leafing through

There’s no vacation spot quite like visiting my sis and b-i-l that gives me homey relaxation. Sleeping in hotels and using hotel bathrooms is fine, but seems to keep me at a constant level of squicked out. I still have a good time but it’s not complete rest. Last night we were all pretty tired from wine tasting so we all decided to have an unplanned day at home.

We played with Fluff and Hellspawn, napped, walked next door, played with the neighborhood cats, then settled into some board games. First it was Carcasonne. The only way to describe it is, conceptually, it’s a lot like Scrabble. But instead of 7 at a time, you draw 1 at a time and instead of words, you are building a map while trying to block others. The next game we played was Settlers of Catan. We had never played this game before and I always thought it would be difficult because of all the pieces. After we started though, it was really not hard and was very fun. Even though you roll die, it’s one of those games that’s more strategy, skill than chance. We played one game of each then decided to eat in, ordering food from Gregoire, a French takeout. When we were waiting to pick it up, I watched the chef cooking up a storm. She was speedy. And the food certainly did not taste like typical takeout. It was very delicious. I got a half of a chicken and it was cooked perfectly. Juicy, flavorful and the skin was spiced well. For dessert we had macarons from Bouchon bakery and a bottle of red wine from the V. Sattui winery. Basically, every trip here is marked with nonstop decadence. I can almost feel my big toe swelling with every sip and bite. We played another round with each of the board games then packed up our things. I was a bit worried we wouldn’t be able to pack up all the wine we wanted but we were able to take home 6 out of the 7 bottles.