The highlight of the day was visiting two of our favorite wineries to pick up the current releases. We started at Silver Mountain, where we picked up the 2015 and 2016 Sonnet Pinot Noir Black Ridge Vineyard as part of our shipment, and also took advantage of the trio special to acquire more Alloy, Spencer’s Choice, and Syrah.

After that, we went to Burrell School and picked up a Chardonnay, a Cabernet Sauvignon, and their top wine, Valedictorian.

We could have picked up our release at Silvertip, too, but they were still being extra-cautious due to Covid and were doing a no-contact pickup with no tasting; I decided it was the better part of valor to let FedEx deliver the wine later this week.

After we got home, we took a twilight walk and enjoyed the sunset.

Not a bad way to spend a Saturday, not at all!

We went to Costco today – I had a prescription to fill, and it was by far the cheapest place to do it. While I waited for them to confirm the price, of course we shopped; one of the things we were looking for was induction-compatible cookware, especially saucepans.

None of the cookware on the shelves was induction-compatible, but Hexclad was in the warehouse for a “special event.” Their cookware was clearly labeled as induction-compatible and non-stick, so we let the demonstrator show it to us. It looked good – he cooked an omelet with just a little oil and showed us how he could use a metal spatula without harm. But he didn’t have any saucepans (he’d sold out), and we didn’t really need any more skillets. So we left empty-handed, but with a link to their website to find out more.

Unsurprisingly, the website made the cookware look even better than the demonstrator did. But I did a little more research and found a Hexclad review from The Rational Kitchen. I’d run into The Rational Kitchen when we were deciding on a cooktop (which isn’t here yet!) and I liked the way they went into detail and explained things; they did the same thing here.

One of their observations was that you (we) probably don’t need non-stick saucepans. Considering we mostly make rice and pasta in ours, that’s probably true – and that means Hexclad isn’t a great fit for our needs, so I’m glad they didn’t have it in the warehouse today!

It was a typical Thursday, starting with Toastmasters and ending with our Trivial Zoom call.

That was about the extent of the excitement today – yes, we went shopping, and yes, I was able to do seat selection for our Portugal trip next year, but that’s pretty much it.

Oh, wait – the furnace turned on this morning for the first time this season – I knew there was something unusual about today!

Jet lag may have worked in our favor this morning – we had a training session at the JCC at 7:30am, but it was easy to get up early enough to make it! Being in bed by 10pm last night might have helped, too.

We think we booked our flights for our Douro River cruise next year – we’re booking the air through the cruise line, which means that there’s a lag between their offering us an itinerary and our being able to accept it. Normally, that’s not a problem, but lots of people seem to be planning travel – twice, we found out that the fare they were offering had sold out by the time we accepted it. The third time seems to have been the charm, though; the credit card got charged. Our Travel Agent is in Europe, so it’ll be tomorrow before we get the final confirmation from him, but it looks promising.

And Subaru sent me a “not a recall” notice today. Apparently, there’s a problem that can keep you from being able to remove the key from the lock in certain rare circumstances; they’ll fix it for free for eight years after buying the car. All well and good. Except that my car has keyless ignition, so there’s no chance of having the key stuck in the lock; it never leaves my pocket. The notice had the correct VIN for my car; you’d think their system would know that there isn’t a key to get stuck, right?

We flew home on United; it was the first time I’d flown them in quite a while (even pre-pandemic). We were in First Class, so we were in Boarding Group 1. I was amused that there were five “pre-boarding” groups called before Group 1! United has only recently started serving hot meals in domestic First Class; they had the same choices on both legs, a chicken breast meal or an vegetarian ragu. We tried one on each leg; I slightly preferred the chicken, but they were both acceptable.

The flights were unremarkable, uneventful, and arrived early. I even got a view of Mono Lake.

All in all, a good day, though it doesn’t make for a very interesting blog entry!