Yesterday, me and my menstruating maidens woke to discover the concert we were to attend had been cancelled. We decided to go to Sonoma anyway, to tour wineries and drive around in the sunshine, to get drunk and be merry. We stopped off for some delicious southern style breakfast and celebrated the sun with the lovely citrus effervescence of three golden mimosas. Then three more. The food was great; biscuits, egg sandwiches, chicken and waffles, brisket. Cake was had, at the end, only because I had synced with their womanly cycles. I found myself with cramps and an insatiable craving for German chocolate cake. I insisted that we eat some. The waitress advised against the apricot pie, insinuating I had already eaten enough. She even mouthed the word tubby when the girls weren't looking. Incensed by her appraisal of my appetite, I ordered an entire apricot pie, and ate it. If I'd known this would later cause me to vomit while waiting in line for the women's bathroom, I would've still eaten the pie, out of spite. She's the one that had to clean it, after all. You might be wondering why I was waiting line for the women's bathroom. I've decided I identify as a female homosexual more than I do a male, so I've reassigned my gender and sworn to wear floral shirts, exclusively.
After breakfast I made the mistake of reaching out to Q, to see if he might want to ride around with us and stain his lips on some fermented grape juice. We picked him up and he poured three liberal gin and tonics; one for himself and one each for the girls. He advised we take them to go - in the day there is only so much time. And so much wine. So we drove to a winery which I described as having a sort of man made lake.
Gundlach Bundschu he'd said.
"No," I told him, "not Gundlach Bunschu. I know that one. The place I'm talking about is different."
Gundlach Bunschu was where our concert would have been. He and I had been there once. We sat on a bench beside a large lake and talked about gravity and time and drank a bottle of Rosé. In truth, I admit I misled him with the term lake. The winery I was thinking of had a pool, a fountain, two small fortified dams guarded by large steel sentries. It looked more like an opulent bunker on top of a velvet, vineyard mountain. I misjudged Q's acuity, his attention to detail, his understanding of the English language and of negations and German names. When I said not Gundlach Bunschu, he understood this to mean Gundlach Bunschu and directed us there anyway, insisting that I was mistaken. It was okay. We drank wine and he frightened two women at an adjacent table as he decried the ugliness of elderly women and their dried out sexuality.
As we were leaving he realized his error, kind of, and said that the winery I was talking about earlier must be Artesa. So we went there. We hung around, drank our complicated wine and then left to eat oysters. We watched him argue with the waiter and make comic demands on the bar and kitchen both. He said he wanted the smallest cheeseburger in Sonoma, that he wanted it cut into four pieces and brought to our table. He said he wanted four french fries, that paying $3 for a standard serving was fucking crazy. He kept asking for more and more horseradish for the oysters, until we had a baseball sized dollop of it in a metal cup in the middle of the table. I think he enjoyed it more than the oysters. Initially he said, "I'm buying," but when the bill came he agreed only to pay only for the oysters.
Outside, after N and D ordered some ice cream, Q begged them for just one taste. At first they refused, but after a while they relented and gave him some. He seemed happy. We dropped him off back at home and we drove south to In-N-Out. We each had a burger. I forgot to warn them about the uselessness of the fries, of how they taste like a mix between soggy potato chips and cardboard. But they enjoyed it overall. It was everything they'd dreamed of.
Then we drove along the sea, beside the Golden Gate Bridge. We watched the sun set between the mountains and into the ocean as we cruised along winding roads toward Pt. Bonita Lighthouse. By the time we'd looped back around and emerged at the bridge the sky had become soft and pink and blushing, with creamy purples and blues as bruised as eyeshadow. We took it in in silence, not wanting to break the sunset's spell. We drove over the bridge to the Palace of Fine Arts and then to Sutro Tower. In the dark we looked out over the top of the city as the cold wind rushed around us. Cigarette smoke. Weed. Photos. Laughter.
We drove home in comfortable silence, exhausted and full. The crescent moon rose up into the sky and like a giant scythe cut down all of our concerns. We slept.
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