The other side of the Hills

Sarah, how was your weekend?

Oh, well something like this:

Thursday Afternoon, 4pm: "Sarah, can you come up to the winery tomorrow morning... maybe 10am?  We need a little help setting up a wedding."  Sure!

Friday Morning, 10am: "So, this is a 250 person wedding in the barrel room."  "Oh, you mean in the space that three days ago was the retail space of our cellar door?" "Right."

It's now 10pm on Sunday night.  Between Friday morning and an hour ago, I have set up and broken down a 250 person wedding.  I have taken out 15 loads of recyclable wine bottles in a hailstorm.  I have set up another 20 person wedding.  I have slammed my own wedding ring finger in a door.  I have arranged 30 flower arrangements.  Lovely ones, I might add.  I have popped open 96 bottles of Veuve Cliquot.  I have enjoyed one glass of Veuve Cliquot.  I have located every power outlet in a 2,000 square foot space... hands and knees anyone?  I have unpacked 30 cases of wine into ice bins, and dumped the ice onto them. I stepped in mud that went up to my ankles... while I was wearing ballet flats.  It rained, it was sunny, it rained, it was sunny, the wind ripped shoots off the poor vines.  I acted as a part-time babysitter.  I have (in tandem with notable others) sold $10,000 worth of wine through a makeshift cellar door.  The wedding was supposed to be over at 4, then maybe it would be done by 6, and then the bride and groom actually left at 8.  I was the last (wo)man standing on a property on which I had never laid eyes three months ago.

.... pretty par for the course, really.... 

Life skills.  Sigh.

The sunset, I should note, was stunning.  All those billowing weather-laden clouds tumbling over themselves on the horizon.  That lovely soft pastel of twilight.  A single wide beam of golden light shooting upwards towards the heavens.  The hills were like a painting, complete with round bales of hay on the rolling mossy green.