badstar

Only one thing bummed me out last night, and it was pretty minor in the big picture:

While doing the invocation to Dionysus, some of the Shiraz I was offering splattered onto my shirt. I love this shirt, it's a while long-sleeved tshirt that I just bought a few weeks ago, made of ridiculously soft, very fine-spun cotton. It's thin enough that you can see my tattoos through it fairly clearly, which makes it wearable on its own even in warmer weather, and would be perfect as a layer in colder weather. Did I mention, I love this shirt? They had the same in a few other colors including black, a gorgeous shade of green, and a very slightly greyish blue-violet. I really wanted one in the blue-violet color but they only had small, medium and like...tent-sized and it's not a style of shirt that looks good if you wear it too big, but they had the green in my size, so I got that. Unfortunately when I went to wear it for the first time, I noticed a hole in it that I had missed when I tried it on at the store, when I went back to exchange it, they were out of my size, except for white. Very tempted to go back and get one or two more white ones though. I love long-sleeved tshirts, and I'm still kicking myself for not getting more of the ones like the black tshirt that I practically lived in last winter. Which reminds me, I gotta find that, it's starting to get cooler out...

So anyway, red wine splatters on white shirt, and I wasn't able to leave to try to clean it off. Kept thinking about the Doc Bronner's castille soap and the disappearing act that it did at the old place of freshly-spilled blackberry-cabernet wine sorbet on white carpet (for anyone who missed it, but cares, Doc Bronner soap on a stain like that immediately after spilling with a whole bunch of water=stain does a complete Houdini. I mean, not even a faint pink hint. Doc Bronner's Soap for President!) Wished I had some on me. I think next time I stop by Grandma's Candles, I'm going to nab one of the little tiny bottles of the stuff so I can keep it in my backpack for such emergencies. Red wine, mosquito bites...can it organize my sock drawer too?

Post ritual, I changed into a tank top that I had in my backpack and then forgot about it until today when I was frantically digging though my backpack in search of something I thought I lost. Once said item was recovered, I pulled out the shirt and decided that giving the Doc a shot couldn't hurt. I already decided last night that if I didn't get the stain out, I would find some cheap red wine, soak the shirt in it to dye it that color and call it my Dionysus shirt. then definitely go and pick up another white one and never so much as let it in the same room as red wine.

So I throw some soap on it and notice a curious thing...the purplish stains turned green after a few seconds. Interesting chemical reaction going on I guess.

Anyway, I scrubbed lightly at it with my fingernails for a few minutes and by the time I decided to rinse, the splatter spots were a very light green- barely noticeable when the shirt is soaked so they'll be almost nonexistent when it dries. I'll give it another shot with the soap later, but right now, I'm thinking worst case scenario, I toss a load of white clothing in the laundry with some bleach, and there's a good chance that those barely-existent green spots are no longer.

Other than that, last night was a really great night. For some reason unknown to me, the Autumn Equinox ritual has been one of the best nights of the year for me, every year since 2005. This was no different. Between the ritual and having a really good night afterwards, I is happy camper.

More on last night later, I need to go eat something.

I've decided that I definitley like cabernet sauvignon considerably more than shiraz.

And the current sauvignon blanc that I have is better even than the New Haven of which I can find no more.

I should get a wine book. Recommendations?

Oh, and I like uncorking a bottle with an artificial cork than the ones with real cork.

However, it's a lot easier to put the real cork back than the artificial.

I have NO clue if this is widely available, but for those on my friends list who worship Hekate, you might find this interesting, it's a Passito wine called Hekate.

http://www.gruppomezzacorona.it/prodotti_usa/schede_pdf_eng/Fa_Hekate_inglese.pdf

(As you can see it's a PDF. It just includes some basic info about the wine. It's kinda slow to load- it took nearly a minute and I'm on a dedicated t1 line with only one other person on the connection.)

Nevermind...here it is in HTML

http://www.gruppomezzacorona.it/prodotti_usa/schede/fa_hekate.htm

Looks like it's available here, it's a store in New York state but they can't ship to many states:

http://www.blacktiewines.net/

My sister is an idiot.

Seriously, do you have any idea how many headaches could have been avoided?

She told me that the dress matched her kitchen wall.

It doesn't. It's pink. Freakin' pale pink. I have a shirt in the same shade. Why on earth didn't she just say this?

But anyway, The dress is ok. We went shoe shopping. I got the first pair of shoes I looked at. I'm happy that Chelle didn't really care what shoes I got because they're technically sneakers...

The dress is floor-length, so they won't be seen, and I'd wear these again. And they were on sale for less than $20. And they're comfortable.

One thing did happen yesterday when we got up here...we went to Chelle's house, and at one point, I was standing with my back to her, she suddenly screeches "Holy shit!" loud enough to wake the dead in Zimbabwe.

Somehow "You know I have a tattoo across my shoulders and down my back." translated in her mind to "I'm going to be getting a tattoo sometime after the wedding."

Um...if I was doing it after the wedding, why would I have even bothered to discuss it with her?

So my mom's all "Couldn't you have waited until after the wedding?" And my response was "Hey, we discussed it, she said she didn't care."

And Chelle's was "Werll, you can't really remove it." Though I know that she was contemplating how she might devise a way to talk me into wearing makeup to cover it up.

And I just said "Oh well, it's there. People are gonna see it." And she said "Well, it'll give them somethign to talk about."

If all people can talk about at this wedding is my tattoo, there's something wrong.

Okay, while I'm still here, before I go over to York, I'm going to run down to the Red Rose Tasting Room and grab a bottle of wine.

Oh, My, God. I will NEVER have a beagle.