Weekly Update: May 11th - 17th — The Wine in the Pines

The Week

Remnants of the hot temperatures from the previous weekend lingered in our place for quite some time on Monday and Tuesday - causing me to have this next thought: I want to buy a boat. Wanting to shake things up from the dullness of staying indoors for 2+ months, I contacted and set up meetings with a few different boat clubs operating in the Seattle area. Mr. Mustang and I share a long childhood history with boats and we both agreed that someday we will get one ourselves. I even made a promise to myself back in my youth that I will be a boat owner by the time I’m 30. This is my 29th year on Earth, so time is ticking to fulfill that promise.

Now, I lied a little bit, we’re not planning to actually buy a boat, but plan to join a club that offers several boats in their fleet for us to use for a monthly fee. Boat share clubs have been in business for over 30 years, and the Seattle area has a rich environment for boating with multiple lakes and the sound. I realized that COVID-19 might still be a threat (even after the quarantine is over), so Mr. Mustang and I will most likely not be doing any air travel this year for vacations. I figured, if we’re not going to spend money on traveling, let's invest in doing mini-vacations on the water instead.

The initial buy-in to join a club is steep - with rates starting at $3,000, and monthly dues ranging between $250 to $500. Since most clubs have you sign a yearlong commitment, Mr. Mustang was naturally hesitant, and he was completely against the idea of spending thousands of dollars to join. After crunching the numbers, a well-crafted PowerPoint presentation that I made, and predicting how active we would be on the water for the next several months, we decided to compromise to the entry-level of boat ownership: one time rentals.

Currently, our plan is to go out on the water about a dozen times over the course of the summer. Afterward, we will reevaluate our finances in the autumn to see if we would want to join at that time. With a potential economic depression looming beyond the horizon, Mr. Mustang felt that spending thousands of dollars doesn’t make the most financial sense at the current time. It might all work out in the end, and if we do end up joining a boat club in the late autumn, we’ll be able to enjoy the waters all to ourselves during the winter months.

Tuesday was an exciting day! I got to go outside for the first time in weeks (since it was time to restock our wine racks with fresh bottles), and I found a killer deal at one of our go-to restaurants. One of our favorite chefs, Ethan Stowell, was doing a special on their house wines in which each bottle was $15. Wanting to take advantage of the pricing, I bought two cases worth of their wine varieties, ranging from Oak Chardonnays to Red Blends, and even a few bottles of Prosecco. I hope to do reviews of each of the wines later this month, as well as all future wines we will drink, so stay tuned!

We also got to travel to Florence this past week in spirit. We got the opportunity to watch a broadcasting of one of our favorite artists, Hershey Felder, doing a live performance as Irving Berlin, another one of our favorite artists. When watching the live stream, we already knew that Mr. Felder had fantastic stage presence, but the first half of the show clearly demonstrated that the camera direction didn’t. Despite there being NINE directors involved with the production, the camera directions, angles, and transitions were extremely odd. There were several moments when the camera angle would change and there would be a fade-in effect that took a solid minute to complete, so at times, Felder’s head would be floating in two places at once on your screen. It was distracting to say the least.

Saturday

Despite having a relatively busy week, we had an exceptionally boring weekend. The weather didn’t improve at all, and decided to keep the skies a perpetual gray with temperatures that hovered near the mid to low 60s. There were several projects I would have liked to tackle, but in the end, I found myself laying on the couch most of the day, scrolling through Reddit with a glass of champagne. Only until later on in the afternoon did something ‘exciting’ happen. As Mr. Mustang and I lounged on the sectional while half paying attention to the TV, we heard a sudden crash and screech of tires outside our window. To my horror, the first thought that came through my head was - “finally something interesting is happening”, knowing full well that a sound of a car crash could mean severe injuries or even death. As we peered through the window like two suspicious cats, we saw what remains of a T-bone car crash involving a pickup truck and a crossover sedan. Miraculously, no one was hurt, and after watching the two drivers bicker on whose fault it was for a few minutes, I poured myself another glass of wine.

Don’t worry, no one was hurt during the crash - except the vehicles. The crossover sedan was completely caved in on one side, and the pickup truck barely had a scratch. I didn’t take any pictures of the crash because I still have standards and didn’t want to act like the ‘peeping tom’ of car crashes. Despite the end results of a car crash happening directly outside of our living room window, we got bored quickly and moved on to taking out the trash and doing other mundane household chores.

Sunday

More blah skies and a typical blah day. When reading the Sunday Times, I could tell that even the reporters are getting jaded from the quarantine, as the articles in the paper were scraping the bottom of the barrel for any new content. There was no special brunch meal planned but I did break out the ‘gourmet’ jams we bought from Hawaii and enjoyed a few slices of toast with Prosecco.

Thankfully, the weather forecast for the upcoming week is looking semi-brighter, with only a few days of rain, but the temperatures are still holding in the mid to low 60s.