As Cloudy As I Wanna Be

Absinthe, it has been too long.

That was corrected at Amuse where I adjourned for dinner with friends I hadn't seen since December, met a deep-voiced Russian and marveled at a middle-aged couple who came in, sat down and proceeded to hold hands, stare into each other's eyes and talk non-stop for two hours.

It was wooing of the highest order and they were completely oblivious to everyone around them.

Meanwhile I wanted to hear about my friends' trip to Fort Lauderdale because they'd hit all the classic beach bars like Coconuts on the Intra-coastal Waterway and Elbo Room, where the classic "Where the Boys Are" was filmed.

I love me a good beach bar.

They wanted to hear about my trip to Sullivan's Island, mainly because he used to be a regular there in his youth because a close friend's family had a vintage cottage. We're talking about the kind of family who would pack up their entire household - including servants, and, yes, he actually said those words - and move to S.C. for three months every summer.

There's a lifestyle I could get used to.

And it wasn't just any old cottage, it was one that had separate servants' quarters that were air-conditioned, so the elderly members of the family had somewhere to stay if they should occasionally decide to come down.

The rest of the time, he and his buddies co-opted the space because it was air-conditioned and their cocaine would clump up in the moist beach humidity of the big house.

You really can't beat '70s stories for sheer shock value...says the woman who's never laid eyes on coke. I am such a lame relic of that era.

Arriving pre-reservation, we took up residence in the mod green chairs at Amuse with a bottle of J. Mourat Collection Rosé and a cheese plate to tide us over while we discussed the local art on the walls and the man who looked like he was straight off of Hawaii 5-0.

We're in the home stretch for the Rodin exhibit, so Amuse was full up with last minute art lovers, but eventually we were seated. At the table next to us was a couple nonchalantly enjoying dinner when my companion looked over and noted, "That's Gary. We used to buy our records from him every Saturday at Willow Lawn."

Not being a native, Gary's record store meant nothing to me, although I recognized his date, a well-known modern dancer I've seen perform several times. When they got up to leave, we chatted with them, sharing our familiarity like old friends.

Over bouillabaisse with scallops, mussels and salmon, mussels with Surry ham, curry fried oysters and fries, we talked about their recent visit to Tay Ho Vietnamese Restaurant, the possible mayoral candidates (all of us would vote for Jon Baliles) and the unfortunate state of Cafe Diem's bathrooms.

"They were like Buckroe Beach in the '60s," my friend observed, cracking us up with references to bad turquoise.

Our late reservation meant that by the time we finished eating, three quarters of the room had cleared and, technically, Amuse was closed. Fortunately, the staff was understanding and when our server came to see what else we needed, didn't blink an eye when two of us asked for absinthe drips.

Even better, he brought the absinthe fountain over to the table so that we could control our own drips through the sugar cubes, making them as cloudy as we liked while the friend who abstained from the Green Fairy indulged in a classic Manhattan.

It was then, during the sipping portion of the evening, that one friend hilariously shared how in his youth, he'd pretended his last name was Finkelstein so that Jewish fathers would allow their daughters to date him. He justified it because his mother's maiden name had been Fink.

Between the absinthe and the story, we thought he was hilarious.

Eventually, though, all good museums must close and even devoted customers leave, so we adjourned to the sculpture garden first and then to hear music.

I'd run into a friend at Amuse who'd asked if I was going to Balliceaux tonight for the Girls Rock benefit with multiple DJs playing 45s, but my friend offered to show off his enormous new-to-him speakers and vintage 45 collection so I took him up on it.

Appropriately since it had been months since we'd heard music together, he began by pouring Rosé and playing several most excellent Bowie 45s: "Underground" from "Labyrinth," "Blue Jeans," "Ashes to Ashes," "Cat People" and, from a film I'd never heard of, "Absolute Beginners," each sounding more spectacular than the last on kick-ass speakers that came up to my waist.

Things took a cheesy turn when he pulled out Starship's "We Built This City, " but he assured us from teh next room that he could top that, and did with "Against All Odds," hyper-corny with a bare-chested Jeff Bridges on the front.

It was only in playing a Jeff Lynne-produced George Harrison 45 that he was able to redeem himself at all.

Explaining that waking up on a day like today made him want to play the Bangles' cover of "Hazy Shade of Winter," he did, justifying the 45 by saying it was the only way he could get the song without buying the soundtrack to a terrible movie.

We left 45s behind only when the estate sale queen pulled out her latest 50-cent find, the original Broadway cast recording of "Hair," skips and all, with its oh-so groovy 1968 song descriptions, as in, "Easy to Be Hard, a pop lament" or my long-time favorite, "Good Morning, Starshine," summed up as "twinkles, shines and glows...join in, flower children."

Oh, some of us joined in, alright, while he who abstained rolled his eyes at the nonsense lyrics of flower children.

Gliddy glup gloopy, nibby nabby noopy la la la lo lo
Sabba sibby sabba, nooby abba dabba
Tooby ooby walla, nooby abba dabba
Early morning singing song

And by early morning, we're talking e-a-r-l-y morning. Green fairy early.

Like sunrise at Buckroe Beach in the '60s, with none of the guilt of youth early.

She Don't Fade

A friend tells me the other night that I'm the only person over 25 she knows who makes a big deal of her birthday.

If it was meant to be an insult, I didn't pick up on it.

Instead, I went to Amuse at the (very quiet) VMFA to meet Moira for a birthday cocktail or two. Slow when we arrived, it was a hotbed of middle aged activity before long. If there was a middle aged Tinder, this room would have been ripe for it.

But we weren't there to date, we were there to kick off my birthday eve celebration.

I'd brought my Parisian absinthe spoon, a recent gift from Pru, and handed it over to a favorite bartender to fit on the lip of my glass to allow the drip to pass through the sugar cube. Meanwhile, Moira found her life's blood in a bourbon and bubbly cocktail with the most divine lemon/egg white foam that ever graced a drink.

It was an ideal night to be in Amuse's dining room, the deep blue sky and ecstatic sun mere embellishments to the occasion. Noshing on snacks - housemade beef jerky, bleu cheese and bacon deviled eggs and spiced pecans - we compared exes, considered exit strategies and daydreamed about the possibilities of shared free time.

Because it's birthday season, there must be dessert, in this case, a Madame X (absinthe, bubbly and a sugar cube) and a chocolate cake contained in chocolate ganache and split by chocolate mousse under a cloud of whipped cream. If you ever wonder why I walk five miles ever day (besides so that strangers can shout random things at me like this morning's "Great ass!" on the Lee bridge), this is why.

If you wonder what I do on my birthday eve, I go to the National to see Psychedelic Furs despite having seen them last April at the Beacon Theater in Hopewell. It's not just getting to gawk at how amazingly well Richard Butler has aged, it's to hear the music that defined a big chunk of my (relative) youth and to which I danced many, many nights in clubs.

Standing in line to get a wristband, one of the staff called out to the milling crowd, "If you're over 21, have your ID out. If you're under 21, you've all aged really badly." Young man humor. When I raised an eyebrow, he said, "What? I've always wanted to say that to people."

Another staff member pulled me aside, saying, "Don't mind him. He's really 84. He hasn't aged on the outside, but inside..."

Walking in late due to my extended absinthe interlude and much hilarious conversation, I managed to catch the last few songs of Bad English's set, including a cover of Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne," admittedly captured by the lead singer's (striped shirt, cap, deep voice) charisma.

"We're Black English. Look us up on whatever you look people up on. If we come back, would you come see us?" and a fair amount of cheers resulted. I would for sure. A bit of a ham, he worked well off the drummer at center stage while the girl playing keys was tough to hear, whether by design or a bad sound mix, I don't know.

During the break, I headed to the bar for a Cazadores, delivered by a bartender who inquired sweetly, "Were you walking down the Lee Bridge today?" Damned if I wasn't, but I also wouldn't  think anyone could spot me at 45 mph.

"Oh, I knew it was you," he said. "I recognized you right away."

Chatting with a woman whose first concert was Kiss at age four, she told me that the crowd was older than it had been when she'd come to see INXS. My, how time flies.

Soon after, the Psychedelic Furs came out and from the first moment, singer Richard Butler could have had any one of the middle aged women in the room, present company included. Dapper in a suit with his shirt cuffs hanging out unfastened, he got even better after discarding the jacket leaving only  vest and shirt.

I'm an unabashed fan of it all, the posturing, the hand gestures, the drama. And don't get me started on how he curtsies, cuffs flying, after some songs.

Oblivious to my neighbors, I danced to everything - "High Wire Days," "I Wanna Sleep with You," "Love My Ways" (during which he had the crowd singing along) and "When She Comes." Personally, I could have died happy during "Heartbreak Beat" with his hand on his undulating hips.

And it feels like love,
got the radio on
and it's all that we need

Maybe it's my age, but every possibility imaginable in the '80s resurfaced listening to songs such as "The Ghost in You" tonight. So of course it ended too soon, even after an encore with "Pretty in Pink" that spoke to the crowd who'd arrived via film and not music.

