the other Three...

We also enjoyed a 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon 2003 (R.H. Phillips) and two other bottles, but I can't find them in all the mess. But I should also mention the DEEElicious Jumilla (Panarroz 2005) that we had last Wednesday, courtesy of Zack Taylor. His website is down, so I have to substitute this character for the real McKoy. Also this week was a Shiraz-Malbec 2006, fuZion, a very nice wine at 8,20$, definitely one to buy again.

the Four Tops

I think we all liked the Pinot Noir best of all, perhaps because that was the first one we opened, so I will start with that one. Clear, delicate, highly drinkable, this 2006 Argentine beauty came in a sparkling clean bottle with a real cork. Our wine book says that the 2006 Argentine vintage (as of early 2007) was looking to be one of the best of the last 100 years, so we were expecting a lot from it, perhaps, especially at 14,90$ a bottle for this Trapiche from Mendoza. Who the hell writes the copy for their label, though? "La majesteuse silhouette du condor planant au dessus des hauts sommets des Andes represente l'oiseau symbolique qui protege notre vaste vignoble" (sans accents). I dunno. Just bring me another bottle.

David Bowie singing Video Killed the Radio Star

Man, what stuff the Imagination comes up with! Last night around 4am, after lots of rich Italian food and wine and thick (i.e. complex and layered) conversation with delightful dinner guests, I wake up to a dream of men in penguin suits (formal black and white attire) singing in lounge style, Video Killed the Radio Star. The dream appeared like a rock video. David Bowie was the lead, and had with him a dozen men arranged in a triangle composition, each playing his instrument. Each player had whiteface makeup on and bright red lipstick, Cabaret style. You may remember the tune includes some robot voices doing back up, and so when one of these parts comes up, the piano player turns to the camera (my inner camera) and sings that bit, close up, with his weird face and lips. And then he turns back to his piano. All the faces were very strange looking: high high foreheads, eyes with heavy lines under them or crinkled foreheads, huge ears, etc. Not all that interesting as a dream, really. Maybe that's what you get for mixing vodka and red wine (see other entry for details).

Bad behaviour and subsequent guilt

Some friends came over to invite me to a party. Jason wasn't home yet and the baby was asleep, but I really wanted to go. So I just left, and left the baby sleeping at home.

We drove through a suburban area to a hotel/apartment building and went through an unmarked door on the ground floor. Inside was a clandestine gay bar, with a lot of cool people drinking and having fun.

I hung out there for a few hours, and then started to worry about whether Jason came home and was taking care of the baby. I called home and nobody answered. Suddenly I felt very guilty, irresponsible and concerned about Imogen.

I left the party and wandered down the road, an almost rural highway. Occasionally I had to go through a building in order to continue along the side of the road. I'd walk through a diner or supermarket and then continue along the road.

It became apparent that I had a long way to go to get home. I began to look for taxis and finally flagged one. It took me home. Jason was there and everything was okay after all.

big storm coming

we were at the Land: krstn, johnny, my mum others. There was a horse tied up outside the house, which was bigger in my dream than the real one. There was snow on the ground, but it was warm and the lake wasn't frozen anymore. Two women came to tell us that a huge storm was blowing in from Montreal and they were evacuating everyone. We had just arrived and mum had no intention of going back. So we decided to weather the storm, which was to be the worst in history. We had to bring the horse indoors, and lots of wood and water.

harvesting earth honey

I was leading in the hunt for earth honey, which is formed by intense heat caused by lightening strikes, volcanoes or meteor impacts. In such circumstances, a natural sweetness sometimes found in the earth, in underground streams or in little pockets, is concentrated, away from the blast, and reaches a boiling point, causing little tiny "lava bombs" of honey that boil up out of the hot earth, and then drop, just a few feet away, to form special little lumps. I was able to identify this rare phenomenon, and in my dream, we found some. You could see where the earth had swirled in the heat, and the little pock marks where the honey had popped out, and then, a few feet away, these little mounds. We picked them and ate the sweet earth honey.

Summer camp gone very weird

I was back at this summer camp that I went to when I was a pre-teen. In this case, it was more chaotic, and there were girls and boys sleeping in lofts or dorms. Also, we were older. Camp was winding up, or maybe I was just visiting.

There was a room with a cooler of food -- meat pies and pork. I felt guilt around the pork... I think that we had killed it ourselves. There was kind of a feeling of cannibalism around it. Also weird was that several of us had multiple syringes in our pockets that we were using occasionally to surreptitiously inject drugs.

