Wine In a Box? The Married Geeks are Thinking Bigger!

Posted by She Said

When Greg and I started dating, I was thrown into his world of beer making. I’d help bottle and cap his latest home brew. I’m not much of a beer drinker**, but we had a great time doing this together. My favorite was the Jolly Rancher beer made from a Corona Clone, created by using a Jolly Rancher as the final priming sugar. We’d drop a particular flavor into the bottle right before capping it. And they were scrumptious! My favorite was the watermelon. Or maybe the cherry. OH! Green apple! Yum!

For our wedding favors, we even handed out our private label home brew:

And then years of marriage flew by, and out went the beer making, and in came the box wine. We’ve adjusted wine fridges to accommodate these glorious things! We’ve figured out how to best camp with the box! (Remove box, insert plastic bag directly into ice in cooler!) Hell, we’ve even adjusted the shelves in our main refrigerator to work with the average height of the boxes. Folks, we are educated in all things box.

We know people that will snub their noses at the box and swear they are worth nothing more than to be used as props for the next Deliverance movie. To them, I say, I think she looks good in a canoe!

But I digress. Something in Greg must have been missing the creativity that comes in the form of booze production. So, I came home to this:

Yes, my friends, that is a five gallon bucket of “Coastal White” wine in the making. Because who needs a box when you can have a BUCKET?! Now, are we just going to tap the sucker or fill boxes with it? Decisions, decisions.

** Except when I am.

Thank You, May I Have Another?

Posted by She Said

A couple of weekends ago, my high school class celebrated its 20-year reunion. It was two nights of partying and drinking. It would have included a third daytime event made up of a family picnic style gathering, but apparently we are all a bunch of boozers and there wasn’t enough interest in that kind of snooze fest, so it was canceled. Go class of 1990!

In all seriousness, the first night was a bit rough for me. Not because of the drinking or the congregation of some amazingly successful people, like the pediatric cardiologist, the orthopedic surgeon, and the AG prosecutor (for starters), in one small area was a tad nauseating at times. No, it was the fact that of the 100 or so people that came, I only recognized about 4 or 5. Even when the name tags finally got passed around and everyone was staring at each others’ chests for name verification, I still felt at a loss as to who everyone was. Other people didn’t seem to have this problem. In fact several times over the course of the weekend I was told I look just like I did in high school.

Shut! Up!

Seriously, people! I have worked HARD to tame those bangs and have plucked many parts to not look like this anymore:

Really? I don’t look like that anymore, right?

RIGHT!?

Ugh. Anyway, I made it through the reunion and actually had a great time catching up with some people I hadn’t seen since graduation. In fact, as I sit and reminisce about how I survived and enjoyed it, I am actually pretty amazed at some of the things I have succeeded in doing in my life.

• Have fun at 20-year high school reunion. Been there, done that.
• Clear a table full of people by talking politics (well, all except the FBI guy). Yeah, that was a shining moment.
• Traverse a chunk of the Great Wall of China. Oh, yeah, baby. Check!
• Get spanked in front of a crowd of people in a gay bar for charity. *blush* Check.

Yes, folks, that’s right. I am now able to successfully add getting publicly spanked to my list of accomplishments. Go me! Yeah!

Oh, you probably want to know all the sordid details of what lead to this public walloping, don’t you? OK, OK, OK. Greg and I went to a Reno Wine “Walk” (“stumble” is more like it, but whatever), where about 30 or so establishments in the downtown area encourage you to get ripped with your friends as you run from place to place for your taste of the fermented grape. The money goes to a different charity each month, and it drums up business for some really great downtown establishments. Places like an antique shop where Greg got to tease his inner girl fashion beast.

Or the bar that offered free hookah:

And then there was the 5 Star Saloon, a local gay bar, that took the opportunity to raise additional money for a charity that helps the victims of domestic violence. By spanking them. I gave the guy at the door a dollar, thanked him for raising money for such a good cause, but kindly refused the offer of getting all kinky with a public spanking. Then we left.

That’s when the high school antics of daring came into play. I heard, “Oh, yeah, Susanne, you couldn’t take it.” Then I was stung with, “Yeah, she can’t play with the cool kids.” Or, that might have been a flashback. Anyway, I marched right back in and asked him for a spankin’.

Here I am waiting for my turn:

The woman getting spanked ahead of me was really enjoying it and asked several times for something with a little more zing. Maybe that gave me confidence to not flee the scene, because then it was my turn:

I would have posted this sooner, but I just got up the nerve to reacquaint my ass with my computer chair. And I can guarantee that Greg will be delivered some divorce papers if the video gets out.

Not Just the Guccis Are Fake

Posted by She Said

Beijing is turning us into wine snobs. For those of you who have stuck with us for a while, you know that statement is like saying we are suddenly into name brand clothing. It is an enormous stretch. However, I should clarify the meaning of what it means to be a wine snob for us in Beijing. It simply means we want REAL WINE. We don’t care how dry or aromatic it is; we don’t care if we can silently pop the cork; we don’t even care if it shows nice leg down the side of our plastic cups. We simply want it to be real. Because you see, not just the Guccis (and the USB key we bought at Zhongguancun) are fake here. The wine can be too.

We learned this the hard way.

Being the consummate bargain hunter, I found a nice dry Chardonnay from Chile for 39 yuan during one of my market trips. That is about what I get a whole box for back in the states, but here that is a smokin’ deal.

That should have been my first clue.

My second clue that this “deal” was a shady one was the color of this Chardonnay. I have never seen one look the color of pee from a 75 year old man who has been dehydrated so long it took him three days to eek out several drops. Yeah, gross, right? Well, that best describes the maple color of this wine I bought.

(See that QS logo on the top right? Yeah, that means it has the Chinese Food Administration’s seal of approval.)

My third clue was the shit tasted BAD. What? Yeah, we drank it. Well, mostly Greg did.

Then we googled “fake wine”. Here are the highlights:

• Counterfeit wine makers were (are?) buying empty wine bottles from hotels and restaurants on yearly contracts to refill with their swill.
• Over half of the wines sold in 2007 were no more than water, color pigment, alcohol, and maybe a splash of grape juice.
• Authentic resealing and labeling makes this hard to detect prior to purchase.

So, we thought, let’s scrap the wine and work on our beer bellies instead. Then, damn it all to hell, we found this article. Luckily they are imitating Budweiser, which frankly, can’t be all THAT hard to do.