I decided to reciprocate and chose her favorite type this week. As you already know from the title of this entry, her favorite type is Cabernet Sauvignon. If my memory serves me correctly, the first (non Boones Farm) wine I tried was a Cabernet Sauvignon.  I was living in an apartment with two girl friends at the time and we made some kind of fancy dinner and bought a couple of bottles wine to drink along with it. I figured out quickly and definitively that I wasn't a "white" girl. As for the red, I enjoyed it not so much for the taste but for what it stood for and how it made me feel. I was a naive, inexperienced kid fumbling my way through my early 20s a semester way from graduating, but put a glass of red wine in my hand and...BAM!  I'm a well educated, sophisticated, cultured lady.  A philosopher. A theologian. A grown up. I must confess, that even as a 30 something, drinking wine still makes me feel classy.

Choosing wine can be a very complex process because there are many factors to consider when doing so. If you prefer to disregard the particulars, however, choosing a wine becomes very simple. Which label catches my eye and draws me in? When you have a moderate regard for the particulars (like me) but take your kids with you to the store (also like me) then choosing a wine becomes next to impossible.  You will stand there in the aisle scanning the rows of bottles going back and forth between several wines all the while listening to the background noise of your children alternating between bickering with each other and asking you for toys. You do your best to ignore them, but then you feel bad because you're paying more attention to booze than your babies.  Then you remember that if you didn't have them, you probably wouldn't require the wine you're trying to select and so you don't feel so bad anymore. Scanning, reading, scanning, reading....and.....Cellar No. 8 it is! Cellar No. 8 caught my eye because 8 happens to be my favorite number.  It has been since I was a kid and no other number can hold a candle to it it my mind. It's even, and round, and symmetrical.  Plus if you turn eight sideways, it becomes infinity and infinity is awesome.

 Red Wine Wednesday #2: Cellar No. 8 Cabernet Sauvignon

For the activity this week, we chose an indoor play date at our house, complete with a jumbo poster board painting session. The ambition to take the kids somewhere new each week quickly melts away when the temperature reaches 100+. For the second week in a row, the kids played together fantastically.  They cleaned their plates at lunch, played freeze dance, "kill the bad guy season 2," and various other imaginative games.

As for the wine...

Cellar No. 8 Cabernet Sauvignon can be purchased at Target for 8.99 a bottle. The challenge for me in tasting this wine was trying to ignore that fact that Cab Sauvs aren't my favorite.  I don't despise them by any means, but I just don't like 'em the most. It's like eating regular Cheerios when you prefer Honey Nut. You'll still eat and enjoy the classic Cherrios, but you won't have that little extra honey nuttiness to round out the corners of the experience. I popped the cork (albeit much slower than my friend because I don't have the magic rabbit wine tool) and poured.  Clinky, clinky, "Cheers!" First sip and...alright.  Smooth and spicy with decent balance. Good wine at a great price.

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Red Wine Wednesdays

This summer I decided to take Wednesdays off to spend some time with the kids.  Each year seems to pass faster than the last, and before I know it (to be cliche) they'll be 'all grown up.' I figure I'll never get this summer back, so I might as well make the best of it.  Coincidentally, one of my good friends, who has a kid the around the same age as my girls, also recently cleared up her schedule on Wednesdays. When talking over our plans for the summer we agreed that we should hang out together more often and soon after we came up with the idea of "Red Wine Wednesdays." Essentially this is what happens on Red Wine Wednesdays (RWW):

Step 1: Take the kids somewhere to do something fun.
Step 2: Come back to her/my house and drink wine.

There are many benefits to the RWW program.. First, we get to spend time with the kids and feel like productive moms.  Second, the kids get to spend time with each other and expand socially.  Third, my friend and I get to explore new wines and engage in meaningful conversation. Its really a win-win.

As far as selecting the wine goes, there are two guidelines; It must be red.  It should cost at least 8 bucks a bottle. Now that you know the way it works, here is the first weeks review...

Red Wine Wednesday #1: Snapping Turtle Merlot

For our first Wednesday we decided to take the kids to Pecos Park for water play. Soon enough it will be too hot to be outside no matter how much water is involved, so this was the perfect activity for a late May day.  As we arrived at the park neither my friend nor I seemed to notice that none of the kids were playing in the water.  We walked up to the 'start button' and pressed it about ten times before someone hollered from afar, "It doesn't work.  They're gonna try to fix it by this weekend." I suggested we start a riot.  My friend suggested we go back to her house and spray the kids with the hose.  Better judgement prevailed and we headed to her place.  It's really a crap shoot when the number of kids is odd, but this week they got a long really well, which was refreshing. 

As for the wine...

