A Happy Accident

The other day I commented on my Facebook page that I end up with stuff like bacon-flavored cheese because sometimes I reach out to pick something up and my hand doesn't coordinate with  my eye. I'll see something, I'll reach for it, and somehow my hand strays slightly to something else. Which, of course, I don't notice until I get home.

But it's not all bacon-flavored cheese. Sometimes I end up with something better than I intended. And that's what happened here. My favorite grocery store, Earth Fare, has been carrying one of my favorite Rieslings, Dr Loosen, for some time now, and I've made a point of picking up a couple of bottles when I'm in there. The vintner is located in the Mosel Valley of Germany. I'll buy any Riesling sight unseen from the Mosel-Saar-Ruwar region.

I like this wine because it's not too sweet and not too dry. I can't really tell you stuff like fruits you'd taste, because I kind of suck at that, unless it's something so obvious that it can't be missed. But this Riesling is just crisp and clean. I like it with everything. Literally, everything.

But this bottle? It says "Sparkling!" That was the accident. I swung by the wine shelves to pick up a bottle or two and noticed that the top was different. "Hm, must have changed that," I thought. I didn't read the label. I just paid for it and brought it home. So I was pretty surprised to see the champagne cork. It fizzed up wonderfully and buzzed my mouth deliciously. The best of both worlds! And $13 a bottle, too. It did keep the effervescence for 2 more days after I opened it (I'm the only wine drinker), that was an added bonus.

Don't. Just...Don't.

Low-impact packaging, non-toxic ingredients. Got to be a good switch for us, right?

Wrong.

First Taylor mentioned that he has been using dryer sheets because otherwise his clothes smell.

That made me think, "Hmm...maybe it's not me. Maybe it's my clothes."

Then Bob apologized for the stinky-ness of his workout shirt one day. "All of them smell this way now," he said. "Maybe I need some new shirts. They just don't seem to get clean anymore."

I threw out half a bottle of this stuff and went back to All Free & Clear. Re-washed all our laundry in hot water.

Problem solved.

Now, I do have to say, I switched to this one just because the packaging. For a couple of years I've used Charlie's Soap (image from their website), and loved it. I bought it at Earth Fare and it used to come in drawstring bag.

But the bags went away and all there was left was this hard plastic bottle.

Words with Friends (& Strangers)

I finally decided to try Words with Friends. I kept seeing Facebook updates from friends talking about how they just had to stop watching baseball to respond to Words. (Ok, it was one friend.) I hadn't even opened the application, and didn't know it was Facebook. I thought it was strictly a phone thing. 

So I asked my sister if she played it and received an enthusiastic "YES!" from her. She doesn't play it on her phone. Strictly on FB. I downloaded the app and asked it to find me a random opponent to create a game. And so JohnnyBravo76 entered my life.

And promptly blew me out of the water. 

So I set out to find someone who might be more compatible. Yes, I love to write, yes, I love words, but I pretty much suck at games. Anything with strategy is pretty much not for me because I don't have the patience. I'm also not very good at unscrambling words. Or so I thought I wasn't. When you play Scrabble in person, you don't necessarily take the time to move all the letters around and around. Mainly because your opponents tend to sit there and stare you, tap the table, sigh...there's a certain amount of pressure. But with WwF, you can just hit the "shuffle" button over and over, and you can take all the time in the world to respond.

So I started searching through my FB friends to see if I could find some people to play with. I quickly found you should avoid anyone who hasn't played in a couple of days. They probably were just trying it out and now don't play. So I tried my sister, an old college friend, my library director buddy, and a couple others. I also went to my friend Jeannie's house, helped her download the app, and sat and played with her. 

It turns out Jeannie and I are most evenly matched. I'm not really that surprised, since she and I have always had a brain connection...completing each other's sentences, echoing each other's thoughts...and I also am pretty even with Carla, my old college buddy. 

So far I have developed one rule about WwF. I don't use cheat sites to help find words unless:

A. My opponent is a "JohnnyBravo76," and is killing you by almost or more than 100 points.

B. All bets are off if I don't my opponent at all.

Yes, I have surfed through Scrabblefinder looking for words with J, but I have stuck with the above rules and not entered my tiles and board letters to put together new words (unless it was the JohnnyBravo76 game). So I feel a little righteous. For the most part, however, I have to say I've been able to come up with fairly decent words on my own.

I sure don't want to play with my baby brother Ted, though. Any time I've played Scrabble with him, he's just totally killed me. I can't imagine the damage he'd do on WwF.