The four wines of Christmas, and a bonus whine

Great Christmas food goes well with wine. Or is it the other way round? I can never remember.

The Tannat was bottled August 2010. It's a rich slightly spicy red wine that goes well with rich or spicy meats.

The Gentil was bottled July 2008, and is a beautiful gold color. It's developed a very fruity character that can hold up surprisingly well with all sorts of food.

The Grenache is one of my favourites, bottled November 2007. It's good to drink just by itself, or with lighter foods, such as organic range fed chicken marinated in a specialty Linda sauce and then BBQed.

The Tempranillo is from Spanish grapes grown in Australia, bottled June 2009. Good with everything, and I'm starting to run low, more's the pity.

We had a wonderful little stay-cation. Linda is still off. I have to go in for the next 3 days, mainly because I need to have some stuff ready for early January. I don't anticipate working full days. Go in, move some stuff forward, consult with some of the stakeholders, and bail out. The stakeholders are all going to be in, hoping the migration goes well.

I ran this morning, only a half hour till my hip flexors started complaining a bit. I was really working on running from my core, and trying to be light on my feet. Everything feels good. During the really good stretch session afterwards, I was playing with my left toes. What used to hurt when I tried to curl them under doesn't hurt nearly as much. I think the break from running did some good.

The whine comes from visiting the mall today. I needed new pants. Just to piss Susi off, it took less than 20 minutes to figure out what size I needed for two different styles of pants (business casual black pants, and jeans), try on about 4 different pants before I got it right for each, stand in line, pay, and get out.

Just lately I think my biggest complaint about people is that they walk so darn slow! Seriously. I'm not whining about people with kids, or about geezers that can't move any faster. They have their own problems and walking slow is the least of them. Or the physically handicapped. I'll cut them all the slack they need and more besides.

I'm whining about adults all slack-jawed with the intellectual effort of deciding where to go next. Or so it appears. It makes me nuts when people shamble along like half slaughtered sheep, not knowing where they are going, or why, or what they will do if they ever get there. They plod along in bucolic herds, getting in the way of those of us that have some place to be.

Every now and then someone ahead of me, but behind the herd (I'm not talking about The Herd) will pull out and try to pass, just as I'm about to. Typically they don't signal their intention, and several of them have nearly been trampled. Or they'll decide to go somewhere else at random, just to mess up those of us who like orderly traffic patterns.

What don't these people understand about walk right? If you must gawk, then pull over and find a safe place to do so. In a mall there's lots of these chairs put out for the geezers. That's as good a place as any.  But to stop in the middle of the mall where people are walking is a declaration of stupidity. Pity there isn't a bounty on them. And really, what in a mall is there to gawk at? Either you know where you're going, so go there. Or you stop, and look at a map so you know where to go. There is no in between.

I have less problems with oncoming people. My path is easy to project because it's a straight line, and I'm looking in that direction. I'm on the right. Self preservation usually has people swerving though sometimes at the last minute. The lobby doorway at Banker's Hall is so badly designed. Sigh.

But it turns out that the problem often arises even before the walking. I really don't like going places with a group. Even something as simple as a group of people in a small block of offices going to lunch is all too often a gong show. Someone doesn't know where it is. Someone forgot their coat, or has one more email to send. Someone can't or won't walk fast. One woman I used to work with didn't seem to grasp what an open elevator door meant. How hard can it be? Jacket. (Scarf, hat, mitts, boots if necessary.) Go. Stop when there. This isn't even talking about deciding where to go.

Add in bikes, or running shoes, or other workout gear, to say nothing of weather, and the problems are compounded. That's why I like to do my workouts alone. I can go when I'm ready. Sometimes that's NOW. Sometimes it's waiting a bit to see if it warms up, or to see just what that dark cloud is going to do. Or waiting for the poop fairy. Adding in some high maintenance triathlete fussing about drink bottles, or going on about pace, or the workout plan, or someone that can't decide what to wear ruins all the fun.

Oddly enough, I think of myself as a patient person. When I need to wait, I can do so, and even better if I have a book, or my iGadgets. But when it involves people trying to think about that next footstep and the smoke from the grinding gears is getting in my eyes, I'm not so patient. Maybe I should work on that this year. Perhaps a short range tranquilizer dart gun is the thing. It would be so much easier to step over recumbent bodies, than to try to dodge around erratically moving ones.