Because I’m on vacation, I’m doing a lot of pleasing myself. It is 7:30 on a cool Oakland night, and I’m sitting on my back deck drinking from a bottle of Weisinger Pinot Noir 2013. Weisinger is a family — and I mean family — winery in the up-and-coming Rogue Valley in Southern Oregon and, although Willamette gets all the pub, this Pinot is wonderful. Earthy. With fruit. I love Pinot and I love this.

I’m also playing solitaire, which I do on vacation. I’m crummy at it, always missing obvious moves. But solitaire is something I do alone. Duh. And it amounts to nothing really. And it means I’m using up time in an nonproductive way which, curiously, is productive. Back to work in a week.