I have loved wine as far back as I can remember!

As a toddler, my grandparents would take me to church with them. A church that used real wine at communion. My Yia Yia told me it was "juice", so I would sit in church and repeat, "Juice? Juice?" until we would take our walk down the aisle. The beginning of a long, sometimes colorful history of me and wine.

Pre-legal years it was Boone's Farm and homemade wine that was so bad we drank it in shot glasses. Shot it back like a bad whiskey. In my twenties came the boxed and jug wine. Lots of buzz for the buck, but somewhat more respectable than the previous wines.

Then I moved to California wine country, before it became the tourist mecca that it is today. Tastings were free at the wineries. That's where and when I learned about fine wine. Kind of a good-news-bad-news thing. I upgraded my drink and reduced my number of hangovers....but also the size of my pocketbook. The good stuff don't come cheap. Not without connections anyway. So now I drink no wine before its time.

Now that I think about it, it's time! Cheers!

...there are different types of "highs".

I remember the first time I went up in a balloon. Unknowingly, it would, years later, prove to be the first of many ascents. Of those many flights, only a handful are clear memories. The first one on that SoCal desert morning. My first flight with an instructor. The bruises from my first "high wind landing". The two solo flights (yikes!). My final check ride that led to the award of my commercial license. My first flight in the snow. And my last flight. It was time to move on.

The funny thing about this is I'm not fond of heights. If I allow myself to think about being on the 22nd floor of a building, my knees feel weak. Or even the fourth floor, for that matter. The first time my instructor asked me to look over the edge of the basket to track the direction we were heading, I looked at him like he had just been released from an institute for the criminally insane. "Are you nuts?" But somehow, being suspended in the air, with no attachment to the ground, has a sensation all it's own. It is not filled with fear. It's more like wonder. Freedom.

Now that I think about it, this taught me how to "fly" through life with wonder and freedom, leaving my weak knees behind.