Barry's Life in Napa Blog

Since it is almost the New Year, it's appropos to point out new laws that will take effect on January 1, 2009. There are always a lot of handy new laws each year. The one that is getting the most attention now is the new rule against texting while driving. What's next? I suppose they will ban me from other things I currently enjoy while driving, like making waffles and quilting.Fascists.  But there's one new law that's getting overlooked so far - as of 1/1/09 it will be legal to inflict physical mayhem on people who walk slow in front of you - people known as "slow walkers." "It's about time!" you say, and indeed, you are correct. It's time to put an end to this scourge of humanity - these pokey butts who are wasting our precious time with their dawdling, wandering, and general cluelessness.  Let's make it clear this new law does not allow the corporal punishment on the clearly infirm. However, it is acceptable to say to a person with one...

I have been recently accused - fairly - of writing something "dark" during the holidays. So today, I hope to redeem myself with a true story that always comes to me this time of year. It's a "true meaning of Christmas" story. Like so many of my Christmas memories, it features my dad. Avid readers of this blog with fastidious memory banks will recall last year's item that detailed Daddy's lack of enthusiasm for the whole Christmas issue. I think the biggest part of his disdain for Christmas was the excess of it - and this was in a household that did not have anything like a fancy Christmas. We were a working-class family with a working-class Christmas. Although I never wanted for anything necessary, I was just like other kids in lusting after the unnecessary, expensive toys in the Sears "Wishbook" catalog - elaborate slot car tracks and electric hockey games and full-blown cowboy outfits. Things that were out of reach for people of our means. N...

Having recently become a person who spends a lot of time alone, and this being something that is new to me, I thought I would pass on some tips on the topic.  1. Some so-called experts will say you should not drink alone. Hogwash. A much more realistic and useful bit of advice is this: always have one glass of water to match each drink. This guarantees two things: lots of trips to the bathroom, which may result in some type of human interaction (Not IN the bathroom, ok? I don't swing that way) and you will remain semi-sober so you can drive yourself home - important when you are alone. No good to be slobbering all over some cab driver. You may want him to be your friend now, but you won't tomorrow. 2. Consider investing in a cushion. Carry it with your laptop. The chairs at Starbuck's are hard and if you really want to be the creepy guy who's always sitting there, you may find your butt goes numb. 3. Go ahead and wear the sweat pants. After all, you are alone. Who car...

There comes a time every Christmas season when I just want to hit fast forward to January 2 and put it all behind me.  Some years that moment comes early - say, November 1 or so when that first stale Christmas song comes leaking out of the speakers at the mall. Other years, like this year for example, I've made it all the way to the 10-day line before getting the "let's just get it over with" feeling.  Is it the relentless pressure of fulfilling gift lists, writing cards, baking cookies, and trimming trees that wears me down? No, I decline to partake in most of those behaviors, and I play fast and loose with the rest. I am too selfish a creature to inconvenience myself too much.  I think my impatience with Christmas grows out of myriad disappointments, let downs, and downright tragedies that have become part of my personal Christmas history - number one among these being losing my dad to a Christmas Day heart attack. Hey! Have a holly jolly Christmas with that in your...

I come to you today with a saddening report on the decline of a once robust industry. American automobile manufacturing? The steel industry? Textiles? No, all this is old news. The failure I have discovered this week is in an industry that is not American, as far as I know. This crisis is in what I assume must be an industry of the great and powerful Chinese - the fortune cookie fortune business. The problem came to light for me after lunch (Combination Plate, $6.99) at Wah Sing Restaurant in Napa. Ritual demands that I drink a least half of the green tea, save the won ton for last, and open the fortune cookie but not eat it. So I pull the little white slip of paper out and read: "You could prosper in the field of medicine." WTF? What kind of fortune is that?? "Could?" Does this mean if I went to medical school I might become a doctor?? Again I ask, WTF? Whatever happened to "You will soon come into money" or "He who laughs last laughs best" or s...