Tequila gone, show over, there was only one thing to do: continue my birthday eve celebration somewhere else. What better way than to stop by Richmond Comedy Coalition and listen to rock god Prabir tell stories from his life and be skewered afterwards by a group of improvisational comedians?

When I arrived, he was telling a Prabir and the Substitutes tour tale from a  stop in West Virginia ("I'm sure that technically they were females...") and talking about some fans getting kind of "handsy" with band members afterwards as they appealed for a place to spend the night.

"I wouldn't say they were cougars but I would say they were bobcats," he explained. "These girls were very aggressive." He brilliantly solved that by putting on a  DVD of "Lord of the Rings" which apparently makes bobcats stop touching band members.

The comedy troupe was soon trashing West Virginia and riffing on his story, occasionally breaking out into "With a Little Help from My Friends" and "All You Need is Love," a scene which closed with the characters falling on their imaginary swords to end the song. West Virginia jokes abounded.

During intermission, I chatted with all kinds of friends - the tourism guy, the beer fiend, the theater lover, the former neighbor and DJ - before we heard one last story from Prabir. This one was less a memory and more a lecture about the wonders of science and time, hardly surprising coming from a major science geek.

As he got deep into metaphysical talk, one of the comedians threw his hands up, walking away shaking his head in disbelief. "F*ck, dude, f*ck," he wailed about trying to make comedy about fourth dimension talk.

"Are there different rules for mating in other dimensions? What if we needed a third element to replicate the species?" he asked rhetorically. "Is there a place where they pair off in threes?" You can only imagine the comedic possibilities of groups of people trying to mate in the fourth dimension.

Although I saw Prabir checking his phone during that sketch, I thought is was laugh out loud funny. Pair off in threes? God, no, two is tough enough.

From there, we somehow got to a funeral for pizza attended by Papa John, Grandma Sbarro and little Cesar, all delivering eulogies. Don't ask.

Absinthe, Furs and laughter? Sure, some people would call this making a big deal of their birthday. Pshaw. You don't see me pairing off in threes, do you?

Days of Wine and Roses

How better to impress out-of-towners than with flower power?

The garden and art-loving visitors arrived from points north only to be bundled back into the car so we could go to the VMFA. Destination: "Art of the Flower: Van Gogh, Manet and Matisse."

Detour: Amuse for brunch. They were mobbed on arrival, so we waited for a table in the groovy green chairs in the corner where the hospitable barkeep delivered the absinthe drip and four glasses.

After positioning sugar cubes on absinthe spoons and lighting them, she left us to monitor our own drips. Considering it was the visitors' first foray into absinthe, they were surprisingly quick to master the technique.

We'd barely begun sipping from the green fairy when we were told our table was ready. She accompanied us there.

Beginning with carb loading - breakfast bread with mixed berries, buttermilk biscuits with pimento cheese, sweet pickles and butter - we passed the time until our orders arrived telling jokes, including a mother's favorite. One of us even deigned to share a knock knock joke.

After getting our enthusiastic server's thumbs up on the Dutch Baby ("my favorite!"), a puffed pancake-like concoction of bacon, scallions, goat cheese and arugula, I had to admit he was right on. Light yet filling, the meaty chunks of bacon made the dish.

After my companions had polished off rave-worthy corned beef hash and eggs, a salad Nicoise and today's quiche, we headed downstairs to visually feast on floral still lifes.

For a sunny Sunday afternoon, the show was quite well attended, no doubt due to just having opened Friday. And it's a stunner, too, as much for the gorgeous paintings as for an art history lesson in the progression of French floral painting it delivers.

Since it's only my first time seeing the exhibit, I'm sure my favorites will change, but for today, I chose three.

It's hard to imagine something more romantic an artist could offer his love than Henri Fantin-Latour's "The Engagement Still Life," given to fiance Victoria Dubourg to seal the deal. I particularly liked the glass of wine in the composition, a promise, perhaps, of good times ahead.

Making my way through the next gallery, a loud-voiced young man said to his companion, " Hey! Have you read these signs on the wall? They're more interesting than the paintings." He then proceeded to read several of them to her loudly.

I decided it must be his first time in a museum and tunes him out.

Mary Cassatt's "Lilacs in a Window" was bound to catch my eye because lilacs are my favorite flower. There'd also been a Manet of "Vase of White Lilacs and Roses" which I also lingered on, but decided I preferred Cassatt's because her vase sat in a greenhouse or conservatory next to an open window where you could almost smell the warm air.

And the very last painting in the show, Matisse's "Still Life with Pascal's 'Pensees,'" spoke to me because of its appealing components: a cup and saucer, a book and a vase of anemones, a flower I love, all sitting next to a lace-curtained window. It's the kind of tableau that would give me pleasure every time I looked at it.

Just don't hold me to those favorites because I have no doubt that on my next visit to see the exhibition, I'll exercise my female prerogative to change my mind and fall in love with something else.

In the next-to-last gallery, I overheard a couple sitting on a bench talking. When he mentioned Iceland and and film, I knew he had to be talking about "Land Ho," the movie I'd just seen because it was showing again tonight.

So I asked.

Sure enough, he'd been looking online for opinions to decide if they should see it. Go, I told him, if only to see the beauty of Iceland. But if you're over 60 (and they looked like they were), you'll love the story, too.  "Thank you so much for telling us that," he said. "I was going to pass it on it after reading some online reviews but I'd much rather have a real person tell me to go."

There was my good deed for the day and I went back to looking at the last gallery.

Unused to absinthe in the afternoon, my companions demanded naps afterwards, leaving me to enjoy my Washington Post on the balcony outside in the late afternoon sunshine while they dozed.

When we reconvened, they were still wiping sleep out of their eyes ("That absinthe kicked my butt!" the professor acknowledged) and I was rarin' to go. This time, it was eastward ho to Metzger because two of the group had once lived in Germany.

Given the dearth of restaurants open on Sunday night, we shouldn't have been surprised to find a full dining room when we got there. Luckily, three bar stools soon opened up and one of us was willing to stand until a fourth came available.

Vintage soul serenaded us, a bottle of Hugl Rose was delivered and we got into a discussion of what everybody was currently reading.

Three of us listened fascinated to a description of Jose Saramago's "The History of the Siege of Lisbon," a book about a proofreader who decides to add the word "not" to a sentence which causes repercussions for himself and historians.

Fascinating as I'm finding it, my current book, "1965: The Year That Revolutionized Music," seemed shallow in comparison.

From there, we devoured smoked trout rillettes and chicken liver mousse with carrot jam (which came across more like marmalade), two excellent starters and the latter one I seem to get every time I go.

Conversation concerned birth order and how parents take fewer pictures of each successive child. My parents have albums aplenty with photos of me, the oldest, and hardly any of my youngest sister (the sixth). The exception that proves the rule was the middle son who said there were fewer pictures of him than his younger brother.

I mentioned some t-shirts I'd seen recently that perfectly summed up birth order differences:

I'm the oldest. I'm the reason they made the rules
I'm the middle child. I'm the reason they needed the rules.
I'm the youngest. What rules?

All I know is, the best thing about being the oldest of six girls was that I never had to wear a hand-me-down dress. What I did have, though, was the strictest upbringing in the family. I still haven't decided whether that was a good thing or not.

For dinner, I chose mette - hand-cut sirloin tartare with a tiny farm egg and grilled bread - enjoying perfectly seasoned meat made richer once I broke the yolk atop it ("Are you going to have all your courses on bread?" I was asked). The beer-brined pork chop the youngest son let me taste was delicious, too, although not quite fatty enough for my taste.

People continued to arrive as we ate and I spotted a friend come in with three strangers. When he came over to say hello, I learned that he was on a business dinner entertaining travel writers so he'd been on an all-day eating marathon at restaurants throughout the city.

The funniest thing he said was that he'd just come from a restaurant that had a Richard Gere menu and that I absolutely had to check it out. It gets odder because someone had noticed earlier that there was a picture of Richard Gere hanging in Metzger's kitchen.

Why Richard? Inquiring minds want to know.

He went off to eat with the travel writers (there's a job I could get used to) and I ate a dessert of three housemade gelatos: tequila/kumquat (which had a very long finish), a decadent chocolate and the most ethereal of all, creme fraiche, its flavor heightened with lemon. Each had an incredibly creamy mouthfeel.

And while it would have been great at that point to push the tables aside, dim the lights, crank the soul music and dance 'till dawn, my posse was ready for bed. That's right, the three people who'd napped were pooped while the one who'd walked four miles this morning was looking for some action.

Must be that oldest child stamina.

The Devil in Me

The green fairy was calling my name but I didn't want to seem easy.

As it was, I'd already been easy enough, dancing with a stranger on Broad Street today. Navigating the snowy sidewalk near Ghostprint Gallery and Lift Coffee Shop, I spied a man approaching me.

Just as we got in front of Lift, we both caught the soundtrack from inside: Martha Reeves and the Vandellas belting out (Love is Like a) Heat Wave.