Weirdly, the camp was religious. And the drugs were very contraband but readily available.

At one point, we went outside to ride horses. They gave me a horse that wasn't trained. It bucked every time I tried to get on it. They said I had that horse because it needed an experienced rider. I liked the horse and wanted to ride it but was a little bit afraid of it.

A tidy little French wine, made from the mystery grape

Mmmm... now it's my turn to talk about the wine with the chickens on the label... La Vieille Ferme, no date and made from the grape which has no name. The verdict: a tidy, sweet little French wine. One that keeps quiet, tidies up after itself and always has something pleasant to say.

Escaping the underground city

I was in the underground city, in downtown Montreal and it became apparent that at least one of the office towers connected to the underground was on fire. The fire spread quickly and, one by one, the exits (many of which go through the ground floor of the towers) were being closed. I and a handful of people were heading west, building by building, trying to get out.

We finally ended up in a weird, open-concept 1980's building where we could go above ground and even onto the roof. There were authorities in the building who were trying to contain and control us, telling us we should stay put and everything would be all right. By this point many buildings were on fire, September 11 style, billowing smoke up into the sky.

I joined a group of younger people and went up on the roof. From the roof we took a staircase to the sidewalk and then each of us started to run in a different direction.

Warming up for Krsna Das

It is Friday night, and Krstn and Jason had tickets to a concert/kirtan with Krsna Das. For those who don't know Krsna Das: wellllll, you have a treat in store for you. If you like dreams and wine, chances are you'll like Krsna Das. Please note that the similarity in spelling (Krstn and Krsna) is completely coincidental. And wrong, as I found out when I went to his website. So we were warming up for Krsna Das and popped the cork on a little bottle of La Vieille Ferme, from the Cotes du Ventoux. Funny label, but a fine little wine.

Would we drink it again? Chances are pretty good.

Summertime and the living will be easy

Okay, you win. Bodega Jacques & Francois Lurton, Pinot Gris 2006 set me daydreaming about summer afternoons, eating delicate summery things in the park under a shady tree.

I can't wait... to drink more of this, when the time is right. It's a clean little pinot gris that deserves every ounce of your respect. Even if it slowly makes you drunk and belligerent (it didn't mean to).

Diving for crustacaens

We were staying at some kind of holiday place, with the ocean off in the distance. Jason & I met a man who told us that he would show Jason how to dive for the best shellfish. He said that not only were the shellfish delicious, but they weren't contaminated.

He was very persistent, so we followed him to the shore and watched him dive into the ocean and bring back a big crab. The crab looked kind of crappy and maybe dead.

We didn't really want any shellfish, but decided that we would humour the man because we liked him and didn't have anything better to do. Jason followed the man around to the edge of a small bay, where they were going to go into the water to find more crabs.

cutting stone and finding aluminum

In this dream, actually in the middle of last night, I was in my father's office, which had been carved out of stone in the side of a mountain. The furniture was partly wood, partly stone, with a stone desk. There were other people hanging about, like goats, here and there on the side of the mountain. My dad was trying to remember where he put his papers. Somebody (I think it was my brother-in-law) showed me this slab of stone, like a countertop, that he had cut out of the side of the mountain, and it had a large shiny piece of aluminum embedded in it (I know, but this is a dream!). And so I was keenly interested in getting more of the same, and we went to look where this piece had been cut to see if there was more like it.

Charles Taylor

It was some special celebration of the work of Charles Taylor, on the roof of some big hotel. People were milling around, it was still early. I saw Mr. Taylor crouching under a table, wearing white running shoes and a kind of jogging suit. I went over to him to congratulate him on winning the big prize. He said he had hurt his ankles running, perhaps snapped some strings in his ankles. I realised he was in great pain. I wondered if I should get him some help. Then I had to go and check on the baby.

Triple feature: Tuesday night special

It was a busy night in dreamland.

One:
I dreamed that I had a job at Starbuck's, a night shift from midnight to 4 a.m. The cafe was vast and it was just my friend and I who were working in it. I had no idea what I was doing, and kept getting confused. The cafe was on the ground floor of a huge office building where there were a lot of people working at night. They would all come down at once and politely stand in line a few times each night. The rest of the time the massive Starbuck's was empty.

Two:
Then the Starbuck's was situated above or below an airport. I walked around the airport and ran into my brother, who was just about to catch a flight. I knew I was supposed to be working, but instead tried to convince my brother to catch a later flight so that we could hang out for a while.

