Maren and Allan-Paul’s Wine Party

Saturday Mike convinced me to hang up the Christmas lights outside. It was a mild day and no better day to do it.

Well, there was a better day to do it…like today where I think all the snow will melt. I ended up on the ladder snapping the lights to the eaves trough with snow hitting my face and down my shirt and freezing my hands off. Mike was having a good chuckle every time a bunch of snow fell into my face! After a good laugh, we commended ourselves on a great job.

I then hit the town to pick up various items for Maren’s wine party that evening. I ended up picking up a bottle of red Merlot from Chile but now that I think of it, I don’t think I even tried it! I also picked up a neat neoprene gift bag to carry wine in for her birthday. Those are essential when scaling frozen driveways with a bottle of wine!

When I got back home Mike was in a frustrated/depressed mood after watching Michael Moore’s new documentary Sicko. I was intrigued and decided to watch it before heading out to Maren’s. I’ll review it in another post.

Picked up Vero and after practicing some singing (as she just took a workshop on singing that afternoon as she has to sing a few tunes in her play this coming Spring), we headed out to Allan-Paul and Maren’s pad where the wine tasting party was in full force.

I enjoyed the setup of the event. Food galore (the pesto/brie mix was fab), and tons of wine to be had. It wasn’t a giant free-for-all, there was a method to the madness. A new bottle was opened and everyone got a little to try and sometimes we even had mystery rounds where the bottle was in a paper bag and we had to guess where it was from or what brand it was. I can’t say that I know much about wine (although I think 2008 will be the year to begin) so I threw out a random suggestion of Australia as the country of origin but Dan denounced that. One day I shall have the wisdom which Dan possesses!

There were a few good wines that I tried, especially an Australian wine called ‘Two Hands Gnarly Dudes’. Ha ha. There were also a few which were way too dry for me. I needed water at the end of the night after one of them! 😉

All in all, Vero and I had an amazing time. There was good company, the music was excellent and the food and wine were superb. Allan-Paul and Maren always put on a sociable evening.

Memory: I remember the first time I had drank red wine was at Maren’s Christmas party quite a few years ago. 2002 perhaps? I had never had the pleasure and was feeling pretty good after some glasses of it.

So on the way home on the bus, I was feeling good but it wasn’t until I got to my stop that I realized what effect that the wine had on me. My mind was crystal clear but my body had physically shut down! I stumbled to the exit from the bus, stumbled out, walked right into the wall of the Bayshore bus station, did a pirouette and fell on my bottom! I was bewildered as my mind was saying “Hey, what’s going on?”. Some woman asked if I needed help and I let her know that I was fine but she probably heard “Blea..rrr.ggg..uuuumm….harrmmm” I tried to get up and ended up back on the ground in the middle of the Transitway! At that point I knew that the wine definitely had a potent effect and I had to steady myself and take baby steps to get up and walking. I had contemplated asking OC Transpo for the surveillance tape of that night as I thought it would be quite hilarious.