But that doesn't mean it has me amazed
I don't know what to do, my head's in a haze

Fluidly, he began to dance right in front of me, daring me to dance with him on the sidewalk.To "Heat Wave"? You know I did.

So even though the green fairy had been on my mind since yesterday's talk with a curator about French painting, I elected to delay gratification. Temporarily anyway.

Arriving at the VMFA, I spotted a guy making the first ball for a snowman with his bare hands on the wide front lawn. Nearby, another snowman stood fully formed, a testament to someone with gloves and more sense. When I mentioned it to the guard inside, she just shook her head and observed, "Young and stupid."

Inside, I found a nearly empty museum, a desolate landscape. Surely the snow hadn't scared off the museum's usual Thursday night masses? Oh, but it had.

Upstairs in the print gallery to see "Felix Bracquemond: Impressionist Innovator," I joked with the security guard about the absence of humans.

"Maybe they're waiting to take their cue from each other," he guessed. "Maybe they're coming later." Maybe.

All I knew was I couldn't complain having the galleries to myself to linger over Bracquemond's exquisite engravings.

For an artist whose name was unknown to me, Bracquemond turned out to be a major player in the Impressionist scene. He'd been invited by Degas to exhibit in the Impressionist salon of 1874.

I found myself totally captivated by his "Gallery of Handsome Men," a series of engravings depicting well-known poets, singers and photographers (all with beards, all very hipster-like) of the era.

Highly surprising was his foray into the decorative arts with the Rousseau dinner service, a collection of dishes (plates, bowls, tureens) he'd designed. They'd been so popular, they'd been continuously reissued until the middle of the 20th century.

But perhaps the most unlikely link to the Impressionists came with his wife, Marie, a painter (and pupil of classicist Ingres) in the style of Morrisot and Cassatt, who also submitted work to the Impressionists' exhibitions.

A woman I'd never even heard of. Art history education fail.

There was a series of etchings after major painters - Delacroix, Rousseau, Courbet - and an obvious reverence for Rembrandt with a series of prints done in various states with changes in lighting and detail.

An altogether fabulous show of Impressionist prints not to be missed.

Coming back down the staircase, I was met with a smiling man who didn't begin dancing, but instead asked me, "How was your event?"

I returned his smile and said I hadn't been at an event, I'd been to see the Bracquemond show.

"I work here and I was upstairs having a drink to celebrate the Bracquemond show," he said. Worth raising a glass to, I know.

When he asked where I was off to next, I said Hotel X, the band playing in Best Cafe. Conveniently, he was headed there, too, so we walked on together.

Once there, I borrowed a chair from a table whose occupants weren't using it and settled back for Hotel X's unique blend of Afro-beat, jazz, rock, pop and world music.

Glancing outside, I saw that the Chiluhly "Red Reeds" had been brought in for the winter, a  good thing considering that the reflecting pool was completely under snow. Meanwhile, the sculpture garden was surprisingly busy with couples walking through the snowy landscape.

Having experienced them before, I knew I enjoyed  Hotel X for their musicianship (always lots of musicians in the audience), the genre-crossing sound (is that rock?...they're pretty jazzy, aren't they?...what's that groove?), the way they inspire women in shawls to do that crazy butterfly-catching dancing and men to do that sideline air-guitar playing thing that they do.

By then, the place was filling up enough that my presence was no longer necessary, so I got myself upstairs to Amuse where a lone couple was holding down the bar. I took the opposite end.

Wasting no time, I informed the sunny bartender that in my opinion, they needed to bring back the absinthe drip for the upcoming French "Art of the Flower" exhibit. As it happens, she was already working on a cocktail list featuring absinthe.

More importantly, she got busy making me an absinthe drip while I considered the menu. With a bit of prodding from her, I opted for the mussels and Sausagecraft sausage in white wine, garlic and lemon broth, a reliable bowl of savory warmth, a worthy pairing with the distinctive buzz of absinthe.

Delivering it, she commented on my very French (or, as she put it, "mucho Francais") food and drink combo, something that had already occurred to me. It was an evening for all things French.

Speaking of, I was interested to hear about the "green hour" Amuse is planning to coincide with the new exhibit, a charming way to introduce the green fairy to the uninitiated before they tour the show.

Before long, a familiar face appeared to join me with a glass of wine in hand with which to toast my second absinthe and initiate a discussion of luck, feminism and California living. On everyone's mind is whether or not they can rent out their places during the bike races this September, something I know many friends are doing.

The bartender said she'd considered renting her house and going to the beach for that week, but thought it might be more prudent to stay in town and wait on all the tourists here for the race. Not to mention all those cute, fit biker guys.

I can assure you I'll be staying in town for not only the view but the attendant fun and that includes the absinthe drip.

Rumor has it that it's not just for the easy anymore.

So Bohemian Like You

There's something about Geminis.

I'm one (and a pretty classic one at that) and many of the people closest to me are as well. That means that for the next little while, I'll be celebrating with them while they celebrate with me.

Tonight's quartet was 3/4 Gemini with one non, meaning we had seven personalities at the table. It can be a lot when you put so many multiple personalities together.

Our dinner party got started at Amuse just after that hailstorm that surely caught everyone off guard, littering the streets with so many leaves that in places they looked solid green.

But things were calm and collected at the museum as we were led to a table overlooking the reflecting pool and sculpture garden.

Celebratory drinks were in order - mine was Montand sparkling brut Rose- as we toasted the birthday boys and girls in the now sunny dining room. To each his own, but nothing says "I'm special" to me like bubbles.

The storm was the topic of the moment with one in our group having already lost power due to a fallen tree in his backyard. I was teased because my lack of a cell phone meant I hadn't received the dire "Take shelter" text that the three of them had to warn them of impending doom.

No, I figured it out the old-school way, by closing the windows and staying inside once hail began pinging off my tin roof and the wind became louder than the music I was playing.

Call me old fashioned.

I started my meal with a salad of local greens, pickled radish, goat cheese, spicy candied pecans and fig vinaigrette as we watched the sun give way to clouds and another bout of torrential rain begin.

At first we thought the hail was back but it turned out to be nothing more than gigantic raindrops, almost causing waves in the reflecting pool.

There was lots to catch up on - a possible new love that had been keeping the writer from working on his book, the theater in one Gemini's background that her mate didn't know about, the non-Gemini who'd blown his mates' minds by introducing them to spring mix instead of iceberg lettuce- and before long, we were the loudest table at Amuse.

A dubious honor, at best. YOLO- you only live once- became the rallying cry of the night.

Things settled down a bit as I ate mussels for the second day in a row, these with Surry sausage and Pecorino, and noticed all the familiar faces in the dining room.

With the film director I'd met at Bistro Bobette, the curator I'd interviewed about pop art, the yoga master recently returned from Mexico, the multi-media artist whose new show I'd just seen last night, the dining room was quickly filling up.

Our server offered us dessert, but we had plans elsewhere for that (if there's one thing Geminis require on their birthday, it's sweets), so we decided instead on after dinner drinks and before long, the absinthe drip was brought to our table so I could have a birthday eve visit from the green fairy.

The gentleman at the next table looked on curiously, eventually compelled to ask what it was and I was only too happy to explain about the drip's arrival back when the museum was lousy with Picassos and we were celebrating all things bohemian.

Not sure I made a convert of him, but I at least got him thinking about absinthe for the first time in his life.

Once everyone else had their post-meal bevvies of choice, we toasted each other as the adaptable, enthusiastic and eloquent people Geminis are known to be, ignoring what a pain our dual natures can be.

Next stop: Shyndigz for birthday cake.

We only had to wait a few minutes before being led to a booth but the place was already crazy busy for a Thursday evening.

When our gregarious server (a Gemini maybe?) told us about one of the cakes of the day, a black raspberry chocolate cake with whipped cream filling and chocolate icing, I knew I'd found my slice of heaven.

Others chose the s'mores pie for its warm, ooey-gooey goodness recalling Girl Scout camping trips of our youth and pushing me right over the edge after one bite.

Stick a fork in me, I was done.

Well, finished eating and drinking, but certainly not done for the evening, so I bade farewell to the Gemini contingent after birthday cards were exchanged and left to meet a friend for a movie.

We'd been trying for the better part of a week and a half to see the new John Turturro/Woody Allen movie, "Fading Gigolo" at the Criterion.

Coincidentally, the last time I'd been at Shyndigz, I'd run into a friend who'd heard a segment on NPR about the fabulous soundtrack to the movie and been so impressed with what she'd heard that she rushed out to order the CD.

One more reason I didn't want this movie to leave town without me seeing it first.

My friend was waiting for me in the lobby and with her popcorn in hand, we became the second and third people in the theater. Clearly not a big night for gigolos.

But my girlfriend and I are both Turturro fans and I've been a Woody Allen devotee since high school, so we already knew there was plenty for us in a script written by Turturro and finessed by Allen.

And the score! From the opening scenes set to jazz, the music was as fabulous (and often foreign) as my friend had told me.