Three:
I was with some friends and strangers. We were dressed up in circus clothes, doing some kind of acrobatics. I took a series of pictures of people upside down, dancing & performing, dressed in exotic silks and jewels. The photos appeared immediately as prints and turned out really well. Then we were in some kind of class, in a loading bay about to participate in a yoga class/performance. We sat in a series of summer camp style bunk beds to watch. I fell out of a top bunk. It hurt but I started to laugh and then climbed back to my vantage point on the bunk.

Sweet and Sunny... Norton Malbec 2003

This one was pleasant, like a warm spring day that you enjoy well enough, but as the weeks go by it blurs and gets forgotten, in favour of warmer, sweeter spring days. I knew I was drinking good wine, but after the first sip, it was just wine. Bodega Norton Barrel Select, Malbec 2003, Argentina.

The Great War

Thursday night, we went to the gala launch of the epic documentary, The Great War. At intermission, we drank L' Orangerie de Pennautier 2005 and chomped on squares of cheese. The director and crew mingled with some of the professional actors and some of the descendants who had volunteered to be brutalised during two weeks of the longest and hottest heatwave in Montreal history, to film reenactments of the key battles in World War One. The wine was delicious, even served in little plastic glasses.

A flood in the library

I was heading to a part of the library where they had old books. I was looking for a specific book on a conspiracy theory. I can't remember which conspiracy theory. Suddenly, an alarm starting ringing and huge separators started to descend from the ceiling. My section of the library was being sealed off. Water started flooding into the section. I realised they were going to flood it, to put out a fire and protect the rest of the library. Luckily, as I found the edge of the separator, I found the seal was bad and I could slip around it. I was joined on the other side by a librarian who appeared to be helpful at first, but I realised had been sent to stop me from finding the book. I started running through the library and she stared pulling some Crouching Tiger shit on me. The dream trickled away into nonsense and then I had to jump up and change the diapers.

New York, New York, big city of dreams

A village side street, in bustling Manhattan. I was hungry, but had no cash, just 2.05$ in my pocketses, and a bank card. But this place had lovely sandwiches, a little sandwich shop. But they would't take bank cards. So I crossed the street to a bakery. It was nearly closing time, a tiny place, with one glass display case behind which was the last of a loaf of bread. There were a couple of other customers standing around, undecided. I motioned to the little old lady that I would have a sandwich, which she started to make for me. Taking two slices from the last of the loaf, she started to fill it with delicious things: slices of meat, green leafy lettuce, sauces, more meats, cheeses, until it was stuffed full and thick and almost too big to eat. I asked if she accepted bank cards and she said no. I dashed out of the store and up to the main avenue, looking for a bank. The street was crowded with people and huge towering buildings. I woke up.

Transfixed by a china shop

Funnily, both Jason & I had dreams about buying things and making choices last night. Maybe because we're broke, but really wanted to go shopping for books yesterday.

For my part, I was on vacation with a family... maybe one of Jason's sisters and her kids... not sure. We were in Ontario and stopped at this shop full of enticing little china things. Harkening back to an earlier version of myself (who liked to shop), I spend an irrational amount of time in the shop, hemming and hawing over things like salt and pepper shakers and weird little invented German mustard/bread baking pots.

Everyone else was out in the car waiting for me. I felt a lot of pressure to finish what I was doing and leave, but I was transfixed by all the shiny objects. Then Jason came in and was very impatient. He didn't understand or know that I was trying to decide on a gift for him, and that's why I was taking so long.

Prado Rey - Roble

I need to backtrack a little bit to last week to talk about the strange and delicious wine we shared with friends on Thursday.

Sometimes a bottle of wine arrives heavy with potential. You have ideas about how it will be good, but then it just blows all your preconceived notions out of the water.

Prado Rey Roble, from Spain's Ribera Del Duero, delivers a delicious, no-holds-barred, sucker punch of flavour right up front. Ka-boom! And that was it! Rather than drawing out its rich hues, like a Rioja would, this one delivered the goods with confidence, no subtlety, no shame. And I can appreciate a wine like that.

Visiting an older version of the Old Country

Jason and I were visiting Leuven, the Belgian university town where I lived for two years. But the town, as always, was completely different. Everything was very, very old. We went to a pub that had funny, bonsai-like formations growing all over its walls. I said, "This pub is older than Canada."

We drank very strange beers, even stranger than real Belgian beers. Later we walked through a field with four or five ancient oak trees in it. They were all contorted and twisted in thousands of layers. And they had all been cut down, as a kind of art project commemorating the second world war. Relics from WWII were strewn along the road beside the field.