Then there was this

Very Well Aged: Archaeologists Say Ancient Wine Cellar Found Archaeologists say they have discovered a 3,700-year-old wine cellar in Israel, a finding that offers insights into the early roots of winemaking.

The large wine cellar was unearthed in the ruined palace of a Canaanite city in northern Israel, called Tel Kabri, not far from the country's modern wineries. The excavations revealed 40 one-meter-tall (about 3 feet) jars kept in what appeared to be a storage room.

No liquid contents could have survived the millennia. But an analysis of organic residue trapped in the pores of the jars suggested that they had contained wine made from grapes. The ancient tipple was likely sweet, strong and medicinal—certainly not your average Beaujolais.

More than a little tired tonight

which is no wonder, given my caffeine-induced insomnia last night that was spent installing 34 updates to Windows and a host of other computer maintenance. Despite the lack of sleep, I got up early enough to take out the trash and recyclables and get to work on time, which is amazing as I slept through my alarm and woke up on my own about 7:15 (I need to be at work at 8:30). After work I ran some errands and then brought some food to a friend who was feeling under the weather. I visited for awhile and then did a little more with the computer, but now I'm heading to bed at least for a couple of hours, then I plan to get up and give my monthly libation to Hekate. (That was one of the errands, getting wine for the libation.) I use pinot noir. I also got some mead for me. It's one of the few things that are alcoholic I drink. Tomorrow I have a an appointment with the ophthalmologist. I only see him every six months and wasn't using my phone calendar last time, so I totally forget now that we're in the new year. I'm glad they do those reminder phone calls. Anyway, I'm going to try to go in a little early to work to make up some of my lost time. But for now, I'm gong to take it easy and try and get some rest. Good night, in case that's all the writing I do tonight. :)

I am not a wine connoisseur

In fact, I rarely drink any wine at all, except maybe a taste here and there, or mead, which is honey wine and not from grapes at all.

What I do, however, is often give libations of red wine in thanks for the answering of prayers, as well as my monthly religious observations. I try to give decent wine, but since I'm in no real position to determine that, and because my fortunes are sometimes fickle and it's difficult sometimes to get the wine, the quality may vary.

The other day a friend gave me a ride to the store and I'd mentioned getting wine. The closest place that sold wine was a drugstore, and I went in and quickly got a pinot noir that was at least from Italy, but was about $13 for 1.5 litres, so I figured it was probably passable. What I didn't expect was that it was actually corked. I opened it a little while ago, and although I have a super-duper corkscrew (the type where you screw it in and then push down on things on the side to get it out), it was an abnormally long cork that wound up breaking in half horizontally, but I was able to get it out without getting pieces of cork in the wine. Then I couldn't re-cork it, and so I stole a cork from an empty mead bottle I keep for decoration in the kitchen.

Sometimes I think the Greeks had the right idea with amphorae.

Anyway, it was a pleasant surprise. And the wine has a very nice bouquet. I didn't have any (the tannins in red wine don't go well with my taste buds), but I think it worked out fairly well.

I seem to be having all sorts of trouble opening things of late. Yesterday there was the Classico vodka pasta sauce that I could not break the seal on by dinging with a knife and actually had to pry a tiny bit on the lid with a flathead screwdriver until the seal broke.

This is why I am destined not to rule the world. That and I'm minion material, I'm afraid.

Okay, so the solstice is officially here (it was at 12:3O EST). Here's to longer days to come. Good night.

Catching my breath for the first time in days

The last few days have been so incredibly full that I have not had much chance to blog. Tonight I came home and slept for a few hours and got a chance to catch up on some sleep and reflect on the past four days.