But mostly it was the charm of seeing Woody Allen play pimp in his low-key comedic way to Turturro's middle-aged florist turned reluctant gigolo that captured me and made for such a charming story.

"A man needs to be funny," a woman tells her girlfriend, a fact any woman could affirm.

"A woman is meant to be looked at, else she'll just fade away," another tells the gigolo as she poses fetchingly for him.

Like an Allen film, the story is a postcard to NYC, in this case Brooklyn, and to jazz music, apparently also a favorite of Turturro's as well as Allen's.

There are probably women who can't imagine one as unconventional looking as Turturro as a for-hire gigolo, but I had no problem at all seeing why women wanted to sleep with him and pay for the privilege. Plus he brings them artistically arranged flowers, always a bonus.

What Gemini wouldn't savor a sweet, little movie about the nuances of love and intimacy to round out her evening?

YOLO, no matter how many personalities you have.

Femme Fatales and Pork Chops

I don't care what you expect or what they think. Tonight I'm gonna dance and dance.

And with that and a couple of bonnets, Scarlett O'Hara was represented in the "Hollywood Costume" show at VMFA.

I met a fellow movie-lover to take in the new exhibit, not sure how much would resonate with me since I don't go to blockbuster movies for the most part.

Although I'd never seen the 1934 version of "Cleopatra" with Claudette Colbert, I recognized her elaborate green satin dress right away.

That's because when I was at Amuse last Friday, the two female bartenders were discussing the exhibit and raving about that dress.

One said if she could have any dress from the show, it would be that one.

"But where would you wear it?" the other asked practically.

"Doesn't matter, I'd find a place," she'd said, leading me to wonder about the marvels of said dress.

Even my male companion commented on what a magnificent dress it was, if that tells you anything.

Impressive in a different kind of way was the dress from "Samson and Delilah," which had a coat and train of real peacock feathers.

Somehow, I feel certain that that's not environmentally correct anymore.

I found the wedding dress from "Camelot" to be very much of its time, 1967, with its finely crocheted, almost spider web-like, over-dress with tiny shells sewed on.

Any hippie chick of the era would have given her right arm to have worn such a thing while it seemed highly unlikely for the 6th century.

Just goes to show, costumes are as much about the period in which they're made as the period they represent.

Scarlett O'Hara's black mourning bonnet was there, the one she was wearing when Rhett Butler bid to dance with her and she agreed, scandalizing the refined women of Atlanta.

Tonight I wouldn't mind dancing with Abe Lincoln himself!

I saw Marilyn Monroe's dress from "The Seven Year Itch," and listened as a woman and her friend scrutinized the accompanying shoes.

"Those would be hard shoes to walk in," one said. Honey, I wanted to say, all she had to do was stand over a subway grate, so walking was not really an issue.

There was a whole section on femme fatales (a nickname my friend Holmes has used on me for years), those sultry and seductive women of questionable morals who seduce men and inevitably come to a bad end.

That's where I saw costumes like that of Annette Benning in "Bugsy," where she wore a dress with nine pounds of beads sewn on it.

Nine pounds!

I have one cocktail dress with beads sewn on and it's the heaviest dress to wear, so I can only imagine what a full-length beaded dress must feel like on.

It was fascinating to read that Austin Powers' suits were modeled on George Harrison's because he was considered quite a dandy at the time.

Didn't recall that.

Despite it being a Tuesday, there were plenty of other people seeing the show and by the time we finished, there was only an hour before closing time.

Quick like Rocky (his red, white and blue boxing trunks were in the show) running up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum, we hurried up to Amuse for a drink and to discuss what we'd seen.

As soon as the bartender saw me, she asked if I wanted an absinthe and scurried to the kitchen to retrieve the drip so I could enjoy some Trinity, my new favorite absinthe.

We spent the next hour talking about the exhibit, mainly how we'd have liked to have seen more technical information about what we saw.

Like how much did those dresses from "Shakespeare in Love" and "Dangerous Liaisons" or that "Batman" costume weigh, because they looked like they were heavy as armor.

Eventually we had to table our discussion because the lovely green fairy of Trinity was gone and the museum was closing down.

After a change of clothes to evening attire, not green satin of course, I headed to Acacia to meet a friend for dinner.

It seemed quite civilized when we arrived but soon became a madhouse with one gigantic party and a host of smaller tables arriving to claim their reservations.

Stay calm and order wine, that's my rule.

Friend is a non-drinker, but I can't say the same so I ordered a half bottle of Karine Lauverjat Sancerre 2012, with a honeysuckle nose (oh, for the halcyon summer days of honeysuckle) and a beautiful, long finish.

Wine Guy came by to see how I liked it, noting, "That's a favorite of the Mrs," a supreme compliment considering she's a wine rep.

Friend and I debated over the menu as the room began to fill up, trying to decide whether or not to go with the prix fixe menu.

Once we confirmed that, it was just a matter of choosing our courses, no easy feat given the options.

I eventually went with roasted beet salad with creamy goat cheese and balsamic vinaigrette followed by a pan-roasted Berkshire pork chop with country mustard sauce, macaroni and Gruyere cheese and garlic-braised broccolini.

Make no mistake, this was a superb pork chop, thickly cut, flavorful because it came from a Berkshire and worthy of picking up the bone and gnawing off every last scrap of meat.

My friend teased me as I sucked the remaining meat off the bone, but there was also envy in his voice.

But it wasn't the pork chop of Fred and Wilma, the pigs who'd supplied the toe-curling pork chops I'd had last month and which set the standard for all pork in my life going forward.

No, those chops had come from a small farm in Culpeper and had come from a Berkshire named Fred and a Tamworth named Wilma and, good god, the result was pig like you've never put in your mouth.

Reality check. Tonight's chop was excellent and even caused my friend to admit, "You out-ordered me tonight," which was saying something since he got the lump crab cake, or, more accurately, crab ball, a round of lump crab meat held together with a whistle, a prayer and some lemon juice and absent any filler.

Neither of us had much to complain about, although he did point out what a noisy room it always is, so I guess he did.

I always notice it most when I go to the bathroom which is the only place where you can reliably hear the music over the din of diners.

We watched fascinated as our bartender shook a cocktail shaker as if in slow motion, something neither of us had ever seen. Usually cocktail shaking is so vigorous.

Nope, he explained, not when making a vodka martini which requires a minimum of combining so as not to make the vodka cloudy.

And here we thought he was just showing off slo-mo style.

For dessert, I chose the milk chocolate cremeux with, be still my heart, salted caramel ice cream and chocolate streusel scattered about while Friend had a local apple streusel with brown sugar ice cream.

The individually-arranged slices of apples spiraling around inside his crust were a thing of beauty, but he couldn't convince me that my chocolate and salted caramel wasn't the superior dessert, at least for me.

Stuffed to the gills, we sat there talking while I finished my wine.

He's just started Doris Kearns Goodwin's "No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt," and we talked about the appeal of a glimpse inside a long-term relationship.

I laid out the reasons why he, a long-time music-lover, needs to see the documentary, "Muscle Shoals," leading to a discussion of old-school R & B and why we like it.

We geeked out talking about research, something the two of us enjoy and feel we excel at, despite the boring connotation to it.

That's okay. Even a boring researcher can put on a beaded dress and dance and dance when asked.

Especially if someone were to bid on me.

Can't Tango, Won't Fort

The plan was to keep Friday simple with fairies, food and film at the VMFA, only the drip was missing.

I barely made it to Amuse before the sun set, a shame given the wonderful western skyline visible through the wall of windows, but darkness is coming so early now.

Taking a seat at the end of the bar put me inches from where the absinthe drip should have been but wasn't.

An inquiry revealed that with the hordes descending for the "Hollywood Costume" exhibit, the drip was exiled for the sake of room for waiting customers.

I understood and I'm thrilled the show is so popular right out of the gate, but Amuse has got to understand that they're the ones who created green fairy junkies and they're the ones who've got to be able to feed those habits even now with the ruby slippers in residence.

Translation: they retrieved the drip from the kitchen and started one for me STAT, albeit not intravenously.

Well, that was a close one.

I moved down a stool to allow a fresh-faced trio to sit together and listened with amusement as they looked at the Hollywood-themed drink menu and began discussing alcohol.

The guy in the group said he wanted no part of the Lion's Roar, a cocktail of Old Overholt rye, Strega, Luxardo Maraschino, bitters, black peppercorn essence and Dolin dry vermouth.

Why not, you ask? Because it had vermouth.

"That was the first thing I stole from my parents' bar when I was sixteen and I drank the whole bottle," he said with clear distaste.

The bartender explained that A) it was undoubtedly cheap vermouth and B) vermouth, like wine, goes bad fairly quickly.

"You mean it doesn't have to taste like urine?" he asked earnestly, causing the bartender and I to exchange glances. What in the world?

"I wouldn't really know what urine tastes like. I don't think most people would," the bartender said diplomatically.

"Well, then you've never been in a frat house," he said, as if that explained everything.

I just took another sip of my absinthe drip and kept my eyes straight ahead.

