Last year I made myself a promise on the drive home from our annual trip to San Francisco. It was 8 am on a Sunday morning in 2007. I was pregnant and piloting our family home, having already had breakfast, packed up and checked out of our hotel. I was irritable, bloated and couldn't quite put my finger on what else was bugging me until I realized my problem. I wasn't hungover. Nope, my clear head and steady hands assured me I did not taste through the hundreds of Zinfandels at the all day wine tasting event, I had skipped out on cocktail hour, and had returned to my hotel room after dinner in time for story hour and bedtime with Shelby. Right then and there I told myself that this time next year I'd be laying in my hotel room, still clothed in my dinner attire, entertaining the notion of breakfast while forcing down a few Advil for my pounding headache. I vowed to be hungover. Well, I'm a woman of my word. And this weekend I lived up to my promise to uphold the 10 year tradition John and I share of heading up to Fort Mason on the SF bay and tasting through hundreds of zins, indulging in cocktail hour before heading out to a decadent meal followed by bar hopping, crowded taxi cabs and lots of wild dancing. Each year varies ever so slightly, of course, and this year was no exception. The usual day of wine tasting, followed by obligatory cocktail hour, then an evening drive through Union Square on the top of a double-decker bus in true Austen Powers style, above-mentioned meal, a seedy bar, an even more questionable bar, dancing, pizza. Cut to Scene 2, The Morning After. And here I am, hunched over in the passenger seat, wishing away my headache, gripping a Gatorade and wondering how long my children will remain silent on the drive home. Here's to tradition!
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