Sing Single Girl

It doesn't take much to find a simple way to savor the end of the weekend.

When you walk into Avalon twenty minutes after it opens on a Sunday, it's a safe bet that there will already be some regulars in place.

And the bartender who's been there forever will greet me like a regular even though my frequency there is slight compared to an actual regular.

It helps that I am meeting a true regular, someone whose default after-work bar is Avalon.

Because he has already chosen a brown drink, I do the same, sidestepping wine to order Hornitos and we proceed to cover as much conversational territory as possible in the short time we have.

We talk about my Scottish friend wanting me to come visit and the charm/inevitability of livestock on the roads when you drive in Scotland.

I know it's true because it's happened to me.

Because I know it will crack him up, I tell him my recent oyster story and he tells me that only I could take a walk on a shell bar in the river and have a guy approach me.

I'm quite sure I'm not the only one.

After our limited time together, I head out to collect a willing music lover and spend the evening at Commercial Taphouse listening to a couple of my favorite local performers.

Songbird Allison Self has Grant Hunnicutt of River City Band playing with her tonight and his mandolin and voice are a terrific addition to her big voice.

With a Ploughman's platter of cheeses, pickles,bread, tomato and lettuce to sustain us, we sit in the back most booth because it's the only one free when we walk in.

There's something quite civilized about listening to old bluegrass and Americana, stuff like Carter Family tunes, a favorite of Allison's, and "Single Girl, Married Girl" on a Sunday night.

The crowd was even mostly paying attention, which was appreciated given how good the two sounded in the small restaurant.

It wasn't an earth-shattering kind of evening, but everyone at my table seemed to be having a great time.

But then, we're regulars at having a good time wherever we end up.