Saturday--All in all, I spent about 2 hours sitting this entire day, much of that on the bus. I left the house about 8:30, thinking I'd miss the bus, so I took my umbrella (it looked like rain) and granny cart, and headed to Liquor Barn on foot. The bus passed me as I was almost there, so I could have hopped a ride on it a block or two and saved myself the walk. As soon as I left my apartment complex it started to rain, and continued for my entire outing. I got the wine a friend needed, observing that Burgundy is not in fashion anymore as an appellation--even if it was produced there, but the grapes for Burgundy are pinot noir, so I'll know that for next time. I know this from my little guide for dummies on wine basics I have out of the library. I asked three people about Burgundy and no one knew anything, the only wines labelled as such being cheap jug wines. The very helpful clerk who looked things up for me was new and didn't even know how to pronounce Chianti. It was a bit sad. I mean, I know next to nothing about wine, but I don't work in a liquor store. He was at least new. The others were just clueless. Anyway, I got some of the best quality of what was called burgundy for cooking, as well as some pinot grigio and chianti from Italy with the dancing Etruscans on it (the vineyard is Candoni) for drinking. Unfortunately the store did not carry their pinot noir, and the chianti was the only red wine they had of theirs.

Then it was back into a driving rain for quarters from the bank and grocery shopping from Kroger. Because I had a credit with the latter, I used it for a stockpot set that included pot, lid, inner colander, and steamer, and still had enough to get some off my groceries. I bought a few things for my friend, the game snacks, and some food to have at the house, about six reusable bags full, then set back out (in the rain) for home. As I got to the apartment complex, it lessened to a sprinkle. Mother Nature was definitely having a laugh at my expense.

I went immediately out with two bags, one with three bottles of wine, the other with a two litre of soda and game snacks, and headed to the bus stop. I got over to my friend's house and visited for a bit, then he spent four hours teaching me to cook. We made a potato and leek soup, mushrooms au gratin, kugel, and a salad. I got to use the immersion blender of doom. That was really fun. But I got home about 11 pm and just collapsed, having spent hours on my feet. Cooking takes a lot out of you, I've found, at least when you're really cooking and not just heating something up like most people do.

Sunday--This was game day, of course, so I went over, cleaned house, got done early for a change, visited for a bit, and then embarked on an adventure set in an ancient Greek colony in Italy which has been quite intriguing and is proceeding at a quick pace. Then there was the normal post-game recap and commentary via phone. So I guess I was going strong from about 5:30 am-11:30 pm, and just faded at the end.

Monday--We had a big clinic, meaning I had lots of data entry sheets. I normally get everything entered AND verified, but only just managed to get everything in. Then it was over to a friend's who had had some bookshelves built to put books back on the shelves. That took a couple of hours. I really should put 'librarian for private collection' on my resume at some point. He's got many more books than I do, and I'm no lightweight in the book department. I'd say it's about 4,000. Considering the library I work in has something like 1,300 books and 30 journals, you see my point. Afterwards I got to eat the soup I made on Saturday and it was very good. I will work for nummy soup. Even though I just followed the real cook's instructions, it was nice to have things turn out well and everyone liked the food. Then I got home about 11 pm and just collapsed.

Today--Throughout everything, I've dealt with a more than moderate amount of pain in my right shoulder and arm, with a loss of feeling in my lower arm and hand. I'm sure that all that stuff I did didn't help. This has been going on for two to three weeks, now, and has only been worsening, so yesterday I broke down and made an appointment with a physician's assistant at Bluegrass Orthopaedics for this morning.

He thought my symptoms sounded like they were caused by a possible impingement derived from my neck, so they took an x-ray and it seems my fourth, fifth, and sixth cervical vertebrae are degenerating rather badly (Even I could tell that the x-ray was not normal. Instead of happy vertebrae, it looked like the discs were misshapen and outside of the normal bounds.) I have an MRI on Friday. I lobbied for an open MRI, outside of their facility, because in the past I've tried the regular one with my head and couldn't do it. I have enough trouble when my leg is in the tube, much less my head. The open MRI doesn't bother me, though, and this way I don't have to try to get someone to take me and be sedated (I really only have two people I know who might have been able to do it. One lives a county away and the other has small children to take care of, so this was better.)

In the meantime, I'm supposed to take three ibuprofen three times again to try to get the inflammation down, and return next Tuesday.

