Happy New Year - hooray for champagne!

Sorry it's been so long - some real quick highlights of the past week:

Monday, 12/22: I saw a frozen rat in the snow on the way to work, and a frozen pigeon (the rat's flying equivalent) in the snow on my way back to the train. I kept my eye out for a 3rd frozen rat-like animal but did not see one.

Tuesday-Wednesday: lots of caroling (started Monday night after work, actually). Did the Music Box gigs again this year, which was tons of fun again, but had BAD weather to drive through in order to get there. What can you do? Dinner at mom's for X-mas eve was a bit harried due to midnight mass in Lombard happening at 10pm, but again, what can you do? I was also happy to be able to meet Kristin's cat, Satchmo, who's staying at Evi's for the week.

Thursday: Merry Christmas! I finally got to relax after noon mass, and got home to enjoy opening gifts with Trey and then going to mom's for lunch. I think Trey liked his gifts (he also got some grappa glasses for Limoncello), and I love mine - some wonderfully warm and soft snow boots that I've been needing badly. :-)

Weekend: Friday night we scored some free tickets to our local comedy club, expected a mediocre show - we laughed so hard we cried. Saturday we made it to the Museum of Science & Industry before heading over to Oma's for dinner to welcome my North Carolina cousins and their parents. Sunday it was back to Oma's for lunch. She also had dinner Monday night, but we decided that we needed a break!

Monday started off being pretty hectic at work (yes, I do have a ton of work to do - our HR department never get truly quiet), which made last night's champagne tasting especially wonderful. Even better was that Trey was driving - I want to start singing the Champagne Quartet from Die Fledermaus, or at least post the words here, but I can't find the lyrics!

We spent an hour and a half tasting a TON of stuff, including Dom (which I'd had before) and Cristall - neither one of them are worth the price tag, by the way. You'd think that after trying 40 or 50 different things they'd all start to blend together, and they sort of do, but there's always something that really stands out and that's when you know you've either a) found your bottle or b) found a very special bottle that's way out of your price range. :-)

At the end of the evening we were happy to find that the champagne we chose for NYE - a Bollinger Brut, an incredibly bready/toasty champagne - was marked down considerably. My favorite standby - Piper Heidsieck Brut - was also on sale! Other stand out bubblys were one for which I can't remember the wine house name (the champagne itself was very green apple-y) and then a Charles Heidsieck vintage champagne that was exquisite, but completely out of our price range at $105.

That's all for now - I don't expect to post much over the rest of the week and weekend. Hope you're all having a wonderful week and that 2009 kicks off with a bang!