Connecticut has wineries?

Today LinZ, her bf, and I went to the Connecticut Wine Festival in Guilford, CT. I know what you're thinking: wineries in Connecticut?? I'd never been to a wine festival, so I loaded my stomach full of carbs, slathered on the sunscreen, and grabbed the camera.

The entire set-up was like the world's tiniest fair: they had a huge tent, lemonade stand, outhouses, a stage, llama farm, and haybales.





One of the first things I noticed was a kid who was clearly old enough to walk but instead contented himself with smearing chocolate all over his face while being pulled along in a cart.




We were given a punchcard to take to each wine vendor, and a glass with which to do the begging. Under the big tent, local wineries set up tables where they had a few of their select wines available for sampling. It was a pretty simple process: just go up to the vendor, and they start describing your wine and pouring a little bit (barely 3 oz) into your glass. Then you swirl it around your glass (and if you're like me, stick your nose as far as you can into the class and sniff away, but eventually realize that it all smells like fruit or cat's piss or both). This repeats a few times and then you wander to the next table.





See this man swirling the wine in his glass? He clearly smells a more complex bouquet besides 'fruit in general' and cat's piss.





This table definitely, definitely had the best wine of the entire festival. They had a wine called "Three sheets" which I ended up purchasing.



The vendor mentioned that all the local wineries were family-run (hers had been in the family for four generations); and that they all knew each other, and coordinated what they would showcase for the wine festival. A definite theme this year: apples. Every table had at least one or two apple-flavored wines. I Never thought I'd like apples with wine, but hell, I ended up loving it more and more as the afternoon went on and this kept happening to my glass:



Around the 3rd or 4th vendor, we stopped to take a picture and make Hannibal Lecter noises.



And around the 6th vendor, I saw the kid in the cart again, his face still smeared with chocolate, and still not walking.




And check it out: llamas!!!







And where llamas go, so does poop. Isn't it oddly pellet-shaped for such a large animal?



There was also a goat. As NW would say, it had murder in its eyes...



That's about all the photos of the festival that I can put up! Most of them are of llamas or are llama-related anyways. I've decided that I'm a fan of llamas and even more so of wine festivals... even if Connecticut wine tastes like the older, frumpier, barren sister of the West Coast version. Go Connecticut! You may not have good wine, but at least you've got haybales, an adequately sized wine festival and a random South American animal farm.

A really eloquently written explanation of my upcoming article... I should have asked this person to ghost-write all future articles :)


http://www.psychologicalscience.org/onlyhuman/2008/05/primed-for-ripeness.cfm

Early AM New Haven

Sometimes I think I wake up early just to be a part of New Haven when it's 6, 7 am. Most people are still sleeping or groggily reaching for their coffee, but I just love watching a city wake up (or crawl out of the sewer of night, as New Haven may more closely resemble). It reminds me of the best part of working for Starbucks-- on Sunday mornings. I'd open the store at 6:30, get an Americano and the Sunday New York Times, and just relax on my stool waiting for customers to come in.

Best job ever, that one morning every week.

Follow-up on the Marrieds

I just noticed that some of my exes are starting to get married! It's disturbing in a detached sort of way. In a 26-year-old sort of way. If you're 26 you probably understand-- it's not about envy. I'm not interested in marriage at all at this stage of my life... but somewhere in my mind, I heard a vague Yikes! from within the second I found out. It was still enough to give me pause.

It was also enough to make me re-appreciate the humor of my friend who just got married to his arranged bride:

Sorry for the delay in reply, have been procrastinating, difficult to me at home in Calcutta and focus on work and normal life. Married life is fine, not as bad as I thought it might be, though what Eddie's mom said is not true.

OK take care.

That dude is so awesome.

All I can say is that my life is pretty plain
I like watchin' the puddles gather rain
And all I can do is just pour some tea for two
and speak my point of view
But it's not sane, It's not sane

I just want some one to say to me
I'll always be there when you wake
Ya know I'd like to keep my cheeks dry today
So stay with me and I'll have it made

Excerpt from an email today...

This morning I woke up to this email from one of my friends. I was close with him first year, and then haven't had much of a chance to hang out with him. It was the usual for the both of us: me with my B-related ebbs and flows, and him with his chain-smoking, late-night study-fests.

He's totally awesome though, and it was great to see him again and just catch up. He laid the whopper on me that he was going to be (arranged to be) married. Then the next day, he sent me this:


It was good meeting up that day after a long time. I guess now that almost all my requirements are over I am a bit more relaxed. Sorry I had not told you about the marriage plans earlier. I guess not too many people know about it except ____ people and some in the Indian community, which are the people I have been in touch with over the last year. The reason I decided to get married was because my room mate's mom convinced me to. Its a funny story. She said I should definitely get married, and i was like why? And she was
telling my roommate's dad to convince me that marriage is great. And then when I did not look convinced she said well you can have sex every night. I was like, no not every night. And she was like, yes! That was funny. So I said OK maybe I should give it a try.

It was hilarious. Anyway, jokes aside, I guess I decided that the sort of women I am attracted to are not the types I am compatible with. That may have played a role. Lets see how it goes though.

Now I feel a bit conflicted. What do I say in response to this? My instinct is to say, Dude, hold out, you'll find someone-- you're awesome; believe me, I know! -- but it's not my place. I know I'm judging, which is especially retarded because (1) I don't know any couples who were in arranged marriages; (2) I know even less about successful relationships or marriages. I wanted to write back a pages-long response (along the lines of the classic you're-selling-yourself-short-you're-an-amazing-guy-just-be-patient argument).

I keep wondering how far is too far to shove my nose into this affair. I feel bad because I must have made immediately apparent a lot of my "are you sure this is what you want" reservations. I think that's what he's responding to in this email. It also troubles me because I know I'm not voicing anything more strongly because I don't want to step on cultural toes. But to what extent does cultural tradition preclude my normal friendly yet ill-thought-out opinions?

I think this requires some whiskey and Meerkat Manor to digest it all...

unabashed cuteness

Sometimes, you take what you can get out of the day...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epUk3T2Kfno

too cute!