Phil? Phil Connors? Phil Connors, I thought that was you!

Finally finished the stone carving. Well so I didn't sand all the nooks and crannies, but I was pretty fed up with it being on my to do list. I finally mustered enough initiative to break out the 300 and 400 grain sandpaper and go to town on the little crafted piece of brimstone. After I was done with it, it felt as smooth as Cary Grant making a move. But around the frog there were places that were noticeably more white than the rest of the stone just because I couldn't easily sand those tiny places. Because of this I have come to the conclusion that when working on a stone carving, it is tremendously easier when making a large item if you are planning to sand the piece. Details + Sanding just don't work. Anyhow, handed it off to my mom since it was her 60th birthday present.

In other news, Thanksgiving was nice.

Thursday we drove up, encountering a bit of traffic on the way through San Francisco. Got to the little inn, named the Cottage Inn, in Sonoma. It was cute. Saw my aunt and uncle, my cousins Stacia and Karen (who I didn't recognize with all her hair), and Stacia's new boyfriend Jim, who I approve of, and Karen's former roommate Tulley (is that right?) and her husband and two children. After hanging around the room for a while we all went out for Thanksgiving dinner at a fancy restaurant. I had the steak, and a few glasses of wine.

I had a lot of trouble going to sleep that night since I had had 5 cups of coffee over the course of the day, and I kept on developing this story about Hemdale and his tragic love life in his younger years. It had some really good images in my head, but kept me up for way too long considering I had to get up at 4:45 in the morning to drive down to work because they wouldn't give me the day off.

There wasn't any traffic on the way down to Palo Alto, which was really nice. The day went a lot easier than I had expected because they assigned me to be just a runner for the first half of the time. Thankfully they let me go early, which was nice of them but I still am not forgiving them for not giving me the day off in the first place. After that I filled up on gas and headed back up, encountering a bit of traffic on the Golden Gate. Got back to Sonoma in time for dinner with my cousins. We got some pizza and chatted about various things. Got some ice cream afterwards. Then we watched Son of Rambow, which everyone seemed to like. And that was Friday.

Saturday we got up. Went to breakfast at a place that didn't make omelets as good as I do. We planned out a bit of the day, and then headed out on a walk. It was brisk outside, but sunny and warming up. A great day for a hike through wine country. Walked past vineyards, and the sweet smelling town roads. Learned about buckeyes. Got some apples. Stopped by the RavenWood winery and had a small tasting. And then headed back. Dad, Mom and I then headed out for wine tasting. First went to B R Cohn, which I thought was good. And then we went to another winery which we had heard of from one of Mom's friends, Muscaldini and Ty Carson or something like that. That was also pretty good. But I think most wines will taste good to me, and I do not have the palette to discern quality between them. I also had burned my tongue something like 5 times in the past few days, which was bad.

We bought two cases of wines (one from each place), headed back, and I took a nap on a couch. Woke up and went out for food at a place named "the girl and the fig." They had a really interesting side selection of cheeses, so I ordered a sampler, one cow cheese, one goat cheese, and one sheep cheese. All of them were soft cheeses, which made it easy to spread on the bread they provided. The cow cheese... Credenza? tasted like brie. The goat cheese tasted like really strong brie cheese, and I didn't really like it too much. The sheep cheese though... Breibou? was actually pretty good. Had all the qualities I like about cheese, and a nice texture to go along with it. The dinner was Ragout of Wild Boar with fried artichoke heart and something like grits/couscous underneath it. The wild boar actually tasted pretty awesome, and was supposedly from New Zealand. All in all, a good meal.

Headed back, and went to sleep after a really nice long bath.

In the morning I woke up with amazing hair, like I always do when I take showers/baths at night. I should have taken a picture. I hugged my relatives goodbye, and supposedly Sam threw up in the car on the way to the airport. And I just went back home. Hung out with Maryann, Ryan and Megan that night (which was yesterday?). Watched Groundhog Day, which I didn't remember at all but it was a really fun movie. Then just hung out.

link: buy me presents!!