CalTrain was packed with baseball (A’s visiting the Giants is a bigger occasion than it used to be, since Oakland ate shit again at keeping a sports team) and basketball goers, which makes it tough to disembark.
A fellow said to his mate: “When those people go, follow them. That’s our strategy.”
“Their strategy should be to follow a big guy like you”, I said. He didn’t get that, if his first idea didn’t clue you in to his savvy.
“Why do you have a sign that says ‘Media’?” he said.
“I was working the Valkyries game”.
“That’s the women’s basketball team”, his friend said.
“Was it crowded?” he said.
“Sold out. Eighteen thousand six hundred and four.” (I’m going to use “18604” like Bostoners use Fenway Park capacity. “Is that glass full?”.”37305″ means “yes”.)
“Think it’ll catch on?”
“Catch on? Already a smash hit. But it’ll be five years before the team is any good.”
“People like teams that are bad?”
“Most people here have never known a bad team. They’re drunk on the Warriors’ success.”
“The Warriors lost their series”, said his friend.
“There were several Warriors in attendance at the Valkyries game”, I said, with a beat, “because they haven’t got anything else to do.” I smacked my thigh at that killer quip.
The guy looked at me, then looked at his friend. “Was that a joke?” he said.
“Yes”, the friend said.
“A good one?”
“Yes.”
They followed other passengers off the train, without the big guy busting through to open lines. No one listens to me.
I got off two stops further south. I live 0.8 miles from the station downtown, and 0.8 miles from the station following. I rode to the more southern station because there’s a supermarket on the way. I wanted a bottle of red.
Digging through moving boxes for something else, I found the bag with a Jon Miller bobblehead wine stopper.
You must agree that a bobblehead wine stopper is cool, even if you don’t care that Jon Miller is one of the greatest baseball radio play-by-play announcers ever. Stashed in a storage bin for six years, Jon Miller’s bobblehead has taken on some Gorbachev-like stain. If it were a David B. Flemming bobblehead in wraps for six years, I’d have said: “Was that long enough for you to develop a sense of storytelling.”
Ordinarily, I’ll spend several minutes deciding which bottle to buy. Offer to sell me a glass of wine. “Is it red?” I’d say.
You’d look. “I think so”, you’d say.
“Sold.” But if it’s a bottle, that takes homework. In this case, I’ve been away from my cat for eight hours, I want to put my rediscovered Jon Miller bobblehead bottle stopper back to use, and I just bought a glass from the thrift store for a buck. I was gonna buy the first cabernet with an interesting label.
The 2022 Do Epic Sh*t cabernet by the Browne family vineyard has a lively nose, and a very pleasant mouth feel. I usually like my cabs bold, challenging in an earthy or fruity way, but this was better for the worn-out, dealing-with-tens-of-thousands-of-people mood. Drinkable, some would say, which I usually think is damning with faint praise, but not in this instance.
When I had lots of money, wine was a great hobby for spending lots of money, especially for writing about it, because you’re never wrong. Whatever you say about a mouthful of wine, no one can argue, because wine changes by the minute.