Dear Diary

It would have been so easy just to stay inside the whole day and grumble about the arctic vortex freezing us out.

But where's the fun in that?

Instead I invited a fellow film-lover to meet me at VMFA for "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein," a 1994 horror film I'd never seen.

Not being any more of a fan of the genre now than I was then, I went because of the literary reference, assuming that the author's name in the title ensured a somewhat more faithful rather than Hollywood-esque adaptation.

The museum educator who introduced the film (and had a Frankenstein finger puppet on) dispelled that notion right off the bat.

"This is really "Kenneth Branagh's Frankenstein," she warned us. I presumed since he was directing that that meant it was his take on the classic tale, but no, she meant he was in practically every scene, more often than not with his shirt off.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a Branagh fan at least when it comes to his Shakespearean roles, but during a lot of this movie he looked like '90s-era Bono, swaggering around full of testosterone and righteousness.

Then there was De Niro as the creature, not a bad choice since if anyone could pull off the role of a reanimated man sewn from parts, he could.

Except when he's talking to very British Dr. Frankenstein and his New York-ese dogs every word he says.

If the creature could read and talk and play a musical instrument because of the bodies from which he was created, It's tough to see where he got his accent, seeing as how they all came from that side of the pond.

But I quibble.

The movie was an interesting adaptation in that it tried to incorporate every film version since Edison's, along with some fidelity to Shelley's book, making for a jam-packed two hours.

I have to say, it was far gorier than I expected and even the man sitting next to me winced and put his hands over his eyes a few times when things got graphic.

Me, I just close my eyes when things get unpleasant.

After the film, I came home to do some clean-up work on a writing assignment before getting cleaned up myself to go engage in some community conversation.

The Valentine Richmond History Center (you know, the ones with 1.6 million objects pertaining to the city's history) was hosting the conversation at Arcadia and by the time I got there, they were just about full.

I managed to secure a seat in the back row next to a favorite film geek and beside a former teacher who lives in Church Hill, right in front of a window that faced Main Street Station.

The evening began with the Valentine's Bill Martin saying that 50 or 100 years from now, the only record we'll have of what people thought about this time we're living in will be publications because no one writes diaries or letters anymore.

I beg to differ. A blog is as good as a diary to future generations and I, for one, have been faithfully writing in mine for over five years now. And it's not even locked or hidden away.

But it's not about me.

According to Bill, it was about the roomful of 60-some people (30-some had been turned away because the room was full) having a conversation about the future of Shockoe Slip without any politicians or others with agendas in the room.

Our first assignment was to tell a stranger about our earliest memory of Shockoe Bottom. Ginny, the former teacher on my left, heard mine.

I'd only been in Richmond a year or so when someone recommended a club they thought I'd like called Bird in Hand, down in the Bottom.

I went with friends, the music was great, I danced and talked to people, but when I mentioned the place to some neighbors afterwards they were appalled.

Don't go down there, they warned. That's a dangerous place. No one goes to the Bottom.

Pshaw.

Ginny's first memory was of shopping with her parents at the farmer's market. Every week.

After the room buzzed with so many strangers talking at once, we were told that the decibel level had reached 98 - equivalent to a motorcycle or subway. There was a lot of positive energy in the room.

Then we reconvened the group and heard from people we hadn't talked to.

James, on the other side of me, recalled the particular pleasures of Main Street Grill and its wildly different day and night crowds. A woman remembered a fish market on the canal. Harry recalled his parents bringing him in from the county to see the aftereffects of Hurricane Agnes. Someone mentioned a boat restaurant with the best fried oysters.

One woman spoke of her great-grandfather, a Buffalo soldier who helped free slaves from Lumpkin's Jail.

It was fascinating hearing the memories of others.

Then Bill showed us photographs from the Valentine's collection, beginning with an 1855 image (the oldest one they have) looking across the Bottom up to the State Capital.

There was surprise at how dense the area was populated then.

We saw photos of the Exchange and Ballard Hotels where the rich slave traders stayed. One of Main Street in 1866, completely flooded.

When he showed one of the City Jail, a man in the front row shared that it was standard practice to paint the first floor of jails white so that it'd be easier to spot escapees against it.

A 1950s photo showed construction beginning on I-95, cutting an ugly swath between MCV and the Bottom.

Keypads were distributed and we answered questions on them to determine the demographics of the room, so different than the demographics of the city.

The only shared quality was a higher percentage of women in attendance.

We went back to small groups to discuss our current perceptions of the Bottom versus our hope for what we'd like it to be and more high decibel conversation ensued.

