DAYS OF WINE AND YOGA

SEATTLE –  Jess Thomson stands on my porch. "Taco truck," she intones. "TACO TRUCK."

This stranger and I are carpooling three hours to cover a yoga-and-wine retreat, and will share a room. If our personalities clash, we'll be down dogs for those four days ...

But we'll be friends. It's obvious, even before our spoons duel, ladling cilantro, onion and salsa onto those wee Venn-diagram palm-sized tortillas. And we share the same worries about this assignment: despite all those years of vinyasa and vineyard tastings, will we be the slow kids among super-sophisticates?

"Arghhhh," I moan. "It's gonna all be size-zero trophy wives perfecting their practices and palettes."

Jess – slender, but no creampuff pixie – murmurs something soothing. She's a sweet-talker, all right: the welcome sort who makes chocolate squares virtuous because they contain antioxidant goji berries...

After a few hours of highway chatter, we rock up at Sagecliffe on Washington's chasm, the Columbia Gorge. Her Saab loops through the estate and freezes two social X-rays with Chanel bags. "Told you so," I snark. "We don't have enough cosmetic surgery for this shindig. I should have had ribs removed or something."

And Jess, calmest, wryest, of writers, reminds me: "We'll see. We'll see."