Adventures in Wine

My friendship with Nicole began over a glass of wine in front of her outdoor fireplace and since then we have shared many a bottle of wine. Some of the wine I have had the pleasure of drinking with her have been from a place called Chateau Morrisette. She and Charlie have had many adventures there (or at least getting to and from there).

Sunday, I made my maiden voyage to southwest Virginia for a kennel club day at the winery, which is when member of this club are invited to a special tasting and receive discounts on wines. The day started out foggy and crisp as the night before a classic spring storm had moved through Charlotte. By the time we got up the mountain and to the Blue Ridge Parkway, the fog had lifted into a beautiful spring afternoon. Spring is just starting to bud there and there isn't a hint of green on the trees yet. We made it to Morrisette around 2pm which meant the tasting had been going on for at least two hours and the famous brisket in the barrel room had disappeared. Thus, we headed upstairs to sample wine parings with our lunch. Nicole was super prepared with wine glass lanyards and plates that also held wine glasses. They premiered a dry rose which was paired with pasta and I was delightfully surprised how much I liked the not-so blush wine There are now two bottles in my wine rack waiting to be reunited with a pasta and spicy sausage and cherry tomato cream sauce for dinner one night. As we hadn't eaten lunch we made our way around several tables of delicious morsels and sampled each with the recommended wine.
Our second tasting endeavor involved bottles of vintage wine Nicole refers to these as "wines we love to drink, bottles we can't afford". My favorite was the 2003 Merlot--spicy goodness. One day I am going to have to learn how to store cases of wine rather than my standard practice of buy then drink.

The third tasting lead us back down stairs to the barrel room. We went there under the pretence of tasting a Chamboursin but were wowed by the 2010 Chardonnay. I am not a huge Chardonnay fan, but this barrel made me want to immediately change that opinion and my voter registration. We both agreed that this will be a great bottle of wine if it tasted that delicious at six months.

The last tasting was with our new friend, Will. Will is a chemistry grad from William and Mary who got his masters in viticulture at Virgina Tech. He was amazingly knowledgeable and let us ask questions about wine as well as his personal life. I think we were just as nosy and concerned as his choir ladies.

On our way down the mountain, we passed by the infamous caboose cabins, I scared a few cows and we had some time for a classic Nicole and Whitney photo shoot at Mabry Mill. See the pictures below

We looked at Nicole's lot which is at the very end of a very winding road. She's right there just isn't a picture that captures it's beauty. She happened to have a set of neighbors home and we stopped in to say hello as one should do when you are just out and about "vistin'". They were a lovely couple from the Grenadine Islands and they had been to Morrissette the day before. They spend half the year in the Caribbean and the other half in Virginia. We were amazed that they found Floyd County out of all places on our planet. He made the furniture we sat on while we watched the sunset and for some reason that just seemed like the perfect life.

The final stop on our journey was the Pirate Ship in Elkin. Anyone who has traveled on I-77 has seen this inland shipwreck and has at least wondered, "Is the food any good?" The hush puppies were delicious our broiled seafood entree was big enough for too and covered in butter (really can you go wrong with 'covered in butter'?). It was enough for me to fall asleep and arrive back in Plaza-Midwood with a full belly and a half case of wine and another story that lands in the category of Why I love the Randomness of Life.

Pearls of Wisdom

In the Summer 1986, I realized that "just ain’t right in the head" extended to other people who were not described to me as "Hon, he’s your 3rd cousin whose not right in the head. Pay no mind and go give him some shu-gah". I can’t recall the specific events of that day but most likely it was one of the many weeks we spent with my grandparents with no particular agenda. There were always blueberry Pop-tarts with small dollup butter gleaming on one side for breakfast, outdoor chores in the morning, inside chores when it got too hot, then after about 3pm we got to rest until super. Our resting period coincided with General Hospital which my mother forbade us to watch, but my grandmother, Pearl, never minded my mother’s instructions in that regard. She had raised six happy and healthy kids and had done well thus all parenting directives were ignored.
I’m sure it was after supper while watching that handsome Peter Jennings, when I asked her, "Who is Kadafi and why does he hate America?" (Until just recently I didn’t realize there were so many spellings to his name, al-Gaddafi, Gadhafi, Khadafy to name a few). I don’t recall Pearl being one who followed politics on the world stage. Yet, she did the best she could to explain her answer in a way my 10 year old mind could understand it. Looking back, she probably was the best one to answer the question. She said sometimes leaders get upset and they start shooting rockets at one another and "Kadafi" was "just not right in the head" and he was in power. She went on to say that when crazy people are in position of power they try and show off with their weapons and such. She explained that his army had attacked an American ship in the spring and there were people in Libya that were suspected of doing bombing all over the world.