Then we had our experts talk, each for ten minutes.

Anna, part of the group espousing an alternative to the ballpark plan for Shockoe Bottom, explained her hopes of encouraging walkability and density for an area where "every step represents a history of some kind."

Jack, representing the mayor who was on southside pitching his ballpark idea, laid out the mayor's plan to incorporate a ballpark, a Hyatt, a Kroger, a glass-facade on the shed of Main Street station and two apartment buildings.

Lest it sound like he was ignoring the slave trade history of the area, he showed drawings for Lumpkin's Pavilion, a contemporary, glass museum situated over an archaeological dig.

Not surprisingly, when he finished a dozen hands shot in the air to comment or question his presentation.

But as one savvy attendee pointed out, we weren't there to crucify the messenger. The point of tonight's gathering was to share thoughts about the history and future of Shockoe Bottom with other people who care about that area and our city.

To meet other people willing to come out on a 17-degree night to hear about history and talk about how to make things happen.

To have a community conversation at 98 db.

Lincoln Ate Here

"My Dearest Love.......the second love of my life! Lets do lunch today if you can get away. But I want to go some where different...away from here. Someplace...think?"

The best possible invitation to come home to after my daily walk.

After a conference, we decided on Arcadia in the Bottom.

Walking in, the hostess's first question was, "Do you want the Lincoln table?"

Hell, yes, we want to sit exactly where Daniel Day Lewis sat back in November 2011 while filming "Lincoln."

I took the window seat with a plump black and white pillow and my charming friend took the very same chair that once housed DDL.

I deferred our wine choice to my host who opted for Napa Valley, namely a bottle of Starmont Sauvignon Blanc, a solar-powered winery with the greenest of aspirations and layers of citrus and melon.

The music was surprisingly enjoyable, with Fan Farlo, the Arcade Fire and Devotchka working their way into my ear while we dove into intimate conversation.

We began with crab and avocado salad (corn, jicama, Boston bibb, orange vinaigrette), causing my friend to proclaim it "the perfect summer salad" while I pointed out that today was the first day of spring and the salad was so well suited to that.

I admit, I was tempted by the tomato pie, especially when our server said her aunt makes them and that they are the best ever, but my lunch companion had more meaty interests in mind.

So it was that two lunching companions ordered the 22-ounce bone-in cowboy cut rib eye, a hunk o' red meat that no two people need to share at lunch, but did.

The garlic/parsley butter only added an obscene richness to the thick-cut steak which we soon devoured.

Over wine and cow, we dissected the State of the Plate, house renovations and how service could be improved in Richmond, a la Washington, D.C., a city with which we are both overly familiar.

Don't challenge either of us on the halcyon days of disco or D.C. in the '80s, for we will destroy you.

Our server attentively kept up with our needs, eventually asking about dessert and encouraging us to linger.

With the sun beaming in the front window and a glass of Moet & Chandon Brut Reserve, I acquiesced to a flour-less chocolate torte served with Gelati Celesti's chocolate decadence, my personal favorite among their flavors.

Nearby, a couple of businesswomen talked account reps and inferior service ("they're costing me money," one lamented), boring us to tears and sending us back to talk of the tenets of successful relationships, themes for summer parties and the hazards of poor upbringings.

I'd have happily walked away then, but with the late afternoon sun coming through the window, we opted to linger and I was enticed to enjoy one last split of Chandon Brut Rose, despite my companion's disdain for anything pink (fortunately, I don't share his distaste for rose).

Fact: Arcadia would not have been my choice, although the cachet of eating at DDL's table overcame any reservations I may have had.

Our steak was damn near perfect, medium rare and pink in the best sense and with a garlic/parsley butter that sent it over the top.

Next time my friend suggests a steak place for lunch, I will not fight him.

And, truth be told, our multiple hours at Arcadia did feel like someplace completely different, especially with the New York Post's page six article about DDL eating at Arcadia hanging over our table.

Every now and then, a girl's got to eat like a cowboy to enjoy a friend who needs something completely different.

Even if I am only his second best love.

Doing It Cowgirl Style

It's 5:00 on a Saturday afternoon. Do you know what you're doing tonight?

I didn't. Hence the beauty of getting an e-mail at 5:05 from a friend.

"What's going on? What are you doing tonight? Dinner? If you are free, let me know."

Freer than free. Planless. Absolutely nothing on the books whatsoever.

And this is the friend who once told the world that, "Oh, Karen knows the rules. She just chooses not to play the game."

