Update... Dec 19, 2005

Merry Christmas Charlie Brown!!!!

Well, it has been a while since I have sent out an update… I have been a busy little elf this holiday season, and my play was mostly to blame. If you ever want to have NO time for yourself, join a play or adopt infant twins… that should do it! For those of you who don’t know, I opted for joining a play… the twins were a little pricey!

On with the update!

So, let’s go back to last week shall… let’s travel through time, to Thursday. Work was ridiculous, I don’t think I have ever been this busy at work… or at least not for a long time. There were meetings called to “bring issues to the surface” (gee I didn’t know they weren’t at the surface!), and other developers needed help debugging their code… and yes that is part of my job… you break it, I fix it!!

So five o’clock rolls around… yabba dabba do, I am outta here!!! I had made plans with my mother for the evening to go to the Dallas Symphony Christmas Celebration! This is something we do every year… or at least for the last eight years. I made reservations for us at Pappa Bros Steakhouse… our favorite restaurant! We walk in and it is completely decorated for Christmas. The oak paneling is trimmed with pine garland with white twinkle lights, and there are Christmas trees standing as tall as the ceiling with maroon bows topping them. They were gold and maroon in their decorations with white lights everywhere, it was gorgeous. The bar looked like something out of a dream… completely trimmed with the mirror in the back of it reflecting all of the twinkling lights, and telling you that the halls were decked. Definitely puts you in the mood. So we sit down, me in my little black dress, and my mother in her Christmas finery. We talked about what we were going to order and finally decided… the lobster bisque to start. This is an absolute given, if you ever go to Pappas and don’t order the lobster bisque you are going to miss the best part of the entire meal, don’t let your palette miss out on this, you will regret it! We also get the crab cake appetizer, so yummy, and we get the special, a 10 oz filet with lobster topping it, mashed potatoes and asparagus… yum!!! So, we dive into the wine list. Their wine list at Pappas looks like the unabridged dictionary, it is huge. It comes in this immense leather bound book, and has so many pages, you feel sorry for the trees that gave their life for it… that is until you see what they have, then you forget about the trees, put you PETA card away, and start imagining things. They had a bottle of wine that was $10,000!!! You could get a Hyundai and fill it with gas for a year for that! I start looking for a good bottle of wine and decide on the Caymus Conundrum. It is a blend, and it satisfies my mother’s need to have a sweet wine and my need NOT to drink white zinfandel, it works. This is a nice bottle of wine and I am excited about it. So the sommelier comes over and puts down the silver ice bucket next to the table (they have great presentation here), I look at my mother and she is beaming, he takes out the bottle opener, brings the knife out of the other end and removes the foil from the top of the bottle, he then begins to UNTWIST the CAP!!!! My mother is no longer beaming, and neither am I for that matter. I looked at this man, who looked like he should be serving kings and queens and said, “Did you just unscrew a cap?” He said “Yes.” I was then even more puzzled, he had shown me the bottle wine before…. I did see that it was a Caymus Conundrum, and that it wasn’t Boones Farm or something of that nature… this WAS a good bottle of wine. “Why does it have a cap?” I asked. Not wanting to sound hurt, but he had definitely put a little kink into my wonderfully planned evening. I had box seats, I had reservations at a world-class restaurant, and now I had a bottle of wine that came with a CAP… this didn’t really fit the mystique I was going for. He told me that cork is starting to become scarce and that some of the white wines, because they don’t have to be aged as long as reds, are going to caps, instead of corks! It was quite the little scene, as my jaw dropped open, but I pulled it together and said, “Cap or cork, it still tastes good,” and we got on with dinner. It was delicious. We finished with the hazelnut blonde brownie dessert and coffee. Then we went to the symphony, which I have to say was the best one we have ever been to, it was spectacular!!!

Then the weekend came, finally weekend for the play. My entire family showed up, which they comprised a good portion of the audience, and I was a little nervous! My heart was beating as the lights came up and I was supposed to talk… my Irish accent which has been pretty good, started to sound more and more English in nature. It didn’t help either that I had done this play in more than 8 days and so I was even a little rusty, but it was good and I got through it. It was really touching to see them all there. My nieces and nephews seemed so excited too. They came back stage after the performance and got some cake in the green room, and thought it was really cool. My brother said I shouldn’t quit my day job, and luckily for me that wasn’t even a consideration, but I did have a great time doing the play. I met some great people and had a lot of fun! I think everyone should do it!!!

I wanted to say Thank you so much to those of you who came to see the play! Many of you came from far and wide, and it was so completely touching to see you there, it really did warm my heart and make the experience so much more wonderful. Thank you.

Well, I am going to dive into work now, just thought I would send out a quick update to let you all know I was still alive and kicking!

Peace, love, and uncapped wine,
Martha