I had two packages on my doorstep when I got home tonight. One is a book I have coveted for some time, that I got via the used book dealer Abebooks for $9 as opposed to the price through Amazon of $24 and up. I found it for a friend years ago, and he has a copy, but I couldn't afford it at the time and really have wanted it. It's called Death to Dust: What Happens to Dead Bodies?, by Kenneth Iserson. What can I say, I'm fascinated with forensics and the like, and this book has all sorts of information related to death. It's a potential murder mystery writer's dream. Some of the data related to funerals is a bit old (this is the first edition, which was copyrighted 1994), but the science remains the same. The other package was Charlaine Harris' new Sookie Stackhouse book, Dead Reckoning, which I'm looking forward to reading, which I got for almost nothing through a special deal. Yay!

That brings me up to date. I'll try to get back into the swing of things. There's poop burgers (which may or may not be a hoax) to blog about. And then there's the new mushroom, Spongiforma squarepantsii, named after SpongeBob Squarepants, which is true.

Hope you have a good night. Hope you had a happy solstice. I think I'm going to go back to bed.

Must cool down

It's 82 degrees outside, and don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining after the highs in the 50s all week, but when you're lugging bottles of wine around, you can work up a sweat, and my face is red. I left at 10:35 and took the bus up three blocks (it's safer than going along the road, where there's no sidewalk for about a block). I had lunch at Taco Bell (that's probably the first time in at least six months, and the people there were very nice). Since most of their traffic was drive-through, I had the dining room to myself.

Then it was across the street to Liquor Barn, where I'd been asked to get three bottles of wine to be used for both cooking and drinking. I knew I wanted to get some wine for my libations and some mead as well.

I was in there a long time. I simply know almost nothing about wine. I had a price to guide me by, but nothing else. I finally chose two pinot grigios (and that was mainly because the bottle had leaping Etruscans on it--I want those bottles when he's finished, although I do hope the wine is nice) and a merlot. I got a merlot for me as well, for the libation. I normally choose burgundy but haven't been able to find any of late. I thought maybe they can't call it that anymore (kind of like champagne has to come from Champagne, France), but if so I don't know what they call it now. Did I mention I am sorely stupid when it comes to wine? I did need help finding the mead, and in the same section there were elderberry, pomegranate, and other fruit wines. I filed that away for future reference.

So that took the better part of the three hours I was out wandering up and down three blocks of Richmond Road. I still had about a half an hour before the bus came by on the way home, and so I checked out Gabriel Brothers and found a pair of jeans and a shirt for $13. Not a bad deal. Once I got off the bus, I went into the library to pay my little fine for the other day when I fell asleep and then also checked out a book called Wine Basics for Dummies. (Although I know it's a good series, I find the titles to be a little insulting, except for things I know next to nothing about, like cars and wine. Actually, I can change a flat tyre, know how to change my oil, and know just about every part under the hood, especially those that have gone out on me before, so my knowledge of cars is vast compared to my knowledge of wine.) :)

Anyway, I'm drinking something cold and I'm going to go sit by the fan for a few minutes before doing anything else. I wish I had ice cream, but I don't really need it. After I get cooled down I'll get going on the rest of the tasks for the day.

Ha! I was right!

So I went to a liquor store the other day to get a dry champagne/sparkling wine for a friend to cook with. Assuming that 'sec' meant dry in French (I was pretty sure--sweet is sucre; I can't pronounce French worth anything but did take a French for reading class in graduate school), I picked that up and took it to the counter, asking the person to be sure. (I do not know anything about wine, which is funny, because I keep getting sent to buy it and other forms of liquor for various recipes). He didn't know. He asked the woman there. She thought it was dry, then asked the other guy, who insisted it was sweet, so we put it back and got the one that said, in English, 'Extra Dry', 'Brut' being extra, extra dry.

Well, it's been nagging me. You may recall my post on Adele Blanc-Sec, the comic book character. Her name means White-Dry. I was 90% sure I had read that. Now why I should remember that correctly given all the useful bits I would like to remember, I don't know. And granted, I was putting it with wine, a whole new arena. Anyway, it's been bothering me, so I looked it up and 'sec' is, indeed dry in French. Now of those three designations, the sec champagne was the sweetest (for more on describing sweetness of wine, particularly champagne, see the Wikipedia listing),with 'doux' being sweet champagne, so the guy was right that of the three options given, 'sec' was sweetest. But it didn't mean 'sweet'.

