Baked Bleu

Rugby, I have found, is a very esoteric sport. Not so esoteric as, say, Australian Rules Football, which I watched for an entire hour once and still had no idea what anyone was doing.

The Rugby World Cup was this Saturday night/Sunday morning, and it was New Zealand v. France, and of course since I have one amie française and (through her) a ton of French acquaintances, I had to join them in the completely packed Kezar Pub to watch the game until three in the morning. The bar was full to capacity by about midnight, and the game didn't start until 1 a.m., so there was a lot of jostling and me making conversation by trying to find out the rules of the game. (Though I wish I'd had someone explain the scrum to me, which mostly seemed like the ultimate in grunting male display and sporty battle. Now I know: it's just like a hockey face-off. Because I can't watch any sport anymore without comparing it to hockey.)

Spoiler alert: the French lost. But only by one point, which even I can tell was pretty good considering everyone was expecting the frogs — sorry, Les Bleus — to have their asses handed to them. Though I could also tell that New Zealand — the "All Blacks". See? I'm getting okay at this understanding of other cultures/sports — was a better team, seeing as they had control of the ball most of the time.

At any rate, the lesson here is that best way to watch a sport you're unfamiliar with is to watch the World Cup version of it, if possible, in a bar packed with absolute fans of it. It was hard not to get caught up in the excitement, even for something I had absolutely no investment in. Heck, you could even have caught me chanting "Allez les Bleus!" with the best of them.

So that's the sports portion of my weekend. There was also a lot of culture, honest.

Friday evening after work I headed to the EXIT Theatre to see a play written by my friend Jeremy. I didn't tell him at the time, but I have to admit to you, Imaginary Internet Friends, that I almost cried at the end of his piece. It was witty and fun and poignant and sad. I'm reminded yet again that I have a profoundly talented friend, which both humbles me and makes me proud at the same time.

On Saturday, Jenny and I went to Treasure Island to participate in The Winery SF's Grape Stomping Event. There was less stomping of grapes than I'd expected, but lots more tasting of wine than expected, so it balanced out.





Surprisingly (to me), The Winery SF is not the only winery actually on Treasure Island. We decided to drive around the island a bit, since Jenny had never been there and I hardly have been, and we stumbled on a couple more wineries, one of which offered a free tasting. We actually bought bottles there, since we liked their wines better than The Winery's. Who knew?

And right now, my crockpot is stocked and starting up a batch of Baked Beans to cook all day while I'm at work. I've been craving these for a long time, looking forward to coming home to the smell tonight. And it's time now for me to go catch that bus to the office. Oh, Mondays ... why are you so Mondane? Hahaha, I crack myself up.