Green Glass Love

Forget what Morrissey says, every day is not like Sunday, especially a gorgeous 75-degree Sunday.

I wanted to be at the water - ocean, river, bay, any large body would've sufficed - but work prevented that kind of pleasure. So I settled for a summer reprise, albeit indoors, and was grateful for that.

Curious about Little Saint after seeing several friends post about the new restaurant, I made that my first stop. And while I'd have liked to have roosted on the patio, the small children there changed my mind and I landed at the bar instead.

The space looks great, from the large art installation made of dried mosses and plants the owner had made to the most beautiful ladies' room in all of Richmond boasting locally designed wallpaper of yellow cabbage roses covering walls and ceiling.

Behind the bar was a San Francisco transplant who'd landed here after tiring of the struggle to keep up financially there and wanting some place up and coming but already cool. Here you are, kid, welcome to town.

Dinner was a farm lettuce salad of arugula and dandelion greens with a bit of pickled onion, just the ideal savory start before moving on to the subtle sweetness of pickled beet puree over ricotta on Idle Hands sourdough bread. And although I didn't need a dessert after that, I completely appreciate that their desserts are scaled to be about three bites, aka, the perfect size to satisfy but not induce guilt.

Who am I kidding, I have no shame about hoovering dessert any chance I get.

I walked into the Byrd to be teased by the manager (again) about how frequently we see each other (it had been less than 21 hours) and join the audience of theater fans to see the cast of Dogwood Dell perform the songs from this summer's run of "Thoroughly Modern Millie."

Had my summer not been quite so busy, I'd have made it to the Dell amphitheater and seen it myself (accompanied by a picnic basket and bottle o' Rose or bubbles, in all likelihood), but at least I was finally getting a chance to up my cultural IQ (because of course I'd never seen it, play or movie) as part of Artober, which I'm totally digging this year.

Honestly, it was more of an immersion course in "TMM" because after the cast performed all the songs accompanied by live musicians, they were going to show the '60s film version, too. Two birds, one stone and all that.

The story of a Kansas girl who moves to New York City, gets her hair bobbed, wears short skirts and strives to be seen as a "modern," as she puts it, had a subplot about white slavery. I'm here to tell you that it was far more satisfying in the play version than the told-through-the-lens-of-1967-movie one, especially with director George Roy Hill's corny embellishments.

Favorite line: "Poor sounds permanent, broke can be fixed."

Pshaw, tell this modern something she didn't already know. Then give her no deadlines and another brilliantly sunny day to indulge herself.

Fall sounds permanent, but sunny days like today make it tolerable. Almost, anyway.