The selection for week 1 was Snapping Turtle Merlot. As she popped the cork and began to pour, my friend owned up to the fact that she didn't follow the '8 bucks and up' guideline.  This particular bottle only set her back a 5 spot.  My mouth said, "It's cool," but I must confess that a small part of my brain was thinking pessimistic thoughts. First sip, and....."Not bad."  Nothing about this wine stood out as particularly fantastic, but at the same time nothing stood out as particularly awful.  It was completely pallet-able with an absence of remark-ability.  Sometimes in life it's okay to ride the current of mediocrity and that is precisely what this wine does. The conversation that went with the wine, however, was extraordinary.

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A Life Cut Short

This blog was supposed to be about my personal mission statement from 10+ years ago.  I was supposed compare and contrast the feelings and views I have now with the things I wrote down and committed to over a decade ago. I was planning to write that blog tonight, but as it happens, life sometimes throws curve balls. All at once the most relevant topic can be thrust upon us, regardless of our ability to bear the weight of its burden. Fortunately for me, the burden of this topic is not so large that it will intimately and permanently affect my life. Unfortunately in this case, I cannot say the same for all to whom this curve ball was thrown.

Last week my neighbor died. He suffered an allergic reaction to a common over the counter medication and he died. His ability to breathe was taken and kept forever by an effervescent tablet in a half a glass of water. He was 38 years old and in otherwise good health. He left behind a wife and three daughters; the epitome of tragedy. I learned the news from his 13 year old daughter two days after his passing and my body still freezes when I replay the memory in my head. On Monday afternoon, she was hovering around my drive way and as I pulled up with my window down she said she had something to tell me.  "Sure hon, lemme just pull in the garage." I turned off the radio then engine, and hopped out expecting her to tell me about a new boyfriend or some other random junior high school drama. Instead she informed me that her father had passed away. I stood there in shock for a moment (mouth hanging open, eyebrows in a frown) then snapped out of it and instinctively wrapped my arms around her.  She told me the details of the story with amazing composure, and in return I did my best impersonation of a grown up and assured her that everything was going to be okay. Later that evening the girl rang the doorbell and let us know the funeral would be on Friday. I told her the truth this time and said I would be there.

Friday came and I went to the funeral as I said I would. Much to my surprise, our 7 year old daughter wanted to come with me. I explained what the funeral would be like and asked if she was sure she wanted to go.  She said she was sure because she never went to a funeral before and she was curious about what it's like. I decided that the experience would be good for her in the long run even if it upset her a little bit in the short run. After all, death is the only certainty in life.

We arrived at the funeral home 15 minutes early and the parking lot was packed.  Every single space was taken.  As I drove laps around the building trying to find a non existent empty space, it was impossible to ignore the growing crowd of gatherers.  Figuring that the odds of getting a parking ticket at a funeral are pretty slim, I parallel parked in a drive way area that was not intended for such a purpose.

"Okay kiddo.  You ready for this?"

"Uh huh."

"If you get too upset and you want to leave, just let me know and we can go."

"Okay mommy."

We held hands, crossed the parking lot and headed into the chapel. Weaving in and out of my neighbors friends and family we found a seat on the end of a pew about mid way through the room. The rest of our pew and all of the others in the chapel filled up quickly, and before long it was standing room only. The ceremony was nice.  It was a full Catholic mass given by a Deacon who was very down to earth in the delivery of his message.  Keira sat still through most of it which came as a surprise. Neither she nor I cried, and halfway through the mass, this fact began to bother me.  Why didn't I cry? Could I cry if I wanted to? Sure I could, right? Right? For the remainder of the mass, my answer was 'no.'  Then came the 'post mass personal remarks,'  and just like that, my ocular flood gates were open and the question became, "How do I stop crying?"  One by one my neighbors family and friends came to the microphone to share their grief.  Some could only say two words, while others told lengthy anecdotes. The best friend who broke the news to my neighbor's parents, the brother who didn't spend enough time with him, the sister whose spirits were constantly lifted by him, the daughters who will never dance with him; for all of them I shed a tear.

Between the 6th and 7th speaker Keira was getting bored and antsy so we decided to go.  On the way out (as we made our way through the overflow crowd in the lobby) we stopped at the guestbook to leave a future reminder of our support. There was a single pen on the table and a memory book that was filled with names.  All of the lines on the present page were taken, so I flipped forward a few pages to try to find an empty page. Flip...full.  Flip...full. Flip...full. I flipped backwards hoping someone may have skipped a line.  Flip...full. Flip...full.  Flip...full. As a last resort I decided I would just write our names in the margin.  I grabbed the pen and began to write, only to find that the ink inside had run out. I smiled, put the pen back down and glanced once more at the various faces around the overcrowded chapel.  Is there no greater testament to the impact of a life then an absence of empty lines and pen that has run out if ink?

As we pushed through the double doors and headed back to the car, I wished I knew my neighbor better.

Rest in Peace Andres Hidalgo
1973-2012
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