(no subject)

I got about a third of the way to my clinic this morning - the one that's about 40 miles away, not the one a convenient ten minute bus ride from my house. Freezing rain was already falling - I'd scraped a thick layer of ice off my car - the roads were slick, and visibility was poor. More freezing rain is expected this afternoon.

So I asked myself, "what the hell are you doing?" Unable to think of a good answer, I turned the car around. I've canceled my patients, and I'm going to use part of the day to catch up on my dismally-behind paperwork.

(no subject)

I like drinking wine, but I'm certainly no expert. I don't, for example, know how to talk about wine using the kinds of terms you see in tasting notes (for example, "A medium ruby starting to show some brick at the edges. A clean but modest nose of dark stone fruits and violets. The tannins are smooth and melting away. Blackberries and plums; rose petals. Lovely but starting to fade." Huh?).

So I'm intrigued by these instructions for how to develop a sense of different aromas a wine can have. It explains how to make "standards" to illustrate specific scents - combining a neutral wine (like the kind that comes in a box) with bits of different flavorings. For example:

Asparagus (several drops of brine of canned asparagus)
Bell Pepper (tiny piece of bell pepper - don't leave in too long)
Vanilla (drop of vanilla extract)
Butter (drop of butter extract)
Clove (one clove, don't leave in too long)

He recommends that you get some broadly different wines to taste, and then use the "standards" as a reference to try and identify the different aromas present in the wines.

It seems like a lot of work to set up the standards, but I also think it could be fun. Might be a good idea for a party.

(no subject)

At 4:30, the time I usually leave the clinic, I was chopping ice off my front steps with the claw end of a hammer. I think I made the right call about staying home. Right now, big flakes of snow are falling rapidly.

Time to go downstairs and curl up under a blanket with my sweetie, a big bottle of Chilean merlot, and CNN's coverage of the New Hampshire results.

Update: Sigh...