It’s the spark that ignited open warfare in my household. Pots and Pans hurled with much force and even greater accuracy – while I backpedal giving the kitchen door a couple of measured three second bursts …

I always figured our relationship would end bloody. She’d discover her favorite dish towels dyed florescent Puce, wadded under the sink out of sight … or the carpet would yield another 3/0 O’Shaughnessy  – buried to the bend in either her hindquarter or big toe.

Fishermen can’t help but strain the boundaries of domesticity with our early morning departures, bleeding gut-stomped prey, or the many sharp accessories we toss around while unpacking.

… toss around and fail to pick up …

We wept during the highly charged, romantic segments of “Rivers of a Lost Coast” – up until they mentioned the Russian River was depopulated compliments of the wine industry. I could feel her stiffen in protest – but took her mind off of “those obscene lies” with chocolate.

… wine being her most favorite thing, more favorite than me …

Then I had the audacity to perpetuate “another heinous liberal myth, like Global Warming” – by posting this piece, and ever since only the fourth kind of sex is available, where you pass each other in the hallway and say “f**k you.”

Unfortunately the Santa Rosa Press Democrat made mention of the phenom, so I’m duty-bound to pass it on.

“We’re here to protect fish as well, but it can’t be done by eliminating the viticulture industry in Mendocino and Sonoma County,” said Devon Jones, executive director of the Mendocino County Farm Bureau.”

To which I’d reply, “Nuts.”

The Napa wineries have spilled over a couple of valleys and into a half dozen watersheds – and all the jug wines are now grown in the Central Valley proper. Many thousands of acres of tomatoes and almonds uprooted to mass produce cheap Chardonnay, Burgundy, and lesser grapes.

I’ve enjoyed wine (jug or otherwise) for many years – but this talk of “absolutes” is starting to become overly burdensome.

… perhaps you’ll have to keep 20,000 acres fallow – to ensure a half dozen sickly Salmon can gasp their way to former haunts – there to expire. Keeping those fish will not extinct the Napa Valley or anything close to it – vintners are objecting at having to share.

“It is really critical that all growers get involved with this,” said Nick Frey, president of the 1,800-member Sonoma County Wine Grape Commission.

This spring “there’s a risk of not everyone having water for frost protection,” Frey said.”

I’ll make you a deal. As some of the founding fathers and “Johnny-come-lately’s” will have to surrender some of the most fertile soil (to ensure salmon survive) …

… we’ll allow you to grow dope in Mendocino.

As you’d have money coming out of your ears – and a lock on the medical marijuana market, you can uproot your restored turn-of-the-century farmhouse – complete with clinking glassware and Marin-gentrified lifestyle – and move North.

As pure sewage can only improve your end product (and may even improve its taste) we’ll let you have an equivalent amount of lukewarm brown water from whatever impoundment is nearby.

… you won’t need to worry about frost, as you’ll harvest all that bud in September …

… and your spendthrift wastrel kids will have the chance to appreciate the richness of your Chardonnay, as they’ll have something to eat with it besides a Twinkie …

Tags: Santa Rosa Press Democrat, Rivers of a Lost Coast, domestic bliss, Napa Valley wineries, Russian River, salmon, medical marijuana, open warfare, think outside the box