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Debdeb's BirthdayLast Tuesday, believe it or not, was the one-year anniversary of my first date with Debbi. We'd planned to go to dinner that night, but I spent much of this week laboring with a cold (which snuck up on me on the drive back from Disneyland last weekend), so we postponed 'til Thursday. We went back to the Italian restaurant in Mountain View where we went for that first date. We went there the first time because it was a convenient midpoint between where she lives and where I lived at the time. Now, of course, it's quite close to my house. Afterwards we walked around downtown for a while, like we did the first time. It was a nice little anniversary.
 Saturday was Debbi's birthday. She's a few months younger than me, so you can draw your own conclusions about her age! I gave her a Handspring Visor Neo for her birthday, since she said she's wanted to replace her old Palm Pilot. I gave her the deep blue one, since I know she likes deep blue. She was completely surprised and delighted by the present! Very cool. She spent a bunch of time during the day just playing around with it. Now she just needs a computer to synch it to, but she wants to buy a new iMac soon. (I've been very happy with my own Handspring for nearly three years now. It's starting to show signs of being long in the tooth, so I might replace it at some point, but not until I really need to.) In the afternoon she went off to a baby shower (no, not her own, thank goodness!) for a few hours, and left me on my own. I went off to do some shopping, including looking at screen doors at Home Despot, though I didn't actually buy one. Then I came home and puttered around, finishing up by doing something I haven't done since college. I locked myself out of my house. I'm usually very careful to take my keys everywhere, but this time I was just going outside momentarily, and just as I slammed the door shut behind me, I realized that the handle lock was set, and that I didn't have my keys. D'oh! I thought it was no big deal, since Debbi was due home soon, but it turns out the shower ran over by more than an hour, so I was on my own with nothing but my slippers and (strangely enough) my measuring tape to my name. After a while I walked over to a friend's house who has a copy of my key, but she wasn't home. Moreover, I'd walked over barefoot, so my feet were pretty sore and raw by the time I returned! (Yes, you'd think I'd have known better, but I so rarely go outside barefoot I'd forgotten how easy it is to hurt one's feet!) And I knew my other friend who has a key was not in the area at the moment. Eventually I heard my phone ring inside, and heard a few words that made me think that Debbi was just then leaving the shower. Knowing it would take her at least 20 minutes (more like 30) to get back, I went for a walk in a nearby park, leisurely strolling around, watching some folks play softball. Debbi was back when I returned, thank goodness! And she had her key and had let herself in, being rather perplexed to find my shoes, keys and wallet inside, along with the radio on rather loud, but no Michael inside with them! So I was relieved. She was very apologetic for being late, but it wasn't her fault. I'm just glad it all turned out well. (Of course, at worst I would have called a locksmith, which would have cost money, but money exists to be spent, right?) Since I had a lot of time to kill (nearly 2 hours), I spent a lot of time thinking about how I could reduce the possibility of getting into this situation in the future. The basic dilemma is this: Making sure I can get hold of a spare key easily if I lock myself out, without increasing the risk of someone using my failsafe to break into my house. I have several ideas, and Debbi contributed an interesting notion, too. It's not a simple problem, though. Well, all's well that ends well - this time.
After Debbi returned, we went to Cost Plus, where I bought a small (30") table and four chairs for my patio. Now I'm all set to host Bridge gatherings at my place this summer! Not to mention do things like eat breakfast on the weekends on the patio, or even work on my laptop out there. Debbi also found some wine she's been looking for (which she discovered at Mike Trent's birthday party a few weeks back). Then we went off for her birthday dinner. She wanted Chinese, so we went to my favorite Chinese restaurant, Su Hong, where we had pine nut chicken in garlic sauce, orange peel beef, and (because they're what Debbi really wanted) pot stickers. Then we hung out across the street at Borrone for a few hours, where we each had a frosted mocha, and she played with her new Handspring while I read. (She enjoyed IR-beaming files from her Palm to her Handspring.) She says she had a great birthday. I'm so glad!
We rounded out the weekend today by driving up, with Lisa and Michel, to Napa (or, rather, nearby St. Helena) to visit some wineries. It was my first trip to Napa, though they've been there several times before. Long-time readers might recall my friend Karen and I making a tour of some wineries out towards Livermore. That was fun, but I found the wine at the places we went in Napa to be of generally better quality. The Beringer Brothers winery is worth a look for the tour of the tunnels where they historically aged their wine, and the beautiful grounds they occupy. However, they do charge a fair amount for tasting their wine, and I wasn't bowled over by their wines. I felt Sutter Home had much better wine, and in fact I bought a couple of bottle of their wine. The woman who oversaw our tasting seemed very knowledgeable, and Debbi said she's had very good experiences there in the past. They also had a wine bottle of cat treats, which of course I couldn't resist buying! Our third and last stop was a winery named V. Sattui, which has a picnic ground and sells a wide variety of mustards, cheeses, breads and other snacks to eat on their grounds. They also had a barbecue going. It seemed an extremely popular winery. The actual wine didn't strike me as unusually good, though they had one kind which is one of Debbi's favorites, and she bought a bottle. We also bought some snack food and sat outside eating for a while. (I chose an interesting chipolte cheddar cheese. I am actually coming to like cheeses more as I get older, but I still mostly stick to mild cheeses, and generally don't eat them melted.) I had a good time on the trip, but the two hour drive each way is a long haul, and my stomach felt a little queasy at the end of each drive. I'd do it again, though. Strangely, I now have 11 bottles of wine in my house, some of them dating back to 1993 vintage! I need to start consuming some of them; I understand some of the white and blush wines will eventually go bad.
Oh, in case you're wondering: I did follow through and send my Senators and Representative letters about the Internet radio debacle.
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