Needless to say, I find that kind of insight irresistible.

By 6:15, we were the sole occupants of the bar at Acacia. By 6:45 there was a wait for tables and bar space.

Gavi di Gavi Ru appealed to me and satisfied my friend's passion for white wine only, but our tastes diverged once we got to the food menu.

He asked me what sugar toads were and once I explained puffer fish, stuck his tongue out in disgust.

I asked him if he ate mortadella and he grimaced, shaking his head.

So I ordered both while he chose the tempura local softshell with shaved Napa cabbage, carrots, red onion and curry vinaigrette.

He raved about his salad (and Chef Dale is a master with softshells, I agree) but I was more than happy with my two tenpura sugar toads with honey soy sauce.

Insert in mouth, scrape flesh off bones, savor and swallow. Yum.

The housemade mortadella was an enormous portion of what is a large Italian sausage anyway and combined with the pickles of fiddleheads, ramps and cabbage and grainy mustard on toasted bread could have been a meal in itself.

Not to mention its $3 price tag.

It was a beautiful night to be at Acacia because the front of the restaurant was wide open to the temperate evening air.

Once we finished the wine, we decided to do the progressive dinner thing and move on to Arcadia.

They, too, had their front door open and a lively crowd was in place when we were welcomed to the bar by a bartender who didn't have any customers at that moment.

Poor thing, he had no idea what he was letting himself in for.

My friend had been at Arcadia just a few days ago and wanted the same wine he'd had then: Drouhin Pouilly Fuisse.

Light, with a long finish, it was a great choice as far as I was concerned.

Having just polished off sugartoads and mortadella, I wasn't especially hungry, but my friend insisted we soldier on with our eating.

Deferring to him, he chose a starter of petite crabcakes (full of jumbo lump crabmeat but a tad salty, I thought) followed by the obscene and decadent Braveheart beef 22-ounce bone-in cowboy cut for us to share.

Because no one, not a cowboy or even a cowgirl, needs 22 ounces of meat.

On the other hand, that Braveheart beef is disgustingly good, even if I felt my arteries clogging as I ate it.

After mortadella, no less.

I'm going to hell in a handbasket, as my Richmond grandmother used to say.

Midway through our meal the rain began suddenly, making for a lovely soundtrack and sending people scurrying in from the outside.

I felt the temperature of the air wafting in from outside drop almost at once.

The music was a great mix tonight, too; I heard everything from Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" to Missy Higgins' "Steer."

But the search ends here
Where the night is totally clear
And your heart is fierce
So now you finally know that you control where you go
You can steer

When you eat as much as we did tonight, you have plenty of time to cover all kinds of personal topics.

Friend asked why I am at Balliceaux so often (music), told me about his new love (and the unexpected first night kiss) and gave me major points for hair and lipstick upkeep.

It's funny; you never know what people notice about you unless they tell you.

In the interest of ensuring that we had to be rolled out of Arcadia, he insisted that we get dessert and I picked a flourless dark chocolate torte with chocolate gelato.

The fudge-like torte was sensational, barely semi-sweet and texturally like velvet in my mouth, but the gelato was even more exquisite, positively sticky with its high butterfat.

Even so, no self-respecting cow girl would have eaten it after that hunk o' meat we'd just shared.

There isn't enough riding on the range I could do to offset the amount of food I downed tonight.

But then a real cowgirl would have had plans by 5:00.

And maybe steered a little bit better.

Bacon Days, Disco Nights

If you're going to wake up in the same condition you went to sleep, you'd better have a good lunch plan.

And I did.

I was meeting a friend to go to Arcadia and dish about men, restaurants and being pursued, topics we both had in common.

Friend was a tad disappointed to hear that I wouldn't be drinking with lunch as is our usual habit, but got no end of pleasure from the details of the night that put me in that dry place.

I insisted my friend go on with his plans for wine at lunch, and he happily conceded.

"Sorry you won't be joining me but glad to hear you're a bad girl sometimes," he observed with an evil grin.

Looking for a suitably satisfying day-after meal, I opted for the Arcadia club with fries, notable for the inclusion of real turkey (not deli meat) and thick-sliced duck bacon.

Our server seemed a bit nervous (new at this, are you?) but sweet and eager to please (flashing two thumbs up when describing the soup), replacing my very light fountain Coke with one more suitably dark since it came from a can.

We finished with a chocolate tartufo with "Arcadia" stenciled in cocoa powder on the plate while discussing disco and who knows what about it.

I could relate to his disdain for disco pretenders and their laughable idea of what those days were like.

