Fun Evening - Food and Wine

My friend and I went to an event that I saw on meetup.com for winos. Oops, but I completely forgot we were there for a meetup function and forgot to find anyone to say hello! That's okay.

It was at a wine storage facility in my hometown. For $20, we were treated to lots of samples from three wineries, plus yummy food that was paired with each wine.

OMG. So good. So fun! It was limited to 50 people, and I would say there was about that many packed into the tasting area. Very soon after we got there, my friend and I started chatting with another woman who was there alone...our age, single, loves to go to wine functions, etc. She actually "collects" wine - hmm, what does one do when one accumulates wine - collect it? So she had some actual interest in a wine storage facility. I, on the other hand, have one bottle of wine in my possession. It is in the trunk of my car, because that's where I left it when I took it from Nancy's house when we didn't open it at our last little party. My own portable wine storage facility.

Nancy thinks she has maybe six bottles of wine. We are not the target market of this particular business. But in posh Bellevue, there are potentially oodles of people who need to store wine in these really cool (literally and hipster) lockers.

So...yummy food and wine, met the nice lady. It turns out she is a cop and I am always happy to meet people who may not decide to give me a ticket if they pull me over for what could possibly sometimes be characterized as driving a teensy skoosh over the speed limit, or for maybe possibly having a cell phone device held to my ear while operating a motor vehicle. Not that I have ever done those things, but if, in the rare event in the future, for some emergency situation, I did *have* to do those things...

Well! We had already identified her as a kindred spirit because a) wine and b) wine events, c) single woman liking to go out and have fun, and d) my friend worked for two big local police departments for many years and I volunteer for our police department and work for the government. We talked about a big wine expo in Seattle that she had gone to but we have not ($$$). I also mentioned that we didn't go because I had just had WLS this year and guess what?? She had gastric sleeve this year, too! COOL! We swapped stories of weight loss and eating and successes/challenges. This woman was just really nice - it was a treat to meet her, and we all swapped numbers and such and agreed to get together.

At the end of the night, they did a raffle. One basket of wine accessories - cool; two 12-person tasting parties - yay, I want one of those!; six months free wine storage - um, cool but not applicable. Nancy told our new friend that if she won, she'd give her (new friend) the certificate. I thought the same thing, because, really, what am I going to do with it?

Nancy won! It was great, because everyone around had heard us talking about their deal, so our half of the room cracked up when Nancy won. Our new friend was very happy and we all agreed to avail ourselves of the beautiful tasting room at the facility to share wine and food. (You can come there, drink your own wine, bring your own food, and just hang out in the beautifully appointed room.)

A very fun night for only $20, and we came away with a new friend, to boot.

Edited to add: Wow! When I was posting about the raffle, I had intended to say that I made sure we hung around til the drawing because I am uber-super-lucky when it comes to raffles. And elevators and parking spots. These are my gifts. :) So when I enter a raffle, I feel like I have extra tickets in the mix! My son Blake also wins raffles, and daughter Alli won one at the grocery store this summer (Uhhh, a giant basketball pop-a-shot game - a blessing and a curse). Anyway, I forgot to say that in the original post - and I just figured my luck had rubbed off on to Nancy, who said she never, ever wins raffles.

Well - as I was writing the post, I got a text from my great buddy Kim at 23imaginaryfriends.blogspot.com and guess who won her drawing for the Stillpower book giveaway? Moi!! See, my positive raffle energy was floating in the universe and gave me both the book I really wanted to read (and had put on hold at the library on Kim's recommendation) *and* connections to a new friend with lots of wine. Life is good!