New Wine, New Jersey

We usually like to write these together…a team effort if you will, but since work requires us to be a few zip codes apart, we’ve decided to continue in the format of our most recent post. It definitely seems to make sense in this case.

Crystal: I had to fly for work yesterday. This made me incessantly grumpy, as I’m of the opinion that being hurtled through the air in a pressurized tube is extremely unnatural to me and should be to most humans.

Jonathan: I think it’s fun…it’s the getting to the plane part that blows goats. Air travel these days is a hemorrhoid on what would otherwise be a pleasant vacation.

Crystal: That, and no one can REALLY explain to me, in words that make sense, how planes don’t just fall out of the sky.

Jonathan: Not true…I’ve explained it to you…and it made sense. I’ll do it again when you get back.

Crystal: So I arrived at the airport and was the only one in the group of four women to be checked in by a man.

Jonathan: (frowns)

Crystal: I thought nothing of it at the time, I simply handed him my ID card and a copy of my orders so he wouldn’t charge me for baggage. There was no winking, hair tossing, or any other flirtatious action.

Jonathan: You’re damn right there wasn’t. I will cut a dick off.

Crystal: He handed my ID back and said, “I’ve bumped you to first class for the first leg of your trip.”

What?!

Jonathan: What?!

Crystal: This has happened to me one other time in my thirty-six years on this planet. Jonathan and I were traveling from San Antonio to Omaha, and he got us bumped to first class. “You know you get free drinks in first class right?” he told me. I thought he was joking. I proceeded to drink three gin and tonics and get quite loud. Pretty sure everyone else in first class that night was aware that I was a newbie to the finer things in life.

Jonathan: Yep.

Crystal: Anyway…it gets better. The four of us walked to security and thought the TSA Pre-Check line was where we belonged, but no one was really sure. “Well, let’s just pretend we belong there and see what happens,” I told them. I went in first, and the lady scanned my boarding pass, smiled and said, “Thank you Crystal.”

Excellent.

No taking off of shoes or jacket, no removal of computer or clarinet from bag.

I breezed through and turned around, only to see the other three heading back to regular security! After waiting for ten minutes for them to get through, they told me I was the only one who had a Pre-Check ticket. Once again, my check-in guy had hooked me up.

Jonathan: What did this guy look like?

Crystal: Once I was settled into my first class seat, the very funny and flaming flight attendant kept me plied with red wine the entire way. It was fabulous. If I had money to fly first class all the time, I totally would. It’s either going to be Dramamine or alcohol that keeps me calm, and alcohol is much more fun. But I digress. On to New Jersey!

Jonathan: Oh yes…new jersey!

Crystal: Excuse me; new jersey, lowercase. I bought Bella a Packers jersey. It’s very cute on her, and she’ll be the envy of every Packer fan we know. It’s the coolest thing we’ve ever bought her.

Jonathan: Aside from the five foot tall teddy bear.

Crystal: Yes, other than that. Second coolest thing we’ve ever bought her. There’s just one small problem. She hates it.

Jonathan: Loathes actually.

Crystal: Yes. Loathes. We put it on her, and she stood frozen in place. Ears down, sad puppy face wondering “Why hooman?”

Jonathan: More like “I’m a dog you dumb shits. I chew on bones, chase my own tail once in awhile, lick my naughty parts for no apparent reason, shit outside (with a shamed face), and my favorite treat in the world is to eat cat shit. I’m obviously not the shirt-wearing type.”

Crystal: Okay…so probably more along those lines…but she definitely hates it.

Jonathan: Yep.

Crystal: So that’s the ‘Beasts’ part of our post…and since we’ve been neglecting the ‘Bottles’ part, here’s a wine we had with dinner a couple weeks ago:

 The wine.

Jonathan: We’re by no means wine-snobs, (after all, we bought a CASE of Blackstone Merlot a few weeks ago), so we’ll drink the $100 bottle, the $6 bottle, and everything in between. This is a sort of in between one. We’ve had our fair share of Apothic Red in the past so when this ‘limited release’ showed up at Raley’s the other night, we had to give a whirl.

It’s dark. Way dark. If Darth Vader had a favorite wine, this just might be it. Remember the bad guy in Temple of Doom…Mola Ram…if he ran out of blood to use in his Thuggee ceremonies, this is what he’d use. Even the cork (synthetic) is black. This is badass wine. But it’s not sinister…it’s good. Get some while it lasts!

The jersey.

 

The result.