For dinner I had a bowl of Tuscan kale and potato stew with house-made lamb sausage and two bites in, a server I know came over to tell me there was Billy bread in the house.

Now, I already had Amuse's superb herb focaccia in hand and thickly buttered, but she was thinking the Billy bread would be a better sopping vehicle with its crunchy crust. Right she was.

By the time the drip and stew were history, it was the bewitching hour for me to scuttle downstairs to the theater for the James River Shorts, an evening of the best of a juried competition for short form films.

On the way down, I heard about how fabulous my tights were and then stopped next to a security guard to admire the tangoing couples in the atrium below.

I have the tights, possibly even the legs, for the tango, but not the coordination.

Once in the Cheek theater, I found a good seat and settled in to be impressed.

"Anna Walks In" had a girl smoking (unconvincingly, I might add) and telling a strange story from her childhood in front of a clock that never changed time.

The audience laughed throughout "Return to the World of Dance," a parody about instructional dance videos.

This one taught the viewer how to make a post-modern dance with a few simple steps and their easy kit.

Just so you know, creating a manifesto was one of the steps, as was smearing butter on toast in one stroke.

"We will keep you posted on new developments in dance as they occur," the narrator intoned hilariously.

"Nitro" was the tragic story of a small town by that name in West Virginia's chemical valley (something I didn't know they had), which had been founded in 1919 and peaked in the '50s and '60s, with companies like Dow and Monsanto employing most of the town.

Using old footage, the film told the story of an explosion of Agent Orange which coated the town in the toxin, causing health problems ever since.

"Daybreak" was a series of animated drawings telling the story of a character laying in bed observing everything in his room - the cracks in the walls, the radiators, the windows- and the imaginary world he imagined through them.

The story ended with the character getting up to start his day, but the surprise came during the credits.

"This film was made on paper this size," it said, showing paper smaller than a Post-It.

"We're not kidding," the next frame read and showed a storyboard of dozens of little pieces of paper.

Knowing that now, I wanted them to restart the film so I could appreciate it all over again on a whole new level.

"Steak" took place in Richmond in a typical Fan-looking apartment with two guys who were convinced one of their roommates was a murderer.

On the plus side, he was cooking dinner for them.

When it became clear they needed to discuss the matter, one said, "Fort!" and they built one out of blankets in the living room so they could talk in privacy.

I'm inclined to think that only guys would yell "fort" to signify meeting time.

After a brief intermission, we saw the saddest film of the night and the one that took the People's Choice award, "Take Me Home," about a husband with a wife who had dementia.

The patient husband tries to accommodate her wishes but she clearly has no sense of reality, asking to go home whether she was at the nursing home or at home.

At the end, he erases her voice from their answering machine and replaces it with his own. Cue lump in throat.

And the soundtrack by Recluse Raccoon was a haunting accompaniment.

"Dwell Dig Shake" was the longest film by far at 29 minutes and told its black and white story in three parts.

The protagonist, an epileptic, finds an old VHS player in the trash and returns to his childhood home to dig up a time capsule he buried in 1998.

Back at home, he looks at a tape from the capsule made in 1995 showing him as a little boy. His roommate comes in and watches for a bit, commenting about the era.

"I miss the '90s," he whines. "Fatboy Slim and Nintendo 64 were the only good things about the '90s."

As if. A comment like that makes it easy to guess the age of the filmmaker.

The final film was "Puppy Dreams" about a high school girl trying to adjust to living with her Dad, finding out she has mono and that her friend is hot for a boy she once made out with.

The young actress playing the lead had a face you couldn't take your eyes off of and the film was one of three first prize winners tonight, along with "Anna" and "Daybreak."

Leaving the screening, everyone around me was talking about how fortunate we are to have the James River Film Society and events like this shorts competition.

Tell me something I don't know, people.

I made one last unplanned stop on my way home at my neighborhood joint, Bistro 27, for a nightcap.

Like last night, I had Graham's LBV 2008 porto, only this time with chocolate mousse and a Portuguese-speaking graduate student in broadcasting and journalism.

Asking me about my career path through radio, publishing and webcasts, he wondered how I'd gotten into broadcasting and journalism.

Not being particularly post-modern, I explained that I'd done it by going to school for art history.

I'm not kidding. You should see my storyboard.

F*ck Off and Boogie On

Never has the f-word been used so many times at the VMFA.

Okay, maybe amongst the staff, but definitely not at a marble hall event.

Secretly Y'All, Tell Me a Story had paired up with the museum to show a film silently while people told stories relating to the film's themes.

The movie was Jim Jarmusch's "Down By Law," a very southern black and white story of jail mates who escape.

Walking in early, I heard Tom Waites music playing (he also stars) and saw not only a bar but food for sale.

Since neither was yet on sale, I laid claim to my seat and went upstairs to Amuse for a quickie.

Standing at the end of the bar while my absinthe drip was prepared, a woman from Texas asked for a quick lesson in the green fairy.

Happy to oblige.

"Mmm, it smells so good," she said, eyes closed.

It is so good, I told her.

When I returned to the marble hall, a crowd had begun to gather with lots of familiar faces, many of whom I'd never seen before at a Secretly Y'All event.

Who wouldn't want to hear other people's secrets?

I took advantage of the southern food available, scoring a pork barbecue and cole slaw sandwich and a bag of Cheetos.

When I suggested to the food servers that pork rinds would have been more southern-appropriate, they agreed, saying that they hadn't been able to get them despite trying.

First up was Glynn, who'd impressed at a previous storytelling night.

Her theme was break-ups and her story was a doozy.

She mentioned the many red flags she ignored as she met and set up housekeeping with what turned out to be a seriously deranged man.

Within moments of starting, people in the audience were making empathetic noises as she told her incredible story of a mate who decides to take up with the woman next door (leaving a note saying "Do not try to find me") and move into her house.

Again, next door.

It's a brave woman who can share publicly a breakup story of that magnitude.

The best part was how she managed to move on, find a good man and live happily ever after. Next door.

Chris' story was about a scoop he got when working for the Times Dispatch about a divorce.

The wife wanted it known that her husband was a woman pretending to be a man.

Turns out he was also a liar, a cheat and a Republican.

In between stories, the sound would be restored on "Down By Law" and we'd get a few minutes dialog to keep us abreast of the story.

GWAR's lead singer Dave came next and he brought show and tell.

His first question of us was how many had been arrested and hands went up all over the room, although not mine.

He shared a tale of being arrested in Charlotte, N.C. for wearing the cuttlefish of cthulhu, an enormous phallic piece he apparently wears strapped to his loins during GWAR performances.

Feeling that he didn't deserve a prurient charge, he also pulled out a plastic penis, making the point that the cuttlefish in no way resembled it.

Guy came out and his first request was, "Please don't ever make me follow Dave Brockie again."

He had a point.

Explaining that he doesn't generally get into fights, he'd been in two in his life.

"The first happened when I accidentally joined the army," he deadpanned.

Most of us cringed when he told of a guy's leg being held and a pipe wrench brought down on it.

And the moral?

"If you don't like fighting, "Married with Children" is a bad influence, just like hard drugs."

Four-time Grammy loser Randy Blythe of metal band Lamb of God told his amazing saga of ending up in a Czech jail on manslaughter charges.

Seriously, here's the guy who made international headlines telling us his story at Secretly Y'All.

See why I don't miss this event?

His story of a cellmate who knew little English and whistled "Jingle Bells" incessantly provided one of the best lines of the evening.

"Come find me if the zombie apocalypse comes."

Will do.

Mark's story was called "The Hidden Man" and involved being an aide to an old man with dementia (who didn't like wearing pants) in Philly.

Despite non-sequiters like "You'll break your neck!" after Mark sneezed, he had some lucid moments when he gave Mark life advice.

It was actually a very touching story.

During the intermission, I bought another bag of Cheetos (don't judge) and stood in the endless bathroom line, where I overheard a girl tell Glynn how moved she was by the honesty of her story.

Not everyone would share such a difficult break-up, but Glynn's a Secretly Y'All pro.

Another Dave came out first once the movie was restarted.

His story of camping out at a quarry involved silent bloodhounds, supposedly teaching a blind girl to scuba dive and torrential rain.

Turns out the scuba was a ruse and the guy was really staking out the lesbians on the hill.

I kid you not.

Another Chris began his tale by saying, "I still camp out with my family despite the story I'm about to tell you."

He's a better man than I am because if I'd been forced to hike ("more of a traipse") ten miles as a six-year old, over a yellowjacket nest and after being charged by a  bull, I might have ended my family camping adventures.

On the plus side, he did learn that day that his Dad was not all-knowing and we all need to learn that lesson.

James, whom I know from the James River Film Society, got up to share next.

His tale of a road trip to NYC when he was in college with his buddy Rodney Honeycutt included many humorous asides ("There was dinner and supper, no lunch, in the world I grew up in") in his drawling North Carolina accent.

He told of stopping at his grandmother's house on the way north, where she loaded them up with biscuits with ham and sausage.

Ah, pig.

