Post by Grubb.
For three women in our winery group tour, this was their second winery excursion in as many days. They had taken part in a farewell party that concluded a Patagonia/Mendoza tour they had been on and were up till 2 drinking and singing karaoke the night before. The tour had been offered by an outfit called “Flashback” and catered to singles in their 20’s, 30’s, and early 40’s. All looking for love. Yasmine, from San Diego, and Steph, from Australia, were in their forties. The third in the group, Kate, from London, was in her mid-thirties. Waking up in mid-stupor, she had thrown on a sun dress that kept slipping and revealing her breasts. For having consumed a lot of alcohol and little sleep, they were a spirited contrast to the couples from Toronto, Manchester, and Albuquerque. In the short touring bus taking us to four Luján Cuyo vineyards, they were chattering away about the Americans who had accompanied them on the previous tour.
Since they were all single, deconstructing the past week was heavy on evaluating the men. Adam, although not bad looking, was a mansplainer they could not laugh about enough. In a cave restaurant above El Calafate, Adam became an anthropological expert pointing out that, given the position of the handprints on the cave walls, the prints were probably left by women giving birth. To Steph it seemed that they had been recently painted on. Kate wanted him to shut up so they could enjoy dinner. “The idea of a woman going through contractions on a cave floor wasn’t doing much for my appetite!” Yasmine wanted to know who appointed Adam as the conversation killer.
Then there was “Disco Daddy”, the older gent who earned the nickname after taking a turn on the dance floor during the karaoke session. It didn’t matter whether he had the disco moves since he was a wealthy widower. Disco Daddy, done with mourning his wife after three years, was the catch. Disappointingly, he ended up with another woman.
Finally, at the conclusion of this tour made up of mostly Americans, Adam, or someone as equally reviled, stood up after dinner and asked everyone at the table to offer a “thorns and roses” assessment of the ten day tour. Thorns and roses conjured up some mystical Rosecrucian ritual in my mind, but apparently it is method of breaking down an experience into positive and negative appraisals. Kate and Steph felt they were being subjected to another weird form of emotional pressure that only psycho-babbling exhibitionistic Americans would consider part of a spiritual journey. Yasmine agreed. Sharing her emotions with a mansplainer engaged her gag reflex.
As we went from vineyard table to vineyard table, the gals were increasingly expert at getting refills and quaffing glass after glass of wine. They were having a jolly old time. Yasmine was sending bottles back to America at every stop. If you can’t get your guy, a case of wine is the next best thing.
Very amusing account of the tour group. I laughed out loud several times. Were you and Ella whispering about it as you were witnessing the events. Wynette and I definitely do that. And, of course, the post-analysis back in your room where you can talk out loud.
We usually compare notes after we return to our digs, especially for clarity, like, “Was she talking about her mother, or her lover?”