Given my compromised state, I could talk disco but was only able to eat a couple bites of the tartufo, an unusually weak dessert effort for me.

After depositing him back at his restaurant, I moved on to the Second Tuesday Artwalk, also known as me finally making it to some of the gallery shows I'd missed by being at the museum last Friday instead of on Broad Street.

Candela Gallery had a show of Julio Mitchel's "Vintage Photographs" taken from the 60s through the 90s.

I found the most striking ones to be the older ones, of course, like the one of "Midget Movies, 3 Features, 5 cents each" with a man bending down to look through the slot-like viewer (peephole?) for his features.

Train imagery ran throughout and I always find scenes of them in the pre-Amtrack days fascinating for their window into a time when train travel was a true experience.

One photograph showed a Central train car and all eight windows framed a man reading the daily newspaper.

Eight men, eight papers, one shared habit.

Another showed the "bar car" of the train from the outside. In that one, a window framed men (what else?) drinking cocktails while another framed a black man in a white server's jacket mixing more.

There was a series of backstage pictures of cross-dressing men preparing for a drag show.

Beautifully made up faces with sassy hairdos sat on broad shoulders, narrow hips and, uh, banana hammocks.

One that required closer inspection was a fog-shrouded image on the water and at the picture's center was the Statue of Liberty, so small that it was almost unrecognizable in the mist.

A photograph of a brick wall with the words "Bar Entrance" and an arrow pointing down featured two men passed out against the wall.

Clearly they'd been through that entrance.

After Candela, I went over to Ghostprint Gallery to see George Pratt's paintings.

Painterly and colorful, they were at times impressionistic and showed a clear mastery of form.

I saw shades of Renoir in "Kristina" and "Angela," two pink-cheeked women who had been depicted in the most feminine manner, all soft colors and brushstrokes.

In "Haylee," the swirl of Pratt's brush suggested rather than depicted the woman and the room, except for one part.

The curve of her shoulder and arm was as pure a line drawing as could be done, not surprising for a man who is also a graphic novelist and illustrator.

"Dead Man" was the suggestion of a figure on the ground, not even close to fully formed, but completely evocative of the human body.

Dabs of bright red pigment coming from the head and shoulder remind the viewer of the subject's fate.

I found "Geisha with Mirror" to be the most representational piece with none of the impressions and dabs of paint of the rest of the show.

In "Country store" the paint had been applied to the canvas so thinly that its grain showed through, a marked contrast to the layers of paint on other canvases.

The show's final image, "Warming the Water" had a decidedly Manet-esque vibe with both the color palette and the exotic crouching figure suggesting the first Impressionist's style.

But just to remind the viewer that this is a 21st century work, there was an area near the woman's feet with an array of color splotches that were impossible to read as anything representational.

They looked to be there purely for the sake of adding color. Magnificently, I might add.

Walking back down Broad Street to go home after my mini artwalk, it occurred to me that I was no longer feeling the affects of last night's epic odyssey.

Just goes to show what the right lunch partner and a couple of excellent art shows can do to restore the equilibrium of sometimes bad girl.

And let's not ignore the obvious, either.

Bacon makes everything better.

A Little Night Music

I played a mother surrogate tonight.

It's not like it sounds. My friend Holmes has three season tickets to the Symphony. He usually takes his girlfriend and his Mom.

But Mom's in Florida at the moment, so I was runner-up for the pleasure of dinner and Masterworks.

We met up at Arcadia, took our positions at the bar and had a splendid time drinking the Cline Cashmere Red Blend and catching up.

Because they're inescapable these days, we began with the deviled eggs, here served over basil gremolata.

Holmes continues to insist that $6 for three egg halves is a bit much, but it seems to be the going rate all over town.

I started with the apple and arugula salad with candied walnuts, bleu cheese and cider apple vinaigrette, regretting only that the kitchen was over-generous with the dressing.

The black tiger shrimp ceviche over polenta with shaved greens and orange curry oil, a dainty portion, followed, but it was the girlfriend's Braveheart Black Angus strip steak that stole the show.

We also gave a nod to the obscenely rich potato pave with thyme and Parmesan.

As we sat there enjoying our food, the bartender popped a bottle of bubbly and Holmes commented, "It's like a woman sighing."

For a guy who was told by a date once to watch "The Notebook" because he wasn't romantic enough, I found that sentiment quite poetic.

It also led to us getting glasses of Cava to accompany our chocolate torte with chocolate gelato.

The torte oozed butter in the best possible way and the gelato was sticky with the heavy creaminess that defines good gelato.

