friday night my dad and his girlfriend invited me and shane to a winemakers dinner. hosted by le cuvier, it was held at inn paradiso.
inn paradiso is perfectly named and really ought to be my house. it is my dream house. situated in the paso robles hills, you drive only a few blocks off of niblick (a main road) and you find yourself far from any type of civilization. it is a fairytale place. the building is amazing (there are actually two main buildings: one is the home of the innkeeper and the other is the bed and breakfast). rochelle has an amazing design eye and bold taste. she perfectly blended the heavy-wood of the house with bright colors and eclectic touches. i loved it. inside the main house are open-beams from salvaged train trestles from a 19th century portland railroad. there are southwestern balconies that look over the great room. the dining room is a great shade of orange can seat 30 quite comfortably. and the suites are little nooks of comfortable, calm coziness you'd never want to leave.
the paso countryside is steinbeckian (though not an official locale of the salinas valley "steibeck country"). it's a countryside i love. rolling golden hills dappled with oak tree beauty marks. light breeze. magpies and scrub jays and hawks and cayote and rabbits. and real cowboys once or twice removed caught somewhere between their shitkicking roots and the pull of the vineyards they now corral.
inn paradiso is my new dream life.
saturday was my mom's birthday and we mosied on down to santa barbara for a little shopping, a little dinner, and then a little concert in the sings like hell series. the laurie lewis trio headlined and after the disappointing lucinda concert from a couple of weeks ago, laurie cleansed our music palette. she was awesome! her bandmates were great too. laurie lewis is steeped in bluegrass, but the trio went well beyond what you might be thinking.
she is my new hero. my goal is to learn a couple carter family songs.
before the show we hit anthropologie and the sojourner for dinner. it has now been proven and awarded that i am the queen and all-knowing ruler of the anthropologie sale rack. my newly painted and carpeted digs require new curtains and i found two perfect panels -- originally $80, marked down to $40. two for one, i thought -- perfect deal. but at the register they rang in at 20 bucks a pop so my deal got all that sweeter. i wear my crown proudly.
needless to say there wasn't a lot of sleeping this weekend, and since i am still dealing with the last vestiges of this rzzl-frzzl cold/virus/sickness-from-hell, sleep is a precious commodity i'm not too keen to let go of. yesterday morning was a yardsale for my building. and instead of battling with trying to get more sleep, i instead poured myself a cup of joe and brought my beach chair out to the curb. my friends kept me sufficiently amused. plus i scored heavy duty on some upholstery material (retail: $120; yard sale: $20) and a paperback version of jon krakauer's book into thin air, which was serendipitously coincidental. since last week i'd been meaning to read it.
later in the day my mom and i extended her birthday to birthweekend and we caught the cat's meow (she hated it; i thought it was okay; i'm pretty lenient when it comes to either kirstin dunst or eddie izzard), birthday cake at linn's, and a perusal of the b&n bookshelves.
for the last two years i've avoided buying books. they've felt a like clutter. and i didn't want to keep buying books to just sit on my shelves when if i hadn't read the ones i already owned. when moving to get my place painted and carpeted, i had to move all my books. and in doing so realized i had read most of my books. i think atleast 80%. somehow i was relieved. i know that sounds corny....
books -- i guess that will be left for another journal entry since this one is getting so long -- but i've got some thoughts on book ownership.
anyhow, i've had a gift certificate burning my pocket for almost half the year. i kept going in to b&n trying to decide what i was going to get, since i didn't want it to be just any old book. last night i found the perfect three: a book on climbing the great himalayan peaks, with awesome photos of the the different routes, the top of the peaks from all different vantages, history and stories, etc; an inspiring art/creativity book; and the adventures of kavelier and clay by michael chabon, a favorite author. i've been meaning to buy this book for well over a year.
i think i was skipping home.
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