Yesterday I guess I slept until a reasonable hour, but Friday and today I got up quite early. Friday was really early, as I did my first breakfast shift at the Inn. it's not that they will sometimes tell me I have to be at work and smiling at 7:30am; this was an opportunity to make up for the fact that we were all going to be leaving earlier than usual Friday, all for the hockey banquet.

I ended up not working the afternoon at all, which again meant fewer hours than I'd have liked for the day, but it also let me get a few things done before going to the banquet. Meantime, the breakfast was kind of fun. It brought back some waitering memories, that's for sure! Lynette showed me their written-out instructions for breakfast servers, which include delivering food from the right and retrieving plates from the left. I almost asked why they do it backwards, but I decided to just roll with it.

Friday evening's hockey banquet, followed by the usual festivities at Dunbars, were good! That really is a big huge family, and I'm glad it's a family I'm part of. The tradition at Dunbars of presenting an "endowed bar stool" to parents of graduating senior players who've spent lots of time and money at the bar, whether their kids can go out or not, is a great one, and some of my favorite hockey parents have been honored this way.

Today I got up early to meet Vanessa and Bob and company at the Carriage House Cafe for brunch at the crazy hour of 9am! I picked up her and Lauren en route, and we got there a little after 9, to discover there was already at least an hour wait for a table of six! The theory was that getting there so early would avoid that, but no such luck. The brunch itself, though, was out of this world. You won't be surprised by the Bloody Mary and coffee (as I tweeted, it's a bit of a pattern), but the brunch special was pretty epic! It was a potato rosti (pancake) over kale and cabbage salad, topped with rabbit apple sausage, a rabbit demiglaze, and a poached duck egg. I was kind of thinking the single egg was chintzy, and I wanted a second, but learning after the fact that it was a duck egg, I got over it.

In between was a fun afternoon at the Sheldrake Point Winery barrel tasting event, thanks to Vanessa being a wine club member there. We got to try several 2011 red wines still in the barrels, and several whites that have just been bottled, and there was a plate of interesting food pairings to accompany it.

After the official tasting event, we stopped in the tasting room to try some of the regular lineup. I'd heard that they'd just released their first Meritage (an American trademarked name for a Bordeaux-style blend) in a decade, and was glad to get a chance to taste it. I was very, very impressed. That wine's going to mature beautifully, and honestly, it's really drinkable right now.

I was feeling pretty sleepy last night, after the winery and dinner at the Nines, but I'd promised last night's Pixel DJ I'd get to his show and take some pictures, so I headed back out. Lots of pics, including some I really can't post. :-P Just a brief stop to visit the "Last Exit for the Lost" folks at WVBR on the way home, and I was still going to sleep at about 4. So, it feels later than it is. :-)

Current Music: "NYC 22"