I had understood what nuclear warheads were, Reagan was president during my formative years and Oak Ridge was practically in my back yard—if you used Sarah Palin’s geography—and Pearl’s explanation of "bombings all over the world" sent chills to my very core. My world was Sulphur Springs Elementary School and I had a vision of the "Kadafi’s" army bombing my little community. We got bomb threats all the time so why could they not be "Kadafi" instead of what they were—a high school kid playing a prank. Pearl assured me the whole mess was all "just talk" and told me to go get another Little Debbie raisin cream pie if I wanted.

The conversation with Pearl and that feeling of being vulnerable to whims of faraway people who were "just not right in the head" has always stuck with me. There were very few "why" questions I’d ask her for which she would give me an answer. So as I count my blessings that "Kadafi" is not my 3rd cousin, I am reminded once again Pearl was right. In the last 25 years, Libya has made the American news as about as often as someone reports on killer bees. Both are dangerous but only one is "just ain’t right in the head". Libya’s recent resurgence into our news is uplifting if you see it as people standing up for change and overlook all those that are dying during protests. But when "Kadafi" starts into his crazy rhetoric I am reminded of my conversation with Pearl so I’ll just have go get another Little Debbie raisin cream pie and wait for the next report on killer bees.

Hookers Don't Wear Herringbone Pants

I have a friend who loves all the ideas of public transportation and the real estate development potential associated with better mass transit options such as light rail EXCEPT when it comes to riding the bus in Charlotte. I would say that he is not alone in this thought. Many Charlotteans would say that CATS buses and the system itself leave a lot to be desired especially convenience but that is a whole separate discussion.

I know many who advocate for better transit choices, place-making neighborhoods and walkability who don't live out their advocacy principles. Last week I used our City's transportation system to make my way to the 10th Annual New Partners for Smart Growth Conference. I don't have a lot of opportunities to use public transportation for my commute (seriously it adds an hour one way to my daily drive in order to take the bus) and honestly, I rely on my car more than I care to admit (guilty of first sentence in this paragraph). But when I can, I make a point to take the bus into Center City (formerly known as Uptown thanks to a new marketing program).


There are many reasons to like the bus. One is the bus stop. If you are lucky enough to have a bus stop with a bench and shelter over your head, waiting on the bus is not a problem. This is important because the laws of physics say that you will see your bus leave as you get within 50 feet of the bus stop so you are bound to wait for the next one. One morning I waived to my neighbor while sitting on the bench on Central Ave. Obviously, he was taken by surprise. We talked later and he said, " You looked like a hooker on that corner". To which I replied, "Hookers don't wear wool herringbone pants or hang out at bus shelters in front of the McDonald's". These things hold true in Charlotte. We may have hookers, but they aren't at my bus stop.


Another reason to love the bus stop are the conversations you overhear while pretending to look ahead for the next bus (again, because you just missed it by 2 minutes) or pretending to check your facebook page on your fancy-dancy smart phone. I had the privilege of "not hearing" a conversation between a lesbian couple. In that conversation, I learned that one of the neighborhood business owners has not paid his rent in over a year and has given the IRS a bad check. More importantly, it is the theory of the couple that this occurred because God changed his "luck ". God did this because he had wronged his wife when he left her. The neighborhood business owner had thought his karma (apparently an interchangeable word for God's "luck") had changed because he sent some kid to see his dying father. This could not be the case according to one of the women telling the story because he did this benevolent act with gambled winnings. And, somehow being lucky at gambling has nothing to do with God's "luck". I didn't want to point out that they waited just as long as it would have taken to walk the 1.5 miles to their destination because I was much appreciative of their $3.50 investment in order to receive their lesson on luck and God.

The last thing I personally like about public transportation is that it is the great social equalizer without resorting to income redistribution. No one is greater than anyone else on that bus. My need to get to my destination was no different than the blind man with the most heart warming smile, working mother and her child who was learning to spell on a smart phone app, the mentally-disturbed man who carried his important papers in a CVS shopping basket or suit-wearing banker type trying to ignore his surrounds with his ipod. The only difference I could tell was that it was my choice to take transit into Center City and most on my line do not have that choice. So one day if there is in fact a hooker that wears wool herringbone pants (to be clear again....not me) and she rides the bus, I hope she feels just as equal as us all.

