teresa

One of our best recent experiences was a trip to HangarOne in Alameda, a vodka producer and distributor that has a tasting room at the front of their old army base warehouse.  It was a SWE (Society of Women Engineers) event although we let the men in our lives who so enjoy joking about SME attend.

They have a flight of small shots similar to wine tasting although the menu instead includes mostly vodka with some brandy and whiskey to mix it up.  I didn’t know what to expect other than to bring food because they don’t serve any and it works out to be a few shots so it is not an insignificant amount of alcohol for a Wednesday night, at least for us married types.

We had a tasting tour guide who shared facts about the distilling process and tasting tips.  Our favorite factoids included that the making of the pear vodka, for one bottle, required 15 pounds of pears, and also that breathing out after your sip helps with the experience – boy is that true.  There is something that happens when the alcohol mixes with oxygen which is why we were informed not to swirl the glasses like you would wine tasting.  He also said the reason why your throat burns when you shoot vodka is because the oxygen mixing, so he said sip and exhale…  For me what happened on the flavored vodkas is with the exhale the flavors filled my mouth with a fresh exhilaration.  There was a floral flavored vodka that made you feel like you were exhaling a garden for the short moment of breathing out.  We had a lot of fun, we will definitely take other people back there when we have visitors.

We then went to Reno for the annual shareholders meeting for work and I had a board meeting the next day.  It was a quick trip as I had to be back Saturday morning so it felt a bit rushed, just Thursday and Friday, and unfortunately that we had little to no time for family and friends.

Saturday, yesterday, I spent all day with ULI and Rebuilding Together helping to repair a school, a wonderful little and unfortunately dilapidated school, in San Francisco.  I had a wonderful day.  I haven’t spent enough time lately giving back.  Two of the contractors we work with helped with the project as well so I felt like I was really able to contribute.  I worked mostly on a new storage area in the back for the teacher to store her materials and new guardrail and handrail at an entrance with a stair that was built out of now rotting wood.  The rest of the group made a variety of other wonderful improvements including cleaning up the second entrance with new pavers and a new door.  New lighting.  All new paint.  ULI secured a huge group of volunteers and it was a mad house, just go go go all day.  Then we went to happy hour to celebrate our good deed.  I enjoyed a couple of ambers and mostly had some laughs with one of the contractors we work a lot with.    One of those guys reminds me of John so much its silly.  He has such a similar personality to John with the same sense of humor of himself and also of others.  And he has the same laugh as John, the one that is higher pitched with a pinch of sarcasm and mischief.

So a great week overall.  Then today Elliott and I went out to breakfast and then sat around all day, did laundry, and watch tv.  It was glorious, and we needed it.  Although don’t feel too envious because we did get back on our schedule after a missing a few running dates last week and ran 6 miles.  So we got our sweat equity in.  Now we are relaxing before bed.  Elliott is reading a sci-fi novel in an effort to seed his creative side and I am going to read a better homes and gardens magazine, that I can’t seem to get them to stop sending (my effort to be more green), in search of recipes.  So, the Goodwin’s are good.