Allez-pas les Bleues It is Sunday evening and I should be watching the World Cup but instead I'm writing this on my Tmobile SDA Windows Mobile phone connected to my Think Outside Bluetooth keyboard. Saturday night, I had an 8:40 pm Air France flight which was scheduled to get into Paris at 10 am on Sunday. More than enough time to take a nap, change and go out to watch the match. Unfortunately, my flight was delayed several hours last night for a "technical verification," as they kept announcing. Finally, they were not able to verify the technicality and flight was cancelled sometime after 11 pm. We then went down to domestic luggage and had to reclaim our baggage. A couple from Virginia who had taken a connecting flight to JFK were horrified to discover they in fact no longer had any luggage due to another technical verification, I suppose. We then were herded to the outside of the terminal where shuttle buses converged out of nowhere to take us to hotels near the airport. My driver announced we were going to the Hamptons Inn, but left our group off at something called the Double Tree Hotel. I asked the driver if he was certain this was the right hotel and he assured me that the Hampton Inn had changed its name to the Double Tree. In the world of generic Hotel Chains, this seemed perfectly plausible. After waiting on line for about 20 mintues to check-in at the Double Tree, we were told that they had no booking for an Air France group. They called the Hampton Inn, which turned out was another hotel, and we were in fact expected there along with the couple of hundred other people who had been bumped off our flight. Another van came to get us 30 minutes later and I went up to my luxuriously appointed room with two queen beds, a wi-fi connection, a beautiful view of South Jamaica and a Bible strategically placed in the top draw of the night table. By now it was 1 am and I was able to get about five hours sleep before being woken up to be driven back to the airport. Spare parts had been found for our plane during my Hampton Inn stay and the plane was slated to take off at about 11 am on Sunday. This meant, of course, I was not only going to miss the gala reception of winners of the Ordre de Merite Agricole, but I was also going to totally miss the soccer match. The one good thing about the flight is that it is nearly empty. I fly in Economy as our small profits on wines don't allow me to mingle with the big shots in business class. But I'm perfectly fine today with empty four seats in a row and no one in front of me. Generally, I get someone who militantly insists on pushing their seat all the way back, but today I'm at ease. I have had an Ambien crisis. I was planning to use Ambien to sleep last night and arrive fresh in Paris on Sunday morning. The problem if I sleep during this flight is that I will arrive at about midnight and not be tired. So, I'm holding off for a beautiful Ambien induced sleep on Sunday night. I have to be in Champagne at 2 pm, so I'm in no rush. I want to apologize to the readership for the personal character of this blog entry. I often hear the criticism that for a wine blog my blog has very little about wine. I suppose I should be tasting wine daily and writing fabulous notes here about how they smell like tobacoo and are smoky in the mouth. Of course, I wouldn't have been able to write tasting notes today on the plane, as the only wine available on board was a Syrah from Castel and a Merlot from Fortant de France. I stuck with sparkling water, which I found very user-friendly. I never quite manage to write those sort of wine notes. To me, being a wine importer is almost like being on a mission and its a mission that is filled with circuitous routes, missed flights, turbulence and discomfort. Simultaneously, I have the privilege of being associated with an enormously gifted group of vignerons who bring the earth to life and into the bottle. Even a night in South Jamaica's Hampton's Inn can't ruin that. I don't enjoy sleeping alone in a hotel room. I find sleeping alone in a hotel room to be preparation for what death will probably be like. As a non-Catholic atheist who, in general, figures the Catholic Church is probably right because of all the great artwork they've left humanity, the best I can hope for is purgatory or limbo. Spend a night at the South Jamaica Hamptons Inn and you'll have a taste of what that might be like. It is not an alluring prospect. Plus they didn't even have HBO! They had a lot of pay channels for movies and porn. I wondered if I used them, and they were billed to my room, would Air France pick up the tab or would Air France hunt me down to make me pay. Instead, I read the New Testament to put myself to sleep. I always enjoy The Sermon on the Mount and found it particularly inspirational last night. There is much to be said about humility and happily Mary Magdalene didn't figure into the sermon. I don't know about you, but I'm sick of all this Mary Magdalene fuss. One highlight of the trip was that Harmon Skurnik of Michael Skurnik Wines was also on this flight, along with his wife. I didn't see him this morning, so I assume he rebooked on another flight though. The other nice thing is that on Tuesday I will be in Poil Rouge with my whole family. We haven't all been together for several months now, as my son was off in Italy working at Cascina degli Ulivi. I fell in love with wine in the Maconnais and fell in love with my wife there and had two children there. All done in an ancient farmhouse facing vineyards which have been there for time immemorial, even if they have now been mechanized, pulverized, chemicalized and denaturified to produce something unattractive to drink. It will be wonderful to go home again, a home I never would have guessed existed some 23 years ago when I started this adventure. Writing from a technically verified Boeing 747-400 somewhere over the Atlantic..... Joe Dressner PS: They just made an announcement that France lost in what must have been an exciting match. Oh well. |
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