ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

After three days of hard-cold travel/work/tradeshows, you wouldn't think that I'd hop in a car the next day to get out of dodge, but that's exactly what John and I did. We hit the road and headed North to Napa, where according to Carrie on "Sex and the City", "you take a Napa, you don't move to Napa". And that's exactly what I did.

I was struck by a bout of Acacia-tree-itis (allergies) and was pretty doped up from Ceterizine to Sudaphed (which I had to sign a legal document stating that I wasn't going to make Meth). How could I even thing about manufacturing Meth when my nose was so stuffed up, my head was throbbing, and tears were streaming down my face faster than when I first watched "Brian's Song". Anyway, we got to our room at the lovely and new Avia hotel (after a very quick trip to the outlet mall) and I hit the bed - and hit it hard. I'd stir, moan in pleasure at how comfortable the bed was and then drop back to sleep. I think I slept for three hours until I had to force myself out of bed because we had reservations at 8:30 at the Martini House in St. Helena (a Kuletto restaurant).

Martini House has been highly rated (SF Chron, Yelp, etc) so we were excited to go. We both ordered the Chef's Winter Tasting Menu which included a terrine of fois gras, then a lobster tail on a bed of celery root puree, then a dish of duck confit with roasted carrots and potato gratin. Each and every dish was spectacular - the presentation, the flavors. Then I had a hazelnut pot du creme and John had a chocolate bread pudding. We waddled out in a near food coma.

Then we slept. and slept. and slept. I may (I think) have actually caught up on my sleep, although I just requested an extended check out. I still can't get out of this bed.