It has definitely been a wonderful spring so far this year in Seattle. Last weekend we got up to 80 degrees and here it is sunny again. The lilacs are in bloom.

I went out for a run. The first run in a couple of weeks and I did fine. I think I’ve built up some good conditioning from doing the stairs. They are the best. I love running on sunny cool days. I used my Rio digital music player and just cruised along. The smells were so interesting. First off someone in my neighborhood was cooking a great smelling dish of beef. It reminded me of weekends when I was a kid and Mom would cook a pot roast. It has been ages since I’ve cooked anything like that. G is vegetarian so our meals are mostly fish or veggie based. But I still love good meat. I got so hungry.

Being sunny, everyone was out mowing their lawns. The scent of fresh cut grass waffed in and out as I made my way through the blocks. Occasionally there was a wiff of smoke from a fireplace or the perfumey aroma of a spring flower. I can smell the lilacs now from our deck.

Thursday we had the Amarone tasting. It was great. We had a large turnout at 16 and I was worried at first that the bottles wouldn’t be able to serve everyone. I sent out a note before that these were big wines and to drink small. A few people didn’t show up also until an hour after we started but everyone was very cool and paced themselves.

Everything was great. There were one or two that did stand out and I’ll write more about it later. One member’s brother who is a wine maker also came and he brought out several of his wines at the end. The old vines Zinfindel was yummy.

The only bad thing of the night was I locked my keys in the trunk of the car. I threw my purse in thinking it would be one less item to remember at the end of the night, shut the trunk and immediately realized what the heck I had done. I called G to come open it. He was working late in the greenhouse so when we talked, I suggested that he come get me towards the end. It worked out fine. There was even a little bit of wine left for him to taste.