Life At Villa Boswell

My husband and I spent this past weekend in Mendocino County, enjoying wine country and a visit with friends in our first “get away” in 2 years since starting the house.  Too bad the memory had to be spoiled like this.

This evening (Monday after), a Mendocino county sheriff contacted my husband Chris and accused us of leaving a restaurant in Mendocino county that same weekend without paying.  In a town called Gualala, where we did not stop, at a restaurant The St. Orres, where we did not eat.  The sheriff told us we must pay the $110 bill or face “arrest” and “criminal charges.”  He did not regard our comments to the contrary as worth listening to, and instead cited that he had a “verified license” and an “eye witness” account against us.  And he kept repeating statements to the effect that we looked very guilty, indeed.

It turned out that the sheriff got the facts wrong, and made incorrect assumptions about the report without checking. The manager of the restaurant–who contacted the sheriff–spotted Chris at a gas station 50 miles north the following day, thought he “looked like the guy,” wrote down the license plate number of our van, and then made a phone call to the sheriff saying that we had done this thing. When Chris asked if his car looked the same as that of the people who didn’t pay, the manager stated that he didn’t see the car of those people.

Of course, we only learned this after Chris called the manager and asked him “How did you come by this information?”  Interesting that we didn’t learn this from the sheriff. The manager also told Chris that he never even saw me at the gas station.  Also interesting that the sheriff told me that the manager identified both of us as “the couple” from our driver’s license photos. The officer assumed that the manager got our license plate # at the restaurant instead of a day later at a town 50 miles north.  The officer also knew that the reservation was made by a woman named “Kim,” yet he didn’t think that was odd, nor did he think it noteworthy that a manager, and not a wait person, was the one to identify the people skipping out.

The sheriff assumed right from the start that we were guilty. He kept saying “eye witness identification.”  The whole thing was very upsetting and was framed immediately by the deputy as “warrant for your arrest” and “criminal charges.”  Even though no official report had yet been filled out.  Of course we know about the reliability of eye witness ID.

It was pure luck that we got out of this because we happened to have a credit card charge for the same day/hour in a town 50 miles north that we could prove.  It was at a hotel that we decided on a total lark to stay in.  Otherwise, we’d be dealing with this for the next few days and be wrongfully accused, or more likely, out the price of someone else’s dinner.

My advice to you?  Make sure you wear mis-matched clothing wherever you go (that way people will remember you), take pictures of people who see you (with time stamps), and geo-track your every step, because you never know when you might narrowly miss arrest, or have to pay $110 to get off the hook.

It’s a rainy late afternoon in Half Moon Bay, so after driving around the neighborhood getting some cool shots of Pittosporum in the rain (more on that later), I decided to open up one of my recent wine purchases, PromisQous. It’s what I’d call “modestly priced,” which means about $10. Lately we are into “cheap” red wines, which means $5-$6 due to the fact we have a mortgage. Just so you know my metrics, here. This evening, we are bumping up to “modest” from our customary red.

Verdict? I recommend it. I think “Red table wine” or the snootier term “Meritage” is one of the best types of red wine to take a chance on, because then you get to taste the expertise of the vintner, in lieu of the varietal’s quality/harvest. This particular blend is comprised of Zinfandel, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Petit Syrah. The reviewers on Snooth give it some keywords I’d agree with: particularly jammy, which I love in a red.

Chris says he’d call it jammy only if it were a little sweeter; instead he’d says “it’s got rich fruitiness and berry flavor.” Drink it with heartier fare, and to pair with cheese, something strong and nutty like an aged gouda. Enjoy!

I was raised a Catholic, but now I have a new religion!  Check it out!

Someone recently forwarded to me a "Conservative Rant" email. You can read it for yourself below the fold. One of these kinds of emails is too many for me, and I just don’t get it.

1. Why people who know my philosophical perspective send me unsolicited, tasteless rants about views I don’t hold? I don’t do this to them.  In fact, I think rants of any kind are pretty much a total waste of time. This is their subtext: "I will email you my opinions, enforced–not by research–but by shouting and exclamation points.  You can then shout back at me and we can both get really upset and not have any meaningful exchange of real information." I appreciate well-written articles supported by more than someone’s opinion, and, in any case, I send neither rants nor articles espousing a particular point of view to people whose views are not aligned with that view.  Unless I’m invited to.
2. Why do these people then get mad at me when I reply in a calm, non-shouting way, rationally explaining my perspective on the situation and backing it up with references?  Did they not open the discussion in the first place by sending me an email?  Is there some law out there that says that, when I receive an unsolicited conservative rant that I’m not supposed to reply?
3. Why do these people also want to CC me openly along with 23 other people, most of whom I don’t know, and most whom then get my email address, that then gets forwarded on to all their conservative buddies with their hotmail accounts?
4. Why is there an inverse relation to those people who forward emails and those people who actually write emails of their own?  Ya think?

Etiquette Tip: If you are interested in my reply to a topic, then email it to me.  Otherwise, leave me off your list.  If you openly cc me with 30 other people, I will correctly assume that this is an open conversation, because that’s how email etiquette works, and will reply to all.  If you don’t like that, then learn to use BCC, or again, leave me off your list.  I don’t feel connected to you by jokes, or by rants, or by little cartoon characters praying to angels that I must to pass on to 30 people in 2 minutes or else I won’t have good things happen to me. I feel connected to you when you email me even 2 sentences about how you are doing, and when you express interest in how I am doing. 

Here was my reply to this email:

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This is what allows us to have the freedom to either worship as we choose, or to not worship at all.  In this way, you cannot be forced to worship or espouse a belief that you do not hold.  This is is not something I "believe" in either; it’s a fact of our great democracy, something that makes our democracy function and is a cornerstone of that freedom we Americans all value. 

" I pledge allegiance to the flag of the corporate states of America… and to the Republicans for which it stands; one nation, under debt, easily divisible, with liberty and justice for oil."

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