Drinkin’ Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee

So yeah’s that’s what I was doing last weekend as my wife Kim and I celebrated my 50th birthday with Smokin’ Summer Kickoff, a self-guided wine tour on Seneca Lake in upstate New York. Over the two days, we hit 12 wineries, 11 (out of 22) that were participating in the event that paired food with wines and one, Three Brothers Wineries that was not, but that is one of our favorites and we couldn’t pass up visiting. Not everything went as planned:

• We didn’t start the weekend Friday night by watching Wine Country and Springsteen on Broadway on Netflix. I wasn’t digging Wine Country, but Kim still wants to see it.
• I lost my ticket at one winery, but didn’t discover I lost it until I got to the next winery.
• We didn’t finish our first day as planned at Three Brothers Wineries.
• Kim forgot part of her cord for her CPAP machine so didn’t sleep well at the bed and breakfast, The Gridley Inn, in Waterloo.

But it all worked out, and is continuing to work out, as:

• We’re watching Springsteen on Broadway tonight as I draft this.
• We went back and I found the lost ticket on a concrete pad off the back deck where it blew off.
• We started our second day at Three Brothers.
• The inn itself was beautiful as was the breakfast the next morning and the stories one of the owners, Stephani, regaled us with before, during and after breakfast were more than memorable.

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This coming weekend for Father’s Day, as planned for my birthday month, I’m going to see my dad – and mom, of course, the people who…well…made my birth possible. But we’re not going to the car show we had planned to go to. Instead, we’re going to one that’s closer to where I live. Plans changed for today, Father’s Day (as I add this), since my knee is “acting up,” feeling sore because of mowing yesterday (front side hill doesn’t help) so a 120-mile round trip driving doesn’t sound like something that’s in the cards. I already called my father and we will get together sometime later this week or next weekend when the car show we were supposed to go has been rescheduled. Hopefully, I’ll be able to see my mother then too…and maybe my sister and her family.

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Earlier this week, I posted a PAUSE on my planned giveaway for my birthday month. Most likely, I will do it over the last two weekends. Also earlier this week, on Wednesday, I finally had an appointment with an orthopedic specialist, who requested an MRI for my sore left knee from my insurance company. On Thursday, to my surprise, it was approved and it is scheduled for Monday morning. I have another appointment Wednesday to go over the results and naturally I’ll let you all know what I learn. So…as always…stay tuned.

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Wait a minute. This post is part of the Sunday Salon, right? Yet I haven’t talked about reading. What gives? Okay, I’ll throw you a bone :). Since the beginning of this month, I have finished one book, Digital Minimalism: Choosing A Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport, that I didn’t mention here but that I had on hold for a long time. I’ve started The Lord God Made Them All, the fifth in the U.S. version of the All Creatures Great and Small, as planned. I still hope, during this my birthday month, to delve into Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman and All of Us: The Collected Poems by Raymond Carver, two of my all-time favorite collections of poetry.

So how y’all doing? What’s going on in our lives? Reading, watching, listening to anything good? We did just finish Springsteen on Broadway and it was, as expected, very good.

I was going to post a collage of photos from my birthday weekend, but I think this sums it up:

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I’ll leave you with something I discovered while listening to Guido’s Lounge Cafe this morning: