The wine from Transylvania

It is Dreambird!

Or Dreamfish, if you are drinking the Sauvignon Blanc. I am more a red wine person but friends of mine like white and so I picked up some Dreamfish for them.

Dreambird was an extremely good deal in Kaisertown where I was not too long ago. I had never seen the label and it was, ahem, inexpensive, and so I bought some. It was from Romania. From Transylvania, I have since learned.

I have also learned how right my instincts were.

This wine was highly recommended!

Once again the Lord rewards me for my wine buying strategy, which is: First, look for an attractive label. The packaging matters more than anything. Because what if you are going to bring the bottle to a party? It can be the best tasting wine in the world but that is of no moment if the label is ugly.

So that is the first consideration. The second is ... what is the second? Oh yes. Low alcohol content.

I do not like wine that hits me between the eyes! And the Dreambird checks in at I believe 12.5 percent. You are often lucky in this way with European wines.

Here is the Dreamfish label in case you were curious.

What about Dream Water?

Remember that? It worked that one time I needed it to.

With luck the Dreambird will, too.

As the song (admittedly not by Leonard Pennario) goes, in this very funny video ...

Wine, wine, wine ... do your stuff!

The Predawn Biographer

The sunlight this morning feels good! I was up too early ...

working on my Pennario discography which is just about done, except for I am checking all kinds of things, footnoting all kinds of things, dotting my t's and crossing my i's.

Crossing my eyes, haha.

Can you tell it was an early morning for me?

Today was all about the Debussy Preludes. After a couple of hours of work verifying this and that and exploring this and that possibility (and the music world wonders why this book is taking me so long)  I allowed myself to get on Google and ask: How do you get through a day without much sleep?

It is amazing the questions you can ask Google and I get a kick out of that. All kinds of other people have invariably asked that question before you and the question pops up before you are even done typing it.

When it comes to answering this particular question, there is not much I have not heard of. They always tell you to drink plenty of water, which annoys me, I don't know why. There is just something about that "Drink plenty of water," that makes you just want to go, shut up.

And here is what else kills me. Almost every list of suggestions you find tells you to nap for 20 minutes.

To nap!? How? Where?

We have a ladies' cloakroom at work with a couple of couches. Sometimes you walk in and someone is asleep on one of them. But I could never do that. I would be way too self-conscious and would never be able to drop off. Plus I do not like walking in and finding someone asleep there. Here you are just trying to hang up your coat and change out of your boots, and you are tiptoeing around feeling like this intruder.

And the cloakroom is a better option than is enjoyed by most people who work in offices.

I guess you could fall asleep at your desk  ...

... but why not just wear a sandwich board announcing that the wheels have come off your life, you know?

End result, as we say here in Buffalo: No nap and will these people please quit suggesting it to us.

Wow, I have suddenly realized something! I have a suggestion of my own to add something that actually works.

Kvetch!

I have been sitting here complaining and I realize that all of a sudden I feel awake and alive.

That is the secret!

So, how'd you sleep?

Every morning on my new sleep regimen one of the first things I do is fill out my Sleep Diary. It is a form I printed out from the, ahem, National Sleep Foundation.

You write what time you went to bed and what time you got out of bed and then it asks you questions about how you slept.

It is fun to be asked how you slept! It makes you feel good even if it is just a form asking you. Leonard and I used to ask each other how we slept. That is something I have not thought about for some time.

But back to my present situation. The form asks you: "When I awoke for the day, I felt --"

Then there are three boxes and you check one. It is either Refreshed, Moderately Refreshed or ...

... Mean and Evil. Well, they put it "Fatigued."

How do you start to figure that one out?

Usually I cop out and go with Moderately Refreshed. It kind of sums it up, you know? You were sleeping well but not enough.

Last night I slept absolutely fine -- until I hear that bouncy little marimba at 5:15 a.m.

I would have been Refreshed other than that I could not keep on sleeping!

Howard posted this picture of me on Facebook before I went to work. He was telling me about a paint gun he bought and the discussion was detailed and arcane and so I sat down on the stairs.

Hahahaa. Good night's sleep... not! Remind me to get back on the log and gripe. But meanwhile, I did get on the log, and they have a blank where you answer the question: "My sleep was disturbed by ..."

I wrote: "Alarm Clock."

That made me feel better!

Sleepless in Buffalo

Zut alors, today I was tired. And I mean tired! I did not sleep last night. And so...

The first thing that happened, I was at work and I had to interview a major musician. I had 10 minutes to talk to him and I asked him about bowling. I told him I read that he bowled and people in Buffalo like to hear about bowling and wasn't he worried about it hurting his hands?

He just started laughing.

I said, "Admit it, I am the only reporter today to ask you about bowling."

There were about 10 interviews in a row, something like that.

So that was one thing. I am trying to remember if I asked Leonard Pennario about bowling the first time I talked to him. He was known to bowl a game or two in his day.

Another thing today was, I had to go to the doctor for my annual checkup. And the doctor is out in Kenmore, impossible to get to easily from downtown. So I took the 190, hoping to do kind of a shortcut.

Mapquest had suggested I get on the Youngmann and take the Elmwood Avenue exit. Fair enough, right? But no, I had to get off the 190 at Sheridan. The Sheridan exit, where there is nothing.

Nothing but U-Haul places, parking lots full of truck cabs, school bus pounds, that kind of thing. You know that exit. It is utter wasteland. It is like going to the moon.

I am making my way up Sheridan past Military thinking: Why did I get off here?

Finally I make it to the doctor. And then ... and then ...

You would not believe what the third thing that happened was.

I did not figure this out until they left me alone in a room and I had to change into a hospital gown.

I was wearing ...

What in the world, you know?? This had never happened to me before. Somehow when I was getting dressed in my sleepless haze I had put one skirt on over another skirt.

Darn, and I was wondering why when they stuck me on the scale, I weighed a pound or two more than I thought I should! It might have had something to do with wearing twice as many clothes as I needed, you know?

Hahahaa .. it was like being five years old. Except I do not think I did that then!

Being sleepless can do that to you. On the other hand, you have an excuse.

I was tired!!

I blame that lost hour.

I want it back!

Stand facing the fridge

Last night I could not sleep because of a lot of things on my mind, so I got up at 4 a.m. and cleaned the fridge.

This is a secret that could help you sleep on nights when you think you cannot. Get up and do something. Get something done.

Cleaning the fridge is perfect. It beats trying to work on a list of Leonard Pennario's concerts which was the first thing I tried.

I threw out a bunch of things and consolidated others, and I packed lunches. I also emptied the dishwasher, an onerous task that I hate. I put all the dishes away.

I took out the crisper drawers and rinsed them and scrubbed them and dried them and put them back.

Ahhhh!

Everything was better.

I went back to bed and set the alarm for 7:30 a.m. because that was when I had to be up. And I went to sleep.

When the alarm went off I got up and made coffee and then I went to the fridge to get the half-and-half. And I opened the door and --

"Oh," I said out loud.

I had forgotten what I had done! And there was this beautiful fridge. Waiting for me.

That is a daymaker!

Mind over body

This week I have had to police my sleep. You know how once in a while your sleep gets dodgy (to borrow a word from my Australian-speaking sister-in-law, Nat). Last week and the week before that, my body was pulling this thing on me, I would wake up every night in the middle of the night.

Sometimes I would go back to sleep and sometimes I could not.

Often the book would be roiling around in my subconsciousness. I would be rearranging some chapter in my mind. It is not funny how often I wake up thinking about Leonard Pennario. It is as if he has taken residence inside my head.

It's not as if it is always a drag when you wake up in the middle of the night. Remember the business about Andy Warhol and cooking a chicken inside a squash?

But after a week or so you have had enough. So this week, there have been some changes made.

For a week now I have been getting up at 6 a.m. I mean, usually I get up pretty early anyway, but now I am being absolutely consistent. I even put the alarm clock, i.e. my cell phone, across the room so I have to get up.

Sometimes that is agony. It is like being born! One minute you are all warm and comfortable. And the next minute: Waaaaah!

Yesterday I was a complete zombie and it was not pretty.

But I will tell you one thing, I no longer wake up in the middle of the night.

Sometimes you have to show yourself who is boss.

Andy Warhol and me

Aaaaiiiee, last night I could not fall asleep. I don't know what was wrong with me.

I got up! I lay down. I got up. I lay down.

