With Baited Hook

We lost an hour over the weekend, but it felt like a whole lot more.

Between finishing up several assignments Saturday, I made it over to the Blue Bee Cidery tasting briefly, along with scads of people, including a favorite Museum District couple, clutching bottles of Aragon 1904 and Mill Race Bramble, listening to the sounds of Poisoned Dwarf (great band name, right?) and eating lamb (my choice) or pork sandwiches in the sunshine facing the downtown skyline.

It was to laugh when a guy led some friends across the parking lot and pointed to the buildings on the other side of the river, extending his arm in a "ta-da!" moment as if they'd had to wind through a forest to come to the view when it's in plain sight no matter where you are there.

Hours later, dinner ended up being in almost the exact same spot when Holmes and his beloved suggested I join them at Camden's for a United Nations-worthy evening of pink bubbles- Lucien Albrecht Brut Rose, Graham Beck Brut Rose and a hearty bright pink Cava with a name too long to remember by the time I got home - along with succulent pork belly festooned with the Christmas colors of cranberries and sauteed spinach.

Knowing we were destined to lose an hour, we probably shouldn't have stayed up so late chatting and sipping but it had been ages since I'd seen them and there was so much to talk about.

When Sunday dawned clear and warm, it seemed a shame not to walk somewhere for brunch and the Rogue Gentleman got the nod for its proximity.

We were the first to arrive even though they'd been open for two hours at that point, but given my last visit on a mobbed opening night, it was kind of nice to have the place to ourselves.

Well, that's a stretch because between the kitchen staff and wait staff, there were easily four times as many of them as us, but with the sun on our backs in bar stools up front, who was counting?

Punkt sparkling Gruner Veltliner gave way to eggs and bacon and a dish of polenta and eggs, a stellar layering of flavors with preserved lemon under polenta topped by harissa tomato sauce, two fried eggs and pickled thyme.

Since some of us require something sweet for breakfast, I also got brioche doughnut holes rolled in pistachio dust, my only complaint being that they weren't hot.

Not that I said that out loud.

After a stroll through the Hebrew Cemetery and Shockoe Hill cemetery to check on Henrietta Guggenheim and Dr. Norton's grave sites (my pebbles still in place), we headed for the November theater to see Virginia Rep's final production of Moliere's "Tartuffe."

As to be expected, the audience was a seasoned one, but the older couple who sat next to us and immediately began chatting were delightful.

When I told her it was my first time seeing this play (although I've seen "School for Wives"), she recalled that the last time she'd seen "Tartuffe" had been at the Old Vic in London.

The closest I could come was having once seen "Batboy" in London, but no Moliere.

I was expecting fabulous and funny language but was just as taken with the commentary on relationship foibles ("When we're forgotten by a woman's heart our pride is challenged; we, too, must forget; or, if we cannot, must at least pretend to"), not to mention the glorious sight of (Ryan Bechard as) Tartuffe's bare bottom. Twice.

There really aren't enough naked male parts on view in Richmond theater.

Beauty without intelligence is like a hook without bait.

Since it was the last performance, the cast was spot on, completely comfortable in their roles and playing them to the hilt. Add to that a gloriously French interior set, lavish costumes and it made for a slapstick, witty and sharp commentary on hypocrisy and religion.

The heathen in me ate it up.

Spilling out of the theater a couple of hours later, it took a few minutes to realize why it was still so sunny and bright out. That lost hour was repaying us now with some bonus time to enjoy a promenade on a beautiful day and talk about the play.

Happily, my date suggested exactly that.

Public scandal is what makes the offense; sinning in private is not sinning at all.

Don't I know it. And, incidentally, not because I went to the school for wives.