Ruby Tuesday

Time for my rating of today's zeitgeist.

+6
Sitting on a rock in the James, our bodies submerged from the hips down, my companion spots a blue crab barely a foot away. In all my years of river walking, I've never seen a crab in the river. He's small, so maybe he's too young to know he's a tad west of the brackish water crabs prefer. Still, we saw a blue crab.

+2
When we went to 8 1/2 to get heroes for a picnic, the counter guy knocked the wind out of our sails when he said they were all out of rolls, those incredible crusty rolls. Okay, so we ordered a white pizza with spinach and onion to accompany our J. Mourat Rose.

Only problem was when we picked up the pizza, they'd made it red instead. "Want us to remake it?" they asked reluctantly. And wait another 35 minutes? Our bellies declined the offer. Still, it was a killer pizza, the meal rounded out with pasta salad and grapes.

+4
The group in front of us bought 2 bottles of wine but didn't have a wine opener. I asked if they were going to Scuffletown and when they said yes, I told them to look for my sunflower dress and they could borrow mine.

When she showed up, I learned that they were artists from NYC, down working on a virtual reality project with teens at Art 180, three blocks from my house. About 45 minutes later when he showed up to borrow it again and open their second bottle, he raved about what a cool town Richmond is. "You guys should keep this place a secret," he told me. We're trying.

+8
On a breezy July night, listening to a singing accordion player with a quietly dramatic delivery, accompanied by a Russian guitarist and a drummer playing in a park was just this side of sublime. Beginning 15 minutes before sunset, they played through the arrival of fireflies and the street lights coming on to a much smaller crowd than 2 weeks ago. Simply beautiful.

-9
Tonight's attendees were not an especially respectful bunch and many of them talked and laughed over the music being made. An accordion and acoustic guitars don't need competition from the noise made by people raised by wolves. Why come to a music show if you don't want to listen to the music?

+4
It's a who's who at the show. The traveling world musicians, just back from Vermont and leaving again in 3 days. The activist who tells me I look beautiful in my sunflower dress. The bolero singer we'd seen just Sunday night at Sub Rosato. The brains behind the kite-flying club, coincidentally also working on his own music series.  The roadie (and best hugger I know), also just back from a tour. The songstress girlfriend I'm having brunch with Saturday. My favorite jazz metal guitarist and his cowboy roommate. The guy we'd met at the polo game 2 weeks ago.

Tuesday's score: 15
And that's not counting the afterparty, set to a soundtrack of cicadas and accompanied by warm breezes wafting through open windows.

As the Smithereens would say, groovy Tuesday.