Single-handledly supporting the California Wine industry

So, if this PR thing doesn't work out, I'm thinking I could always consider a career change to Tour Guide. This weekend was Tracy's bachelorette party, and, as such, my fifth trip up to Solvang/Santa Ynez wine country. In four years. To recap, I've also been there here, here, here, and here. To even my own surprise, it seemingly does not get old, and, in fact, gets better with every trip.

Seven of us drove up on Friday afternoon; there'd be 15 of us by Saturday night. We didn't carve any cucumbers but we corked a ridiculous amount of wine, ate a week's worth of red meat, and by the time we got back yesterday afternoon, I would greatly have appreciated some fresh produce.

On my drive home, I noticed a police car in my rear view mirror. I was in the second lane, not speeding (much), so just kept my eye on him as he passed me on the left. As soon as he got a couple car-distances in front of me, he turned on the flashing lights, and crossed right, back across another lane or two. I assumed he was pulling someone over, but no. With his lights on, he then looped back left again. Then right. Then left. Then right. This went on across five lanes of traffic, zig-zagging in and out of moving vehicles, for at least a quarter mile down the road. He wasn't in any rush, wasn't pulling anyone over. I couldn't tell what he was doing, other than perhaps interpretive basket weaving.

Whatever he was doing seemed obnoxious, out of place, and, frankly, dangerous; then all of a sudden, I got scared. It must be a stolen cop car, I thought. I'm about to witness a freeway shooting, or perhaps become the next victim. I stopped breathing and started sweating, suddenly aware of my heart beating in my chest. I needed to get out of his path, off the freeway, but how? I was afraid to pass him or pull up next to him, and I couldn't just pull over in the middle of a five lane freeway. It seemed like he was purposely slowing down, slowing us all down while he settled on his target. I saw an exit quickly approaching, but didn't think I could make it. As I attempted to cross over, the cop car pulled ahead and off the exit, lights still flashing, and I sped up and continued along the freeway after all.

Here's my question: what the hell was that? I tried to Google it, and came away with the idea that it might have been some pace-setting system, but I don't really understand why, since traffic was light to begin with. The cop car did nothing but slow us all down, cause some confusion, and scare the shit out of me, so if "pacing" was the objective, that hardly seems effective. For a few minutes, I could have benefited from a Pacemaker.

In other pacing news, I apparently needed to rethink my workouts. Remember that post a few weeks ago, when I was all, I haven't run in over a month and I'm only doing yoga and I've never felt better and blah blah Murphy's Law... It was around the same time that that study came out which said that exercise doesn't actually help people lose weight, which I've always kind of thought but have been too scared to test out. Well, about a week after that, my stomach popped out and over the waistband of my jeans, perhaps to tell me that it wasn't buying that load of crap any longer and that I'd better add cardio back into my routine if I wanted to retain any shred of self respect. So I've run a couple times in the past week and it has been much, much harder than it was a month ago. That actually makes me happy, though, like it's working and that I have something else to keep my body from becoming too complacent.

And speaking of Murphy, guess who we ran into in the middle of wine tour? Kevin Connolly, aka Eric Murphy from Entourage. He was with a date and it was highly inappropriate of us to interrupt them and ask if he would take a picture with the bachelorette, but he complied and was kind of adorable, and this was by far, my favorite moment of the weekend.

Since Tracy and I have known each other, people have always told us we look alike. Would it be really weird and/or noticeable if I tried to pass this photo off as myself? If you see it on my Facebook page, do me a favor? Sshhh....