How's Your Thanksgiving Prep Going?

 In the true spirit of Dept. Holiday Preparation and Appliance Loyalty, I am awaiting a visit from the HVAC company. Our furnace is leaking--has been, apparently--and forms not only a little lagoon around itself, but a nice little group of tributaries that wander off in search of the drain.

Additionally, on Sunday I discovered the condition you see above, under my kitchen sink. It seems our faucet had been leaking, too, from its pull-out sprayer. Rick remedied that, thank goodness, and on Monday morning I could put stuff back under the sink. All it cost us was a new faucet and most of his day. (Does anyone ever make only one trip to the home-improvement store?)

Today, as I await the furnace repairman, I got busy dusting. I grabbed the yellow can and set to work on all the tables and the leather furniture. Only when I went to put it back did I notice that I had been liberally spraying and wiping with Lysol disinfectant, not Behold furniture polish. 

Am I going back and doing it over? Hell. No. I'm coming off of a three-day migraine and Thanksgiving is tomorrow. If the furnace repairman gives me some bullshit about parts and delays, I might swat him with my (hopefully fully thawed) turkey. Violence, however, solves nothing; it's more likely that I simply cry.

"These are the times that try men's souls," said Thomas Paine, who was clearly not talking about The Holidays. Every single person in the world knows that Women are the Holiday Bringers. 

Keep your fingers crossed that I make it out of this one. Happy Thanksgiving.

I'm Back, All Stocked Up, And Feeling Pretty Good About November

 Apparently, I needed about a month off.

I wish I could tell you that all that Time was Time Well Spent, but in truth, most of it was taken up by Slothful Malaise. All of you know that I have the Best Intentions, but they all fall by the wayside because I am not a dedicated writer. Few things receive my Dedication, actually, one of them being Dickinsonian capitalization. Obviously.

Anyway, I digress.

One of the wonderful things that took up my Time was a jaunt northward to Canada for a few days, specifically to Niagara-on-the-Lake again, our favourite place. We had last been in June for a party at my International Husband's winery, and we needed to restock. This time, we were on a hunt for one wine in particular, Cabernet Franc. It's hard to find as a single varietal in the States, and Ontario does it beautifully. Our search was rewarded and our cellar is smiling.

We had another three hour session with Andrzej at Big Head Wines where we tasted pretty much everything in their portfolio plus some wines still in the tanks and barrels, and wines yet to be released but bottled. At one point the table was so full of empty glasses that his wife wheeled a cart over and admonished him to load it with the empties before they started running out. As usual, we were enthralled listening to him explain the processes and decisions that went into each wine. Not only does it delight the Wine Nerd in each of us, but it also enhances each bottle we open to drink later on:  it immediately evokes those memories, and we are right back there again each time.

Six cases later we were back home, enjoying not only gorgeous wine, but the same lovely weather we had in NotL. The autumn colours hit their peak in NEO, and the trees were in their glory, especially those with orange leaves. They're all but over now, down on the ground so that I can shuffle and crunch through them on my walks, but they were spectacular.

November is being much kinder so far than October in weather. Some of October was downright shitful--the rain, the cold, the endless cloudiness. I thought it might do me in, either with arthritis or gloominess. My arthritis is still here, but I feel less like smacking everyone (and myself), so that's Progress.

Catch me up on your Wine (do you know/like Cab Franc?), October Jaunts, and Start Of November in Comments.

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