And as anyone (like me) who's ever had a southern biscuit-making grandma knows, there is nothing like homemade biscuits.

When they arrived early in NYC, they killed time because, "I was taught a lot of things and one was that you don't show up to someone's house four hours early."

I was taught the same thing, James.

The two North Carolina boys found kindred souls in the Bronx with two divorced women singing show tunes and the trip turned out better than they could have hoped.

By this time, the movie was going faster than the stories, so it had to be paused for us to catch up.

Richard came up saying, "Boston cream pie is not a pie. It's a cake."

That was a lead-in to his story of teaching in jails.

As he explained, that meant teaching to people like the woman who had microwaved her baby.

And the UR professor who'd killed her husband.

Not exactly a plum teaching job.

He told of how women in jail use moistened M & Ms as make-up, a garish visual image if ever there was one.

Richard said it was DeAntonio (Tony) who had originally made the Boston cream pie observation, which led to several other philosophical discussions between teacher and pupil.

He'd even tried to teach his students the Robert Frost poem, "The Road Not Taken," which dovetailed nicely with the movie's ending, where the two characters  part ways at a fork in the road.

Well, all except Roberto Benigni's character, who conveniently happened on a beautiful Italian woman and stayed put in the bayou.

Some people might call that a night, but I was having none of it.

After a phone call to help a kindred soul resolve some matters of the heart, I was off to Balliceaux for music.

It was already crowded and the band wasn't even starting until 11:30.

No problem. I ordered Cazadores and found a good spot to enjoy the DJ collective that had come up from Miami with the band, Psychic Mirrors.

Chris, who'd booked the band, told me that he'd like their sound, that it reminded him of K.C. and the Sunshine Band.

Enough said to know it was going to be fun.

The music the DJs were playing was Miami-sounding boogie, right down to the covers.

And let me tell you, a Miami-fied version of "Cheek to Cheek" is a far cry from Fred Astaire.

When the eight members of Psychic Mirrors took the stage (guitar, bass, drums, percussion, keyboards/vocals, synths and two vocalists), it was to force Richmond to shake their collective booty.

Front man Mickey Introducing the band, said they were from Miami (duh) and began with "Money Crazy," a song that jump-started the night.

Somehow, they managed to infuse "Rapper's Delight" with enough funk to make the few people in the crowd who remembered the Sugarhill gang forget them

They introduced one of their own songs, "Midnight Lover," saying it was on a D.C. label, but qualifying that they were doing it "Miami gangster style."

Honestly, it just sounded as dance-able as everything else they'd played, a very good thing if you ask me.

Their whole set was like that; if you weren't dancing or shaking your booty, something was wrong with you.

But nothing was wrong with me and I found it impossible not to dance, despite some of the people around me more interested in checking their phones than moving their groove things.

Tragic.

Their all-too short set ended with a song off their 12" EP before another Miami DJ kicked it back into overdrive to keep the party going.

Tell me stories and I'll dance until the band stops. Promise.

Always Dance First

There were myriad things I learned at the new VMFA exhibit, "Maharaja: The Splendors of India's Great Kings."

That a king fulfills his duty through patronage of poets, musicians, architects, artisans, craftsmen and, unfortunately, religious foundations.

If only we could work arts patronage into a democracy, we'd be all set.

That some people are so wealthy that they have tent hangings.

Because what maharaja out on a military expedition could be expected to sleep in a tent with no hangings on its walls? 

It's simply not done, my dear.

That the ancient Indian custom of "being fully adorned" made rubies and emeralds on a dagger or dice seem necessary and not ridiculous.

That a dervish was a wandering mystic who taught Islam and lived on alms.

And here all I thought dervishes did was whirl.

That widows were excluded from auspicious events.

Because, I guess, with a dead husband you might as well be banished to your home.

That there is no bathroom in the "Maharaja" exhibit.

Fortunately, when I asked a guard he took pity on me.

"Well, you're not supposed to leave once you're in, but come with me. I'll take you and get you back in."

And damned if he didn't wait patiently at the bottom of the steps while I used the facility and escort me back.

That if the royal army is being attacked at the fort, the women will decide to commit mass suicide to join their doomed warrior husbands in death.

But they will dance first. Surely there's poetry in that.

That instruments were to be decorative as well as functional, like the bowed string one that resembled a standing peacock.

No wonder music flourished.

That for Indian women there were sixteen adornments (sixteen!) that she should always wear, including things like rings, necklaces, hair ornaments, bracelets, perfume and kohl.

Epic Indian womanhood fail for me since I employ none of those, unless you count eye pencil as kohl.

That Indian royals were serious about their board games.

One elaborate piece housed eleven games with two storage drawers. Almost makes me want to pull out Parcheesi.

And the number one thing I learned at the "Maharaja" exhibit tonight?

That you can't see it all in one viewing. 

My fellow art lover and I gave up after three rooms so as not to have to rush through the hundreds of artifacts of Indian royalty.

I can't wait to go back, but by that time our stomachs were in control.

Upstairs at Amuse, we joined the lone couple on the patio and put on the VMFA sunglasses we were offered.

With the sunset making our faces glisten, we savored the amuse bouche, a vanilla turnip with beet confetti. 

The former beet hater actually moaned at its simple perfection.

I noticed that the menu is looking very Indian-inspired right now, so we took advantage of it.

Cava provided the bubbles while we began with a summery-tasting salad of Manakintowne greens with mango, papaya and Caromont chevre with strawberry vinaigrette.

Suddenly we'd gone from two occupied tables to six or seven as the sun sunk behind the Pauley Center.

The Indian  theme kicked in with the curried lentil croquettes with yogurt and harissa, dense little crusty balls that were also showing up on multiple tables near us.

Ditto for the naan bread pizza with pork belly, buffalo milk Parmesan, green scallions and a mound of arugula on top.

The red pepper and harissa sauce complemented the pig to perfection, making it as good a pork belly pizza as I've ever had.

But, yes, it was my first.

Now that the sun was a mere glow and our new lime green sunglasses superfluous, we decamped to the bar, where a small vase of pink roses added a charming touch.

Our purpose was twofold: dessert and a couple of absinthe drips.

The lovely bartender had been alerted to our presence and the drip was well-filled with iced water when we took our stools.

Still running on birthday week fullness, I voted for the orange crepes with lemon mousse to accompany our visit from the green fairy.

Because if you're going to try to get away without the sixteen adornments of womanhood, and I am, it's best to be with someone drinking absinthe, in hopes they may not notice.

But you never know. It's really just a roll of the ruby-encrusted dice.

Raising the Red Flag of Victory

Don't let anyone tell you that you can't have all kinds of fun at the VMFA.

Arriving at the museum before 5:00, I was walking in the Boulevard entrance (the only entrance as far as I'm concerned) when I heard, "Well, hello."

It was Greg, drummer for Goldrush, the band performing to the silent film classic "Battleship Potemkin" and ostensibly the reason I was at the museum tonight.

"Look at those legs," he smiled. "Very sexy, if I may say so."

You may indeed, I told him. What a fine way to start my evening at the museum.

Walking in together, he headed toward the theater and I went upstairs to Amuse to meet a fellow culture lover.

As it turned out, I was the first and only customer in Amuse at that hour, which was fine with me.

I took the center bar stool in front of a vase of white azaleas and greeted a favorite bar wench.

With no one else in the room, I could actually hear the ice melting and shifting in the absinthe drip at the end of the bar.

Which was good because it meant that they'd be ready to do an absinthe drip at any point I desired.

My film-going companion showed up and we eschewed the happy hour specials for some favorite wines.

He went Italian and I opted for the Boxwood Rose, a perennial favorite and never more so than this time of year.

I was delighted to hear that Chef had just redone the menu today so I had some fresh choices.

We began with tall food, namely the tuna tartare stacked over avocado with Chinese five-spice tuille and lemon oil.

The creamy texture of the high-grade tuna and ripe avocado contrasted beautifully with the crispy, spicy and lacy "cookie."

With limited time before the film started, we moved on to the papusa de chicharron after casually mentioning how good it sounded to the bartender.

She said it was her new favorite and we were sold.

The pulled pork in house made corn tortilla pockets with black beans, pickled cabbage and pineapple with red sauce and sour cream was an enormous portion that easily fed two.

Long-cooked pork inside corn made for a satisfying take on Mexican but it was the tart pickled cabbage that gave the dish its piquancy.

As we neared the end of the dish, we noticed the time and requested that our absinthe drips be started.

The moment she sat the sugar cubes in the absinthe spoons and started the ice water drip, the guy next to us inquired, "What is that?"

I think I've heard a stranger ask that just about every time the drip has been pressed into service for me.

I'm just providing an educational service for the uninitiated, you see.

After enjoying our absinthes, we headed down to the theater for the seminal 1925 silent film about a mutiny against the Tsarist regime.

Or as film lecturer Trent Nicholas put it, "Thesis meets antithesis and results in synthesis." Got it.

He said the story-boarding for the film looked like music and in fact the film could be seen as visual music, an imagery I loved.

