Badgers with Knives: Chasing boredom with a splash of vino

So I’ve been a bit bored recently. This isn’t anybody’s fault; it’s just a general affliction that I get from time to time. Of course, as I have stated before, I’m also inheritably lazy. I very often find myself in a predicament where I’m completely bored but have no motivation to do anything about it. I like to state for the record that I also like complaining. These three things combined leave us with the following conversation that I have had pretty much my entire life:

ME: I’m bored. Like really really bored.
PERSON WHO IS TRYING TO BE HELPFUL: Why don’t you (insert some activity here, usually one that involves exercise or signing up for a pottery class)?
ME: Nah, I don’t feel like it.
PERSON WHO IS TRYING TO BE HELPFUL: Well, you could always do (insert another activity that still involves exercise of some sort).
ME: Good idea, but (insert some bodily injury that I’ve just made up and\or am exaggerating).
PERSON WHO IS TRYING TO BE HELPFUL: Well, you could always read.
ME: BOOOOORRRRRRRIIIIIIIINNNNNNNG.
PERSON WHO IS TRYING TO BE HELPFUL: Well, I’m sure you’ll figure it out. I’m going to go over here now to get the hell away from you.

I’m honestly not sure what I’m looking for when I get to that level of boredom. No, scratch that, I do. I’m looking for the person to say to me, “Let’s get dressed up in penguin costumes and drive to this hour away place and stand on a street corner there soliciting people for popsicles and then when we are bored with that we’ll go to a bar and sing Johnny Cash songs at the top of our lungs.” No one ever says that though, which is a shame because it seems like it would be a really fun time.

What that huge introduction is for is to tell you that because I’ve been so bored recently and Andy doesn’t like to see me bored (because I get annoying) (though to be fair, he has a boredom syndrome of his own) we decided on a whim to go wine tasting in Temecula this past weekend.

Driving through Cleveland National Forest where Andy will go very fast as he states he knows, "this road like the back of my hand." This knowledge will not stop you from peeing yourself around a particularly tight corner.

Andy had never been wine tasting before. I was a bit nervous about taking him as wine tasting is high on the list of Things I Like To Do When I’m Bored Like That and if he didn’t like it, I knew that it would be awhile until I did wine tasting again. I needn’t have worried as wine tasting is fucking awesome and of course he enjoyed himself.

The thing I love best about wine tasting is not actually tasting the wine. I really don’t know too much about wine, really, the best I can manage is “that’s dry”, “that’s spicy”, “that’s sweet”, and “that tastes like poo”. I can pretend though, and usually go through the motions of swirling my glass and smelling the wine and smacking my lips. I’m sure I look like a knob. No, what I love about wine tasting is the people. Wine tasting is one of those few events that really brings people together. You talk to the bartender, sure, but a lot of times you get in a conversation with the people doing the tasting with you. This past weekend Andy and I got in conversations with people ranging from base jumping in New Zealand to 1980’s skater clothing lines. It’s awesome.

Andy and I got to Temecula a bit late on Saturday afternoon. We hit 2 of the mainstream wineries before veering down a side road where we hit 3 more. One of the wineries, which turned out to be our favorite, was Vindemia. They are a new winery so they don’t actually have a building set up for the tasting; it was just a big tent. We had a short conversation with the owner of the winery but ended up talking for almost an hour with this couple from San Diego. The husband was a 6’5” tall African American man, and he and his wife have been pretty much all around the world. The husband was saying that due to his size and color that in most foreign countries they go to, the people will accost him asking for pictures thinking that he’s famous. It might have been the wine talking, but when we were leaving, I accosted them both asking for pictures. What? It was funny.

Andy contemplating the oaky finish at Vindemia.

What?! It was funny!

On Sunday we ended up going to 3 more wineries before heading home. Here are some pictorial highlights from the trip.

At the first winery, Weins, where Andy shows off...well, I guess that's it. He just shows off.

Andy isn't feeling faint from the wine, he's feeling faint from the smell of horse manure.

Well HELLO. I was absolutely amazed at this though when I showed the picture to our more horse educated friends later on they said this size is pretty normal. I am personally giving a bit more respect to those ladies who do donkey shows in Tijuana.