This entry was posted on Saturday, March 1st, 2008 at 7:25 am and is filed under Family & Friends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Morning all:
“I’m trying to drink more water. I find it helps to heat it and filter it through coffee grounds.” — Chris C.
Between yesterday and this morning the north wind has shifted to the south west. An early sign that spring is about to be sprung. Couple that with my fresh mug of coffee, Herbie Hancock’s “River” playing in the background, and it all makes me believe that nirvana is within sight.
As I wrote last week, Marcia and I escaped for a few days to a place where spring was already in full bloom – Davis California.
2) South West Airlines in-flight snack boxes do not require the use of soy sauce packets.
3) Never once opened e-mail – at least not to any linking to sites filled with dogs wearing cute and crazy outfits.
4) Some fool at the office asked, “had a nice weekend?” – that was all the opening I needed.
5) Realized that I had such a great time that not once were the words: “American Idol” spoken.
6) Had a dinner host who actually wore Dutch wooden shoes.
But really, what made it great were the four days spent with Pieter & Jeanne. Seeing that beautiful part of our country through their eyes and then THE dinner.
Pieter found a small estate winery, Van der Vijver, located in the Fairplay wine region of the Sierra Nevada foothills. The owner is a young and talented Dutch fellow – Robert Van der Vijver. A couple of times a year he’ll arrange a private tasting around a dinner.
Ten of us spent four hours dining a most exquisite meal, used 450 year old family heirloom silver, all taking place in a store-room that had been magically transformed into an amazingly “gezellig” room lit by what must have been over fifty candles.
Our host taught about his wines, but he did more than that. Not only did he sing a bit of Opera to us, but speaking four languages he kept us entertained for about an hour with an array of bawdy jokes – complete with accent.
The next day my stomach muscles were sore from laughter.
Thanks again P & J for a magical evening.
A previous ramble had me mention China and their ongoing disregard for human rights. The upcoming Olympics already has created a ‘crackdown’ scenario in that country especially with perceived dissident students and journalists.
Last night I happened to read about a Steve Varon. He runs a successful company on the East Coast. For the last year or so, he’s been working very hard to make his dream possible: to see the Dalai Lama carry the torch in the Chinese Olympics. He made a short video about it, which he submitted to Pangea Day.
Pangea Day – May 10th – will be celebrated across the world and the various entries will be shown in concert style settings as well as be viewable on line.
Now I best plan my day. This afternoon Marin, Jason, and I will head into the city to see a children’s production of Robin Hood.
Keep your fingers crossed for Steve. I hope that his quest comes to be. Make it a great week everyone, use the week to follow your own quest.
Cheers,
Dirk
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