One fact to Summer

Spring is for idealists; summer is for realists. In Spring, one dreams of bountiful gardens and there is so much hope and promise in the air that it is intoxicating. Cautiously this spring, I tried not to over plant my garden, giving each plant it's unique and special place to grown into its own. What summer is teaching me that just didn't stick when I took it in high school biology or by watching the Lion King, is that my garden is just as much a part of the Circle of Life as anywhere else. Everybody's got to eat and that includes, the squirrels, the rabbits, the ants, the spiders, the earwigs...everybody. And everybody in my "neighborhood" has loved my garden. The ants loved my eggplant to what I am sure is their death. The squirrels have liked both the eggplant and zuchini. I'm not sure who is lovingly nibbling on the sage and basil. Luckily, some of the herbs, tomatoes and peppers still remain. I've even had new growth on my lettuce which has been nice. Yesterday I ate a salad that all came from my garden.

So in that sense, summer remains a realist. I really can eat whatever is left over (after it seems I have fed "the neighbors"). And the reality is that I got my wish. Summer came early and it has come hard. I am bracing for one long, hot season (secretly I love it and use minimal air conditioning. I only wish I worked somewhere that allowed me to wear a bathing suit or tank tops and skirts all day).

Truckstop Love

The longer I live in a city, the more and more I become one of those "city people" you see stereotyped in movies. You know what I'm talking about...the shoes cannot get dirty let alone mess up the nails, constantly complaining how "far" the country really is and referring to everything as "so quaint!". So when the opportunity to reconnect with some small town roots, it always makes for a good adventure because you are bound to see something interesting along the way. Last spring, I headed up to Salisbury to see my friend Preston in a play. Now, the play made me cry (I did not research the subject matter) and I almost stood up in the middle to beat some sense into Preston's character. (It was hard to disassociate the character from Preston so I'm going to put that in the plus column for Preston's acting abilities.) Really, I was fighting my "inner Pearl" (See a future post about that) because that Howie and Becca needed a clue and I had just the perfect dose of southern medicine. This is all really beside the point.

Back to the Journey.... As much as I try, my car does not run on anything but gasoline. I'm trying to make it work on prayer, but again...that just ain't happenin'. I pull off I-85 and to a Shell Truckstop while talking to my friend Chad in Texas. Yes, I know the dangers in distracted driving, but I also know the dangers in loosing touch with those you love. Sometimes you just got to take the risk. While pumping dinosaur bones into my car, I am not but 50 yards from an honest to God Truckstop Wedding Chapel. These things I have only read about in books and seen their distant cousins in Vegas. But ya'll if you are in a pinch and just can't wait to solidify your union with the one you love on that road trip along I-85...look no further.

Sometimes it is in the details

Yesterday was the dedication of the Town of Huntersville Town Clock outside of the new Town Center which is set to be open in July. Discovery Place Kids will also be located in Town Center, but it will not open until the fall.

Lake Norman-Huntersville Rotary Club saw a need and an opportunity to promote all the good things that Rotary does for our communities. If you look around your own communities you'll see those small details where Rotary has filled a gap. For Huntersville, it is also the "Welcome to Huntersville" Signs. There is a bench at a bus stop in Cornelius that was provided by Rotary. (It was a much needed and well used bench). The fountain in Marion Square in Charleston is also Rotary project. You can sit at one of the four cornerstone "tests".

Now these are just outward expressions, Rotary does a lot that doesn't require a dedication ceremony such as raising money for clean water projects, erradicating polio and various local charities. For these things, I would like to thank them and for this clock...Thanks for providing the finishing touch to this cornerstone plaza! I can't wait to see the first field trip group fill into the plaza and the teacher point at the clock to let them know how long they'll get to explore Discovery Place Kids.

Warning to Cilantro Plants Everywhere---You may be sacraficed if purchased by me.

They say that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result, then I must be insane about cilantro. This year I planted it in the same spot as I did last year and low and behold....got the same result. A beautiful, bright green plant turned yellow and wussed out on me again. I just don't know what it needs, but I certainly want it in my garden. I thought I might try to revive it in shade as I had heard from the lady at the Bradford Store, that cilantro likes cooler weather. I think it only grows weaker. I'm not done saying good bye to freshmade salsas with my awesome tomatoes (I just know they'll be awesom when they get around to growing) or additions to cool summer salads. I'll just start the insanity over in a new location. Beward cilantro plants...I'm coming for you.