Anyway, the 'Extra Dry' was probably the way to go, but it's nice to know I was right after all about the meaning of the word. The funny thing about that day is I went to swipe a debit card and swiped my flexible spending card instead (which can only be used for medical expenses). It declined the transaction, rightfully so, so we were able to switch out the bottles without a refund. :) Somewhere, I'm probably being flagged at United Healthcare for trying to buy wine with an FSA card. :) Sorry about that! They were both blue.

Interesting initiative

I don't drink wine (although I do use it in libations), but Fledgling Wine has a very interesting philanthropic idea to selling wine:

The Fledgling Initiative aims to make awesome wine for the benefit of Room to Read, a non-profit organization extending literacy and educational opportunities to children worldwide. Every case sold will provide approximately 60 local language children’s books and promote education in the world’s poorest regions.

You can follow them on Twitter at @Fledgling.

I'm home for now

waiting for 'Supernatural' to be over, since a friend won't answer the phone or door during the show. I spent about 2 1/4 hours in the cooler tonight, stocking and organising--with the fans running. That and today's great journal purge made for a good workout, and left me a little tired. I'd like to just go to sleep for a little while. Alas, that is not to be, so I'm eating dinner to get some energy.

I should have stopped by the grocery to get distilled water for my CPAP humidifier. It helps keep my nose and mouth from drying out when I sleep. But I didn't want to make any stops; I actually used the ATM at work to get some money, even with a $2 charge, than to go over to a bank that's a half a block away. My food came from the store, too. I just wanted to go home. I do need to see about getting some wine tonight when I pick a friend up from work, as I have not made my monthly offering. I had quite a few wine bottles in the recyclables today; anyone poking around in my kitchen cabinet would have thought I was an alcoholic, but of course I don't drink the wine--I use it for libations. I just hadn't cleaned out the cabinet in awhile.

I think I may try to zone out in my comfy chair for a few minutes. It's not quite as nice as sleep, but I find it relaxing. I just let my mind wander; often I get insights into the game that way. :)

Change of plans

After sitting down finally, it occurred to me that I'm really sore, from head to toe, but mostly in my neck and shoulders. I did a lot of lifting tonight at work and I think I may have messed something in my neck up. So I'll do notes Saturday, and wine/religious obligations tomorrow night, which is Old Bealtaine and therefore a day of power. [I tend to celebrate the holiday according to the old calendar, rather than the new.] I'll make two separate offerings, one to my Patroness, who is Greek (the wine and honey), and one to the Celtic Gods of my ancestors (the mead, along with a little of the friendship bread, too.)

For now, though, Cerys is fed and has been taken out, so I think I'll take some ibuprofen and sit in the chair with the heating pad/massager on and see if that helps.

Nifty

At work I bought a fountain drink, a refill, and a protein bar, all of which had bonus points to my rewards card, and on the last purchase I got a coupon for a free drink and had enough points for a $25 gift card, so I turned in the points and went ahead and got the card. Yay! Free gas/food!

Of course, I'd already filled up today, thinking it the price might go up this morning. It was almost $40. That's about what I pay once a week. The price actually went down (I think it's $2.79 right now). But when it was up over $3 I was lucky enough to have a gas certificate worth 5 gallons for making our selling points quota.

All in all it's been a decent day. It was quiet at the hospital (there's a lecture series going on, so no clinic) and I did a lot of interlibrary loaning. Then I went to Meijer to get a bra and a notebook and wound up with two notebooks (one for me, one for the game), a bra, Mother's Day cards for my mom and grandmother, and two purses (it was buy one get one free). The purse I bought was $17 and the bra was only $14--I expected it to be twice that, so it all evened out. It was truck night at the gas station so I worked my butt off, but didn't have to do register on the new software yet--that's saved for Saturday. Then I went to Kroger and bought dog food, sourdough bread, havarti cheese, and a vanilla/orchid body wash. Cerys and I are enjoying the bread (and I let her have a smidge of the cheese) right now.

Well, that's it. I still have a dog to take out, notes to do, a prescription to phone in, wine to buy, a friend to pick up, and an offering to give due to last week's woeful unpreparedness/loss of what wine I had. I still have no idea where it went.

Good night. I might blog later but I'll have to see how tired I am. Take care.