I got up again and sat around for a while and read this old cookbook I have, "Food in Vogue." Here is one interesting idea anyway that came out of last night. There is this story about how Andy Warhol cooked chicken inside squash. To do what he did, you need two huge squashes -- Hubbard squashes, I am guessing, or a big orange squash or pumpkin like this one.

And you cut off the top third as kind of a lid, and you scoop out the seeds and stuff, and then you put the chickens inside and you roast them both.

The writer, Maxime de la Falaise, said that Warhol cut one lid with notches at either end to secure it to the bottom of the squash, and the other he cut in a zigzag pattern.

That sounds like fun!

I am going to invite friends over in the autumn of my year and cook chicken inside a squash the way Andy Warhol did it. It is all because I was up last night!

I kept waiting for the cookbook to mention Leonard Pennario. It mentioned all these friends of his. Like Skitch Henderson. I have had this cookbook forever and I used to make Skitch Henderson's chocolate cake when I was living in my first apartment. My roommates and I would make it whenever it was anyone's birthday. It was funny because eventually I got to the job I have now and I had to interview Skitch Henderson. And I told him how much I loved his Oklahoma Sheet Cake! That broke the ice, I will always remember that.

Skitch Henderson has, alas, passed on. Oh, no, so has Maxime de la Falaise! In 2009. That depresses me, learning that. This cookbook has been part of my life forever. I did not know she had died.

Wow, I am reading about her family. Her parents had the most wonderful names. Her father was Sir Oswald Birley and her mother was Rhoda Vava Mary Lecky Pike. Of County Carlow, Ireland.

It is no wonder she got to be a cooking writer for Vogue and I did not. I mean, my parents were George and Dorothy Kunz. There is a difference.

Where was I? Pennario. He never did put in an appearance in this cookbook. Well, Pennario could not cook his way out of a paper bag. We used to laugh about that.

When did I finally get to sleep last night? I think it was around 6. Then I got up at 8 because I had somewhere to be at 9. It was not pretty, is all I can say. But I did it!

Then the day ended up being pretty nice. I had a good day at work and I got stuff done and then I made a trip to Tops and doubled four $1 coupons. Just now rethinking my coupon strategy I may have been able to do a little bit better but what I did was not bad on two hours' sleep.

La la la la la la.

There is something funny about when I cannot sleep that I have had to learn to watch out for. When I have not slept the night before, a lot of the time all I want to do is talk. When I get to work I sit down and immediately my eyes go to the phone.

Then I think: Mary. No.

You will make no sense! I mean, just look at this post.

Tomorrow I will make more sense.

I promise.

'It's a drug'

I have been drinking Chamomile Tea and recently, being accomplished in the fine art of wasting time, I began reading up on this strange plant, chamomile.

There is this fascinating page! This is a fascinating plant. Its name comes from the Greek for "earth apple." That is kamai (ground) plus melon (apple). Wow, who knew "melon" was "apple" in Greek? Now we do. Which proves, chamomile makes you wise.

In Spanish, chamomile is manzanilla, hence the sherry.

Stepping on a chamomile plant is good for it.

If you have a sick plant you should just place a chamomile plant near it and nine times out of ten your sick plant will recover.

What I have discovered -- and this is from me, not from the page -- is if you drink chamomile tea before bed, the odds go significantly down that you will awaken during the night. Even if before bed you have been listening to Pennario playing Liszt!

My friend Judi also drinks chamomile tea. Her husband admonished her, "That's a drug!"

The Germans say of chamomile, "Alles zutraut." Which means, it cures everything.

The English said:

It will restore a man to hys color shortly yf a man after the longe use of the bathe drynke of it after he is come forthe oute of the bathe.

I would walk a mile for a Chamomile! Sorry, I could not help that.

Here is something that puzzles me.

You have something like chamomile tea that, as the page indicates, has been used since ancient Egypt, pretty much all over the world, as a natural sleep enhancer and a help for all kinds of other things.

But oh, there is always that statement from the Food and Drug Administration that it has not been proven to have any effect at all. They even did some kind of scientific test and found it unhelpful in 14 out of 15 ailments! I read that somewhere on the Web.

So everyone from the ancient Egyptians on down have been wrong. Europeans, Africans, Asians, Native Americans, down through the centuries, what do we know?

Oh well. Quoth the chamomile page:

Chamomile is used with purgatives to prevent griping.

I guess I will quit griping and go on with my day!