The twist was having Prabir and the Goldrush providing the soundtrack with guitar, upright bass, violin and drums.

The movie seemed surprisingly undated in many ways although the story cards were a bit heavy-handed at times ("Heavy and gloomy is the sleep of the off-duty").

Having seen Goldrush preform many times, I recognized some of the songs used although they had also added new material to flesh it out.

It was funny; when they sang, "We don't have to worry about shit," an older couple nearby picked up their things and departed, clearly disgusted with such offensive language.

Hell, if they'd stuck around they'd have been appalled when Prabir started singing, "Roll one for me," since he wasn't talking about Easter eggs.

The band seemed to excel during the extended ship escape scene where their music perfectly mirrored the action onscreen.

Shostakovitch, who'd done the original score, would have been proud, assuming he could handle rock and roll.

I have to admit, I felt something stirring when the crew proudly raised the red flag of victory in a black and white movie.

The band got a standing ovation when the film ended with the squadron, which was supposed to stop the Potemkin, instead let them go and cheered on the rebel ship.

Goldrush had done the Potemkin proud and only offended a few people.

Well done, guys.

Since it was still early, I bid my fellow Potemkin-ite adieu and went up to Amuse to close out the night.

The dining room, which only an hour and half earlier had been scarcely a quarter full was now completely packed.

Horrors! I even had to wait for a seat at the bar.

In a stroke of random luck, it was the seat nearest the absinthe drip, so what could I do but order one?

The bartender inquired if I was still too full to eat again but it seemed as good a time as any for dessert.

Mocha java ice cream with maple cream, Merlot caramel and two oatmeal cookies, a recent addition to the menu, seemed like the way to go so I did.

Waiting for it to arrive, I took another look at the French photography show in the nearby hallway gallery.

Do people still kiss on the streets like they did in that classic 1950 Doisneau photograph? And, if not, shouldn't they/

Back at the bar, my dessert arrived and I dug in.

Nearby was a couple from the Northern Neck in town for the evening and we struck up a conversation about hour-old oysters, good restaurants on the Neck and sitting on the dock of the Rappahannock

The woman next to me, on the other hand, wanted to discuss classic vermouth (insisting I taste her Manhattan), San Quentin prison and the movie I'd just seen.

Next thing I knew, a beer rep I know was calling my name, having spotted me from across the room as she ate dinner.

She is convinced that eventually she can make a beer lover of me.

I have my doubts, but enjoyed meeting her new squeeze and hearing about the upcoming beer dinners she thinks I should attend.

I mean, be realistic. I just added absinthe to my wine and tequila-only repertoire last year after eons of drinking nothing else.

Fact is, I can't just jump on the suds bandwagon like that.

By the time they cleared out, it was time for me to go, too. It had, after all, been over five hours since I'd arrived at the VMFA and they were long closed.

Officially anyway.

As I walked out, the bartender called to me.

"First in, last out," she laughed.

Well, sure.

When I can get compliments, art, a terrific meal off a new menu, absinthe, a classic silent movie I've never seen and live music, I'll happily stay until the bitter end.

Or, more accurately, the better end.

Rebuilding the Bionic Woman

Never make plans because they are always subject to change. But set goals anyway.

I began at Amuse because it was a favorite bartender's last night and far be it for me not to worship at his bar one last time.

The vibe was low key when I arrived and escalated to full-on busy before it was all over.

Even better, a dedicated admirer joined me before long, making for an even better way to enjoy my evening.

We started with the Boxwood Rose despite the plethora of happy hour choices. As if that weren't surprise enough, there was a new prix fixe menu.

Amuse, you've gotten so hip lately.

We couldn't resist the regular menu, though, choosing  the country style duck pate with quince whole grain mustard, pistachios and toasted crostini.

At the bartender's recommendation, we let it sit for a while to warm up, releasing the flavors.

Just as compelling were the house-cured sardines and roasted piquillo peppers with arugula, olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

It was just short of an Italian's wet dream.

Last, but certainly not least, was the grilled polenta with a saute of local mushrooms and creamy sherry with chives.

Meanwhile, we had been greeted by WRIR folk, the bartender's parents ("Didn't we meet in an alley?") and a couple who clarified that they were not engaged.

Because it was the bartender's last night. It seemed only appropriate that he make my last absinthe drip at Amuse.

Okay, maybe not my last, but the last he  prepared for me.

A nearby bar sitter marveled at the process, never having seen it before.

You have to love absinthe virgins.

Because of the later light and the magnificent view, we lingered over absinthe while admiring the fading March light over the sculpture garden.

By then I'd missed the Black Maria Film Fest I'd intended to make.

Eventually, we marshaled our forces and went to see "Visions of France: Three Postwar Photographers," a beguiling show of people kissing, cafe scenes and assorted denizens of Paris' streets.

We were taken with Doisneau's "Kiss by the Hotel de Ville" mainly because of the girl's arm.

Yes, he is holding her shoulder and kissing her hard, but it is the surrender in her right arm that captivated us.

Clearly, she was completely helpless once he started kissing her.

Now, that's street art.

Stopping on the second floor landing, we paused to admire the host of couples tangoing on the lower level.

Every third Friday, they do Tango after Work and watching these couples dance was a beautiful entertainment.

I am probably far too uncoordinated to attempt tangoing, but I couldn't help but admire the beauty of the joined bodies.

And I've got the wardrobe; all the women wore skirts or dresses.

We all need something to aspire to.

Next up, I went to Strange Matter for music because how else do you follow absinthe, street kissing and tango?

In this case, with leg compliments from a girl, libido questions from a guy, a man in the ladies' room and three excellent sets.

Marionette started on time, a rarity at Strange Matter, and played an incredibly tight set of new music.

It's fantastic when old fans get rewarded with new material.

During one song the drummer's girlfriend came up to me and said, "This song sounds like sex, doesn't it?"

When I mentioned her comment to the guitarist later, he said, "I thought it sounded more like victory...or maybe that's the same."

Ocean versus Daughter was next, and while I'd seen them once before, I hadn't known the full back story then.

Hearing her sing "You hurt me. I hate you. I hope you die in a fire" takes on a whole new meaning when I learn that the guy she wrote it about is in the room.

While I liked her voice and keyboards, even better was when she had two members of Marionette backing her up.

During a trip to the bathroom, I came out of my stall to find the singer cornered near the sink by a guy who wanted her to listen to his band.

But really, following her into the ladies' room to make his pitch?

I can't decide if that's very rock and roll or just skeevy.

Last up was Canary, oh Canary and while the vocals weren't quite high enough in the mix, they did their usual superb job with reverb and obtuse lyrics.

So while I'd traded off film for music, I can't come close to matching the record of WRIR's Galaxy Girl, who was there tonight. She's now seen fifteen shows this month and it's March 16th.

I bowed at her feet for such awesomeness.

The best I got tonight was having a musician friend tell me he'd been driving through my neighborhood and was admiring some great legs in shorts when he realized it was me.

We're going to call that metaphorical bowing at my legs for semi-awesomeness.

I know it's not much, but it's hard to compete with a record like fifteen out of sixteen.

Truth is, when it comes to some things, I'd be happy with one out of three.

As long as it's the right one.

Putting on His Socks in the Sunshine

Knowing it was going to be 72 degrees today, a friend had invited me to lunch 24 hours ago.

Wanting to do it outside, I chose Amuse for the patio overlooking the sculpture garden.

So imagine our surprise when we arrived only to find that the patio was closed due to high winds.

This is what mothers warn you about when they tell you life's not fair.

Although they had one unreserved table open, we opted for the bar where we had at least a clear view of the sculpture garden where many people were lunching or sitting and strolling.

One couple had adopted the poses of Manet's "Dejeuner sur L'Herbe," with the girl sitting and the guy reclining on their blanket as she fed him.

It looked very cozy, so much so that when they finally got up to leave after an hour plus, she put his socks on for him.

I thought it seemed very sweet, but my friend mentioned that there are better things a woman could do than put a man's socks on for him.

The Amuse menu is particularly appealing these days, with the irresistible (at least to me) skate wing now on it.

It was sauteed with miso eggplant, roasted red pepper salad and a spicy Thai pepper sauce, so a creative take on a too-rarely seen option from the sea.

The sauce had loads of heat and the delicate meat was the prefect vehicle for it.

We discussed classic cocktails with the bartender referencing her 1971 "Playboy Guide to Bartending," which led us to the topic of bar jokes.

My friend had several at the ready, including one that could be used as a litmus test for cultural literacy.

Rene Descartes walks into a bar and the bartender asks if he wants a drink. "I don't think so," Descartes says and poof! He disappears.

Okay, I laughed hysterically but he said the last group he told it to looked puzzled and asked for the punch line.

Don't get me started.

My friend is as devoted to dessert as I am, so we tried the enormous chocolate cake with chocolate ganache, creme anglaise, cashews, whipped cream and cashew brittle.

