odds and ends

You guys know my life is (blessedly) boring, right? So you don't expect great things when you come here, right?
Right. Okay, good, because today's post is more of the same...

I didn't like wine until I went to Germany. There, a friend taught me that there are no people who don't like wine; there are merely people who haven't found the right wine. It sounds like a deeper thought than it actually is... He had me try some of the Rhine and Mosel river-region whites, and, oh my! Are they tasty. All the Riesling strains originated there, I believe.
A couple of months ago, we were headed to someone's house for some gathering or other, and I grabbed a couple bottles of wine at Giant. While I was at it, I saw a German white from that region and got it for myself. We cracked it open night before last. Yummy stuff! Matt's more a heavy red fan (Merlot, etc., though he doesn't like to admit that since he saw 'Sideways'), but he also thought the white was tasty. I said, "German whites! I love 'em." He said, "Goody! I'm a German white." (groan)

Matt bought Lizzy a large (LARGE) crayon piggy bank just about the time she was born. It might give you some insight into our priorities to know that the spare change he dumps into it is designated for a future Disneyland trip, not her college savings or a car when she's 16 or anything like that. (we have another account for the college savings, actually. Providing she gets her degree in four years at a public school, she might be okay.) So, Disneyland. ... Matt was trying to interest her in helping him dump in some change this morning. She was having a very decided "wrong side of the bed "morning today. Crying about nothing. You parents know what I'm talking about.

So Matt says, "Lizzy! Do you know what we're saving money for?"
*sniff, sob* "What?"
"DISNEYLAND! -- Do you know who lives at Disneyland?"
*whimper* "Who?"
"The princesses! And Pooh and Tigger and Roo and Lumpy! And (fill in blank, etc., etc.)"
"Oh!" she says, brightening up considerably. "Well, I want to go there today!" She then dissolved into tears when we told her that we couldn't.

Matt tried to help her stop crying by saying we have to go there on a plane, and no planes were going there today. I'm totally comfortable with the lie, but I was

trying to silently entreat him to take another tack, because Lizzy and I are getting on a plane for Portland (Ore.) in two weeks to see my family, and I don't want her spending the first jetlagged day in hysterics because no Princesses are out and about. Portland holds many forms of appeal, but no princesses. Unless you count Rose Princesses, and even they are out of season.