also

so much snow today that we picked Zoe up from her nanny in a sled! Also, I was viciously attacked by Christine and Choe with snowballs packed around ice blocks.

damn

We had planned a trip to meet up with our old firend Gauthier and his wife and daughter in Montpelier today, but the snowstorm and our lack of snow tires has made us reschedule.

We did make it into Grenoble for 'les soldes' though.

In France, there are two main government-approved times for sales (I know, it seems a little weird to the permasale-habituated North American), and we are in one of the sale periods. Chloe picked up some very fancy boots, and I finally broke down and bought a jacket that is not made of advanced synthetic fabrics. I guess we all have to grow up eventually. We also made a stop at my favorite wine/spirit store in Grenoble: L'Echanson. They even had my old frequent buyer card information from four years ago in their computer! I gazed longingly at Whisky that I cannot afford:

and bought a bottle of 15 year old Calvados:

The appelation means that it is made in an old school copper pot still rather than a reflux still. I have had Calvados before, but it was of the moonshine variety, and was not very good. I don't think they trashed the beginning or ends of the distillate ("heads" and "tails"). After reading a few articles about it, however, I wanted to give it a second chance. I realized that my old approach to trying new kinds of alcohol was logically flawed: I would generally buy from the bottom shelf in order to avoid wasting money. Of course, it's much more likely that you will get something horrible that way. So this time I got the nice stuff: 15 years old. After a few tastes, it gets a big tipsy thumbs up, followed by a drunken fall into a snowbank. This stuff is pretty strong, but delicious. Christine bought a bottle of Caol Ila which had been double casked (once in Bourbon casks, once in something else -- sherry casks?).

Tons of snow on the road on the way back. I hope my snow tires get here soon! (I ordered them online)