I got her what she wanted for Christmas, too, lottery scratch tickets. Well, what she really wanted was WINNING scratch lottery tickets, but that’s kind of hard to guarantee. I don’t know what I did the rest of the day. It took all day, whatever it was.

So I went to my friend Kim’s house and her husband Raffaele makes great pasta. Kim and I always lead each other onto misadventures involving too much drinking but I think I was OK this time. I brought two bottles of wine from Bishop Creek and two half-cases of beer and ended up bringing all the beer home with me. And this time the beer was still in the bottles. Lots off different kinds of grappa with dessert including lemon and milk grappas which I don’t thing are sold in this country.

And of course the company was great. I missed watching “The Incredibles” with Kim’s niece (the daughter of a high school friend, proving Portland is too small once again) but that’s OK.