Because it's a beautiful, sunny March day and I can, I couldn't resist getting a visit from the green fairy and my friend watched with fascination as the ice water dripped down over the sugar cube into my glass of absinthe.

Chocolate and absinthe and smart bar jokes? Heavenly.

And from heaven we went to death by going down to the marble hall to see "The Mourners: Tomb Sculptures from the Court of Burgundy."

Late medieval sculpture masterpieces, the smaller-than-expected pieces so extravagantly carved in marble are a testament to the grieving process.

Figures wail, cry, wipe away tears, clutch rosary beads and generally do all the things Catholics do in following a funeral procession.

The deep blue of the walls in the exhibit evoke grief, much the way Death Cab for Cutie's lyrics to "Your Heart is an Empty Room" do.

Burn it down till the embers smoke on the ground
And start anew when your heart is an empty room
With walls of the deepest blue

So we've got indie corroboration; deep blue is the color of sad.

And walking outside afterwards, a far lighter blue was the color of the sky and the wind had settled down considerably.

So we didn't get our lunch al fresco.

I got bar jokes ("A grasshopper walks into a bar..."), skate wing, nut brittle and a Renaissance exhibit I've been eager to see.

You couldn't find a drop of deep blue in me.

Anywhere.

Amused by a Cocktail of a Brunch

At what point does brunch cease to be brunch and become an all-day adventure?

Running into a friend unexpectedly yesterday, I suggested brunch at Amuse today with his sweetie only to find that he was all for it. One caveat, however: he had to go to work afterwards.

He called later to confirm and we decided on 11:45, which would allow for a civilized wake-up time and still let us to beat the pretty people/churchgoers in.

Arriving close to on time despite my new-found propensity for tardiness, I found them absent and planted myself at the bar. Bartender Stephen greeted me and. without a word, made me feel welcome.

Reaching for the absinthe drip, he hauled it down and said, "Maybe I'd better refill this just in case." It wasn't even noon and he was making presumptions about my future absinthe consumption. Good or bad, I couldn't decide.

My friends the happy couple arrived and were pleased to see I'd scored bar stools for them.

When Stephen automatically began pouring  Montand Sparkling Brut Rose for me, they followed suit and had the same.

It was the earliest I'd ever been at Amuse and I felt fortunate to experience the pleasures of the early afternoon light, so different from the late afternoon and early  evening light, on the nearby museum walls

At times, we could even see the play of the water's reflection from downstairs on the wall and glass panels. It was lovely transient art.

With a couple of glasses of bubbles imbibed, we moved on to the eating portion of brunch, which began with hunks of raspberry coffeecake as the bread du jour. Moist and with bits of raspberries throughout, it took the edge off our appetites.

When we finally did order, two of us couldn't resist the special of Marguez lamb sausage over a Spanish tortilla with caramelized onion, spinach, and Manchego topped with a Romesco sauce; a side salad accompanied it, adding its peppery flavors to the mix.

The harissa seasoning of the sausage gave the dish a decided piquancy and the caramelized onion provided the sweetness. The eggy tortilla and sausage made for a hearty dish. Plainly put, we had laid down the base layer.

Afterwards, Stephen teased us by telling us about a new drink of which he was quite proud, although it was not yet on the menu. Don't tease and not produce, I warned him.

With a little prodding, we were able to order the Lady Blackberry, an enticing combination of Patron and gin that somehow also involved egg whites. A study in pink layers, it was complex and silky.

Should you be in Amuse anytime soon and seeking a unique cocktail, ask about it; this is a drink that will speak to many palates.

Once done with that guilty pleasure, we continued with the cocktail portion of the afternoon, which for me meant the green fairy arrived (okay, so Stephen had been prescient in filling the drip earlier) while my friends began with a Bamboozle and a Hemingway.

We finally got around to discussing dessert, only to become lost in other topics like life's priorities.  The male half of the couple boiled his down simply enough: women, music, blueberry pie, steak and then bourbon.

I will have to give it some thought before producing my own such list. It did, however, spur us to order dessert. We tried one of today's specials, the blueberry buckle as well as the old standby, the chocolate pate.

The buckle came over a mango/goat cheese combination and beside an enormous gob of fresh whipped cream.

As the three of us enjoyed the buckle, we got into a discussion of young men's presumed wisdom. It was a good thing the green fairy had visited me repeatedly by that point.

My friend said that when he was in college, he was sure he knew absolutely everything.

"That blueberry almost came out my nose," his loving girlfriend said in response to that statement. The visual alone made the day a success.

At several points in the afternoon, it was acknowledged that we had been there for three, four and finally five hours. Only then did it seem wise to end our endless brunch and move on.

Had it not been for a surreptitious trip through the "Civil War Redux: Pinhole Photographs of Reenactments" exhibit in a nearby hallway earlier, I would not have been ready to leave.

Much as I love Amuse, I do require at least some art when visiting the museum; I am an art geek after all.

The shadowy pictures of re-enactors on the steps of the White House of the Confederacy and in front of the Lee Memorial  danced the line between modern day and the past.

I especially loved the occasional anachronistic detail like a Custer re-enactor leaning against a Dodge truck. Where history meets the highway, so to speak.

It's the same bizarre intersection as when a quiet little brunch becomes a day-long odyssey through food, cocktails and conversation.

I honestly thought I'd be home in an hour and a half. I'm sincerely glad that I wasn't. And that's without even sharing the best part of the day.

Mum's the word. Or, for now, Montand Sparkling Brut Rose.

And, needless to say, no one did any work afterwards.

Following the Muse

Not to belabor the point, but I saw 176 Picassos tonight for the second time in, oh, 33 hours. According to one of my accompanying friends, it'll take three visits to fully wrap one's head around so much Picasso.

So tonight was number two for me. Afterwards, with no expectations whatsoever, my couple date and I headed upstairs to Amuse. Just in case.

I'd checked Opentable.com and they didn't have a thing available tonight, but as long as we were there, the sensible one among us suggested trying.

Would you believe we got three low-slung chairs and a cocktail table within five minutes? My friends jumped on the list of Amuse's Cubist cocktails (one friend got the Guernicava; get it?)while I ogled the absinthe drip on the bar.

You read correctly. A glass vessel with iced water inside had four spouts from which water could be dripped over a sugar cube resting on a slotted spoon into a glass of absinthe underneath. One look at that thing and I knew I had to have one.

But not without some food in my stomach first. My couple date ordered cocktails while I got a glass of Rose. For eating purposes, we chose sauteed duck livers (with apricots, brandy and crostini), grilled halloumi (with beignets and preserved lemon jam) and mussels with Sausagecraft Della Nonna (in garlic butter with grilled bread).

We had so much food that our server had to bring us an additional cocktail table to accommodate it all. The mussels and sausage were superb, easily our favorite of the three. And who doesn't enjoy a good duck liver (I know, I know, the people who are afraid of sardines and sweetbreads)?

Not surprisingly, Amuse was mobbed with people standing even at the end of the bar. From our comfy chairs, we could see the long line of people waiting, tickets in hand, for Picasso. As a security guard had told me earlier, "It's going to be crazy for the next three months."

My absinthe arrived with its distinctive smell and artistic references to the absinthe bars of 19th century Paris. I couldn't think of a better way to celebrate having just seen the Picasso show again than with the green fairy.

After much deliberation, dessert was sticky toffee pudding with ice cream and an apple and cinnamon Napoleon, the former being the standout, although both were delectable.

All of a sudden, we looked up and the restaurant was all but empty and the one remaining table contained the VMFA's director and several curators, who probably weren't likely to be asked to leave. Unlike us.

It was so late that my favored Boulevard entrance had been locked and I was forced to use the new entrance. It was the only jarring note of an otherwise delightful evening (I am wholeheartedly committed to that Boulevard door now).

My dates headed home to catch up on sleep while I headed to Balliceaux to hear Miramar play boleros; you don't need a date to enjoy romantic music.

A Miramar crowd is very different from the crowds at most of the shows I go to there because of its enthusiastic fan base. Nonetheless, I ran into lots of people I know, most notably the handsome Colombian scientist I'd met there last month.

He made a point of telling me that my blog is now on his Favorites; I feel fairly certain that this is a 21st-century come-on line, but I'm not entirely sure, so I took it as a compliment.

Miramar's slow-tempo romantic music is always a pleasure to hear despite not understanding Spanish. Introducing a song, lead singer Reinaldo said, "We're trying to go from sad romance to angry romance." That's the natural progression of romance anyway, isn't it?

As the band was winding down and I was walking out to leave, I noticed a guy sitting in a chair near the front of the restaurant. "Kind of far from the music, aren't you?" I teased, about to step outside.

Next thing I knew we were having a protracted discussion at the front bar of dating young (and how young is too young?), dating foodies (I'm fine with dating just eaters) and settling instead of moving on. The bartender suddenly announced that everyone had three minutes to finish all drinks.

We agreed that far more conversation is to be had. Forget about not talking to strangers. The lesson here: never count an evening over until surrounded by my own four walls.

Oh, yes. And never pass up a good absinthe drip. You never know where the green fairy will take you.