lummi island wine tasting march 5 ’22
Wine Tasting is Back!
Based on today’s updated Covid data for Whatcom County, over the past two months the surge of the Omicron variant of Covid 19 has rolled over the country, taken a huge toll, and is declining rapidly. As the chart shows, new cases across all age groups have converged to very low levels for all age groups and County subregions. The remaining exceptions are the unvaccinated, who still remain at risk of serious illness for themselves and their contacts. So it goes, as Kurt Vonnegut was fond of observing.
Based on these rapid declines in cases and the rapidly declining restrictions in our region, we will be open for wine tasting and sales starting THIS Saturday, March 5, from 4-6 pm. Anyone with boosted vaccine status is welcome.
It has been a Long Haul, and we look forward to seeing you!
Friday Bread This Week
Weekly bread pickup will continue to be at Island Bakery for the rest of this month, with some expectation that it will return to the covered area in front of the wine shop at some point after that. If you are on the bread email list, you will have received order and pickup info from Janice. Pickup is in her driveway out on West Shore Rd from 4-5:30, with a fire pit to keep the Usual Suspects (and their dogs) comfy for a bit.
Current expectations are that bread pickup will likely return to the wine shop in some fashion sometime in April.
To get on the bread list, click on the “contact us” link above and fill out the form. Bread menu is sent to the list on Sundays. If you will be visiting the island and would like to order bread for your visit, at least a week’s notice is recommended for pickup the following Friday.
Mailing List Issues: The Continuing Saga
Again last week the new blog subscriber mail-out system sort of worked, but again with a full day’s delay. The app has no email address, no help desk, and no contact phone, so still in the dark about how to manage when it sends.
For the time being, last week it worked pretty well to email the link to our subscribers when we post. Then some time later the auto-mail feature might be in the mood to send the “official” version, depending on, you know, what’s going on on their planet/
This Week’s $5 Tasting
Thurston Wolfe Old Vine Chenin Blanc ’20 Washington $18
From vines planted in 1981 in Horse Heaven Hills; delivers aromas of ripe kiwi with rich sensations of honey and pear…nice!
Can Blau Can Blau ’18 Spain $16
Long an Artisan favorite; consistently showing aromas and flavors of ripe dark fruits and berries, a seamless texture, and long, silky finish that improves with aeration.
Townshend Cellars T3 Red Washington $18
Bordeaux style blend of cab, merlot and cab franc; fruit forward with hints of black currant and vanilla, with layers of complexity and depth through extensive oak aging in French and American barrels.
The Economics of the Heart: Time Bandits
Time Bandits was a very funny movie from the early 80’s, the typical sort of nonsense that Monty Python created. This clip is one of the most memorable takes from the film. By this point in the film everyone knew very well that the boy’s parents were complete idiots, so Of Course when the mysterious smoking object appeared in their midst, every audience knew immediately when the kid said, “Mom! Dad! Don’t touch it, it’s EVIL!…” that they Would touch it and it would NOT be Pretty.
It is with that same inevitability that we all now see, moment to moment, day by day, the countless ways we have been enslaved by the Corporate State’s Dystopian disdain for and devaluing of Our Precious Time. This ongoing appropriation by business of what used to be individual rights is the direct and intended result of fifty-some years of Business School Dogma that the fastest way to riches is to Appropriate everything historically in the public sector and sell it back at a profit to the people who used to own it collectively. These include clean air and water, home antenna (pre-cable) TV, quiet surroundings, and most of all for today’s rant…OUR TIME!
#1. Don’t know about you, but these days about 80% of our daily phone calls are from numbers that are currently inactive and therefore untraceable, from robot programs that link any real human voice to a sales pitch for the latest scam product or service; and from questionable requests for donations for a charity you have never heard of.
#2. Back in the 1950’s my mother was a switchboard operator at an answering service. When a client office was closed, calls were forwarded to her switchboard, and she would take a message to be delivered when the office opened next. Nowadays, what we get when we call most businesses, even when they are open, is a lengthy menu of options, each of which leads to more options, and none of which gets you any information you actually need until you start screaming “Representative! Representative! Representative!…PLEASE I MUST talk to a Real Human Being…Aaaarrrrggghhh!”
Or, as more eloquently phrased by old-time sci-fi writer Harlan Ellison, “I have no mouth, and I Must Scream!” In the past week I have spent many hours a day trying to solve a problem with the wine shop’s credit card processing system, being passed, with lengthy delays, among representatives across the world who could handle one piece of the puzzle and hand me off to another long wait, etc., and never getting the basic problem solved.
#3. Several months ago I went through the same thing with Century Link regarding our phone service, which kept getting more and more expensive. One would think that, of course, the fracking Telephone Company would have figured out a long time ago the best way to do customer service over the phone, and they did…real people sitting at switchboards. But the most Profitable way is minimize wage expenses by replacing people with electronic mechanisms that discourage most, connect some few with useful assistance, while reducing the most vulnerable few to whimpering puddles of despair.
4. Btw, a few months ago we cancelled Century Link, and moved our phone online to a local server we’ve been with for 30 years. The good news is we can always get a real person on the phone who will hang out with us till the problem is solved. The bad news is that online phone service creates conflicts with our now-online credit card machine, and that’s a whole ‘nother story.
Hopefully this little rant has been a distraction from the Real problems facing our world at the moment. We close by placing our palms together to bow and add our hearts to a global prayer for the well-being of the people of Ukraine.
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2072 Granger Way