As Long As I Don't Have to Actually Knit

If I want to be surrounded by men, all I have to do is go to a lecture at the Virginia Center for Architecture. Not that that's why I went tonight. Or not entirely anyway.

Actually the topic was what drew me to the Branch House tonight. "A Ruin Revealed: Rosewell" was about the 18th century Gloucester County mansion that I had never even heard of before the opening of the "American Ruins" photography exhibition currently at the VCA.

Oh, sure, I knew about the Barboursville ruins (always a pleasant side trip after some wine tasting), but Rosewell not so much. Clearly a lesson was in order.

Architectural historian Mark Wenger provided the history as well as future plans for this three-story brick mansion with the three and a half foot thick brick walls. This house that Thomas Jefferson frequently visited (even writing a rough draft of the Declaration of Independence there).

A house with 450,000 bricks in it. One that took three miles of forest to procure the lumber for the floorboards alone. Because it took a decade to be built, owner Mann Page was dead five years before its completion, drat the luck.

It was a fire in 1916 that destroyed all but the east wall, parts of the other walls, the four chimneys and the wine cellar. Wenger said efforts are underway to stabilize what's left for the sake of further research and for future generations.

As far as I'm concerned, I now have to see Rosewell. I want to stand on the banks of the York River and admire the surviving wine cellar and imagine the grand parties the house once hosted. Fortunately, the ruins are still open to the public...for now. Road trip?

At the reception afterwards (after being warned to keep the red wine in the social room for fear of spillage), I had the pleasure of being approached by several attendees, all of whom asked what my interest in the lecture was (was this a quiz?). Sheer nerdiness? Curiosity about history? I didn't have any easy answers, but I got lots of great conversation from strangers.

A stop at Black Sheep on the way home for dessert and wine, and to chat up a friend I hadn't seen in a while was in order. I timed it right so things were winding down.

I took a seat next to two girls trying to finish their battleships and somehow we ended up in conversation when they asked for a dessert menu and I shared mine before their server could return with one.

Not wanting to influence their dessert choice, I waited till they'd ordered and my LaBrea tarpit (chocolate creme brulee) arrived before offering them bites of mine, insisting they take an animal cracker and scoop out some chocolate for each of them to taste.

They loved it, just like I knew they would and from then on we were fast friends. They said my dessert acumen meant they should ask about my favorite restaurants.

That led to a discussion of all kinds of eating out, covering even Fredericksbug since they'd gone to school at Mary Washington (which also led to a wonderful discussion of the satisfaction of driving Route 301; they were kindred souls on that subject).

By the time they got up to leave, my friend had finished her shift so she sat down to eat and catch up. The radio was set to slacker.com, so the music was terrific (The XX, Smashing Pumpkins, Andrew Bird) and just the right volume now that all the customers were gone. We talked about customers with unrealistic expectations of small restaurants and how to address that.

She brought up RVA's love affair with brunch ("People will wait an hour and half and then order scrambled eggs and a biscuit. I don't get it."). We tried to understand why Richmonders are averse to community eating and California and Europe are not. And who decides to proclaim that a restaurant kid-friendly?

By the time my Guintrady Cote du Rhone Grenache blend was gone, we had talked and talked but hadn't solved all the issues on the table.

"We need to have a knitting circle with restaurant people and just talk about this stuff," she said. "You have to be there."

But I'm not a restaurant person, I told her. "Oh yes you are," she objected.

Will there be chocolate and wine?

Men, Men Everywhere

"Ruin your Thursday @ the VCA" the invitation read and I had every intention of doing just that. Tonight was the opening of American Ruins, a collection of almost 50 black and white images of ruins from the east coast to the west, showing at the Virginia Center for Architecture.

Arthur Drooker's photographs were artistic beauties, with crumbling walls and roofless columns framed by bare branches and leafy trees. I was shocked to learn that some of the ruins had been destroyed as recently as the last forty years; for some reason, I had presumed that these were long-time ruins, but then we're barely a long-time country. In most cases, fire was the culprit.

The Virginia ruins site represented on the walls was Barboursville and their winery was pouring tonight, but the exhibit is worth checking out even without a touch of the grape. It's up through the end of November. I even took the time to stroll the back garden of the Branch House for the first time tonight. It's a lovely, tranquil place.

As always, the opening was mainly male (architecture being male-dominated, I suppose). Of note was that I only ran into one person I knew (and fortunately I wasn't wearing black), but he knows me well enough to ask what the rest of my evening held. Telling him reminded him that he had also intended to be at my next stop (I'm as good as a calendar reminder sometimes).

That stop was The Empress for the Richmond Business Alliance champagne reception to celebrate the launch of the city's online directory of LGBT-friendly businesses. The Empress was being publicly designated as such tonight and the room was full of other LGBT business people. For the most part, it was a room full of attractive well-dressed men well-versed on all kinds of interesting topics.

I talked theater with actors and directors, restaurants with a real estate agent, and local bands with a writer. I loaned a book about coffee to a fellow blogger. I ate some of Chef Carly's delicious appetizers and sipped bubbles from bottom-heavy glasses. I like to think I was an asset to the party (Kevin, correct me if I'm wrong here).

Everyone wanted to know my connection since I don't own a business, so I shared my ties to the sponsor. My only regret was that I didn't get to stay for the cake, but happily I did satisfy my sweet tooth with a taste of the frosting and it was to die for. That's all I'm saying.

I had to cut out early and leave such charming company and such a culturally significant event in RVA to catch the opening band at the Canal Club, Marionette. These locals have been on a roll this summer, opening for The National, the Whigs and now Tortoise. It's the kind of resume-building a local band dreams of.

For the first time in years, the show was held upstairs instead of on the downstairs stage and no one seemed to know why. The show had originally been scheduled for the National, but a NASCAR-related corporate event had trumped Tortoise and they'd been moved to the smaller venue. Driving down to the show, I'd seen a lit-up race car in front of the National and a line of people down the block.

And given the size of the crowd, the Canal Club was big enough. Despite Tortoise's 20-year music-making history, the crowd was surprisingly small. Two different people said to me, "I'm disappointed in Richmond," referring to the low attendance.

But the fans who came were devoted and almost all of them were male. What we can glean from this is that jazz and prog rock-influenced post-rock bands are favored by those with a Y chromosome. A musician friend (a drummer) said that they are a drummer's band as a way of explaining all the guys.

A female attendee said to me, "It's all dudes, which is cool, but they're so into the music they don't want to talk to a chick." I gathered that she was saying that it was not a good place to pick up a guy. Luckily I wasn't there for that.

The band was tight, all excellent musicians and I liked all the percussion. A musician friend was turned off by the extensive use of synthesizers, but loved the vibes. But when it came right down to it, I just didn't possess enough testosterone to fully appreciate Tortoise it seemed. They were good, but they weren't rocking my world.

Walking to my car after the second encore, two guys almost bumped into me coming out of Wonderland. One said, "Don't you love this weather?" to which I said no and placed my cold hand on his arm.

"Damn!" he said. "Where's your wristband from?" I told him the Canal Club. "Aww, man, the Tortoise show? Was it awesome?"

He was a guy. He knew Tortoise was playing even if he hadn't gone to the show. I knew what I had to say.

"Yea, it was awesome," I told him. "Why weren't you there?"

A look of pure male guilt crossed his face. It was the perfectly appropriate ending for my Tortoise experience.