Solvang, How My LIver Hates Thee But How I Love You

I was going to write about this crazy tirp to freaking HEAVEN but it's late and I can't think that hard right now. All I know is that I learned a LOT about wine and realized that cooking Korean BBQ in the room with the door open while blitzed out of my mind on wine is freaking TEH AWESOMENESS!!

I also realized that wine = best sleeping aid e-v-a-r. As in, I passed out by 10:30 last night but I think drinking from 10 a.m. had something to do with it. Funny how something as teeny weeny and as innocuous as a flippin grape CAN KICK MY ASS TILL KINGDOM COME!!

That's right. Something purple-ish (or red...or white...or black...whatever. I'm just going to stick with purple since it's easier to say that than to try to remember all the different colors of grapes used in wine and obsessing over the EXACT color. Yeah) and the size of my pinky nail managed to knock me flat on my rear but you know what? It hurt so good although driving back today from Solvang kind of hurt in a not happy way. Good thing I drive what I do...but it's kind of a mixed blessing because I don't realize how fast I'm going because the ride is that smooth...kind of like the wines I was "tasting". Goes down like purple satin so you're tricked into thinking "Eh, this is nothing! And it's a fruit so it's good for me! I'm having lots of one of the AHA recommended food groups! They just didn't say it couldn't be in fermented form! Whee!! I'm smart!".

And then...yeah...I've passed out by 10:30. Awe-some-ness.

Best advice I heard the entire trip? This was after drinking from 4:30 p.m. when I checked in till the wee hours of 5:00 a.m. the following day...and then waking up at 9:15 to get started on a whole full day of wine tasting. Keep in mind there was a hefty glass of Macallan mixed into all this wine the night between the hours of 7 and 9 p.m.

"What? You're tired? I know what will make you feel better! Have some more wine. Come on! We're in wine country! No sleepies in wine country! You can sleep in LA!".

Dude, how am I supposed to argue against that kind of logic? And whaddya know...I wasn't tired anymore because I completely bypassed that state of mind into Happy BonnieLand. Aaaw yeaa....

I came crashing back to reality with what was supposed to be 11 bottles of wine but actually only 7 of them made it back to LA (4 were sacrificed for the greater good of Keeping Bonnie Happily Blitzed During Her First E-V-A-R Trip To Wine Country during the two nights I was there because everything was closed. OMGWTF, SERIOUSLY??!!!), a bunch of Riedel glasses etched with the names of vineyards visited, a lot of fuzzy memories, a few clear and coherent ones in addition to a very sincere addiction to good wine.

I also told a girlfriend of mine tonight that if you really are what you eat (eat...drink....whatever. I say toe-may-toe, you say toe-MAH-toe....is all good to me), then I've turned into a freaking grape but that's not necessarily a bad thing because I just realized just how hard a freaking grape can kick a person's aaaazzz, lemme tell you. Like my friend Paul PK Kim says, "It's not about size, it's about surprise!". It suuuuuure is....omg.....a freaking grape....well, to be completely truthful, it's not a single grape that handed me my butt back on a platter but a whole BUSLOAD of those little suckers. Okay. I feel better now. :D

I don't know how I'm going to ever be happy with what used to be my favorite place to get wine - the wine aisle of Ralph's. Haa haa haa omg. I can't wait to go back.