All this great wine and nowhere to drink it.

Lindsey's folks live on this foresty hill just above a huge expanse of pinot noir vineyards. It's in the Willamette Valley, one of the primer places in the world for that varital, and you can just go to all these small vineyards and they'll taste you on their wine, let you walk around the place, and buy their booze on the cheap. Last summer we did just that, and came home with some really great wine, but Lindsey's mom decided she had to come along with us, and she had a dead cow fetus when we bought and tasted wine. It was by her looks that I knew I'd be in hell for sure. So this time, although we've had plenty of time to hit it, we have bowed to the pressure of the in-laws. The closest I've come to tasting good Oregon wine is fingering a wine magazine in the grocer the other day while Penny decided to get tomato sauce instead of enchiladas sauce for our spinach enchiladas Lindsey and I made that night. (She thought the proper sauce would be too spicy, eventhough they only stocked the mild one.) That night we also made "salsa" for the dinner, but as I'm pulling out the chilies she stops me to say that they don't put chilies in their salsa. But she doesn't say, "hey, do you mind not putting any peppers in there?" She looks awkwardly, half-smiling, half-wincing, and says, "oh, you're not going to put those in the salsa, are you?" All I could do is stuff the whole anaheim in my mouth, eat it, and shake my head at her. When I was done with it, the "salsa" had tomato, red onion, and cilantro. I put it in the fridge and took a little walk while the enchiladas were baking to cool my head. I came back to Penny pouring V8 into the "salsa". She's like a ambitious mobster; gotta have a finger in everyone's pie.
Matt, here's the promised rip-off pube-beard. Lindsey thought it was pretty lame that I was taking a picture of myself--like it was for a myspace account or something.
I'm making a wallet for myself out of an old tablecloth Penny had in the laundry room. It's the sort of cloth that's gaudy and thick, just like one you'd expect to see in the home of my mom, i.e. lots of flowers and gold/champagne color scheme. Should be a pretty good one while it lasts, but it ain't Louis Vuitton or anything.