Good thing we had the crisp-tasting Cava to cut that richness.

We barely made it up to Center Stage after lingering over our final course but managed to slide into our seats minutes before showtime.

When the concert mistress walked out to begin things, Holmes commented, "How does she play in those shoes?"

She did have on cute shoes, no doubt about it. But when you have to wear conservative black onstage, your shoes are your only outlet for razzle-dazzle.

I usually defer to him on musical matters since he's a talented viola (and guitar) player, but  before I could do so, he went on, "And look at the third chair's shoes!"

Hers were the tallest of stilettos and yet she seemed to have no problem whatsoever playing her instrument.

The program was definitely an interesting one, beginning with Piazzolla's extended tango in five parts, "Tangazo," written in 1968.

I loved everything about it: the knocking on the violins, the tapping of the bows to the instruments, the alternate slow and quick tango pace.

I'm sure that that was an analogy for something.

Applauding afterwards, I turned to Holmes to rave about it and he responded, "He should have scored a Bond movie!"

Yea, a Bond movie's seduction scenes, for sure.

Next up was the featured player of the evening. Guesting was guitarist Jason Vieaux on Rodrigo's "Concierto de Arnjuez for Guitar and Orchestra."

When Vieaux walked out in an open-collared black shirt, Holmes sniffed, "Man, if I'd known, I'd have left the bolo at home."

In fact, he looked quite dapper in his black shirt and black bolo, a gift from his absent mother.

The piece went back and forth between the soloing guitar and the orchestra, highlighting Vieaux's virtuosity.

During intermission, I ran into local rocker Prabir with his Mom (clearly good sons take their Moms to the Symphony) and learned that they'd been as thrilled with that first piece as I'd been.

Prabir said he'd been eagerly anticipating hearing it ever since he found out it was being performed tonight.

Okay, good, so it wasn't just my overactive glands responding to the seductive music of an Argentinian from a family of Italian immigrants.

We returned to Bolcom's "Commedia for (Almost) 18th--Century Orchestra," written in 1971 and based on the idea that the bite of a tarantula can only be relieved by music.

With its unexpected sounds and references to traditional classical music, it offered something for every taste.

Conspicuously absent during the piece were the concert mistress, the second violin and the cello soloist, all of whom reappeared at the end of the piece, having played their parts off-stage.

Just a composer's idea of comedy, I'm figuring.

Last up was Mozart's "Symphony No. 39," which meant nothing to me but thrilled Holmes since he'd heard No. 40 performed before but never No. 39.

I only wish my musical savvy extended to knowing which Mozart pieces I've heard played live.

Hell, I'm lucky he even deigns me worthy to accompany him given my appalling lack of classical music knowledge.

More realistically, I'm lucky Mom's out of town every January.

Talk to Me, Arcadia

If it's good enough for Daniel Day-Lewis, I guess it's good enough for me and a friend.

That was us at lunch, tucked away in an enormous back booth and sorting through the multi-ingredient descriptions of food attempting to decide what to try.

He made an executive decision and ordered the deviled eggs over basil gremolata to buy us more time.

You can't swing a dead cat without hitting deviled eggs in restaurants these days, but he was curious anyway.

Noshing on them, a server (one of many), appeared with a refill for my drink. I laughed and told him that I hadn't even realized I needed more.

"I'm here to see that you don't have to," he said. I appreciated the humor as much as the service.

I was tempted by the duck bacon BLT once I learned the bacon was done in house, but instead chose the Ashley Farms braised chicken thighs with ricotta spaetzle, beet oil and that basil gremolata 'cause my friend was dying for a bite of it.

He ordered purple rice crushed rockfish with spinach absinthe cream and arugula, deluding himself that he was "being good."

Hello, cream sauce?

While we waited for our food, the bartender came over with the brunch and wine menus in case we were interested in checking them out.

He was funny, asking if my friend and I actually knew each other or if we'd met on the street and decided to have lunch together.

I assured him that we were long-time buds and he complimented me on my skirt, saying he'd noticed it when I came in.

Forget celebrity sightings, I like a place where they say nice things about your Diversity Thrift flowered skirt.

We enjoyed our meal, trading bites and discussing the dinner menu, mainly for its 8-hour leg of lamb, a favorite of us both.

How soon do we come back and try that?

The dessert menu yielded only one chocolate option (a torte with sea salt caramel ice cream) which, as it turned out, they were out of.

Usually that's when this friend and I cut bait and forego dessert, but we made another choice for a change.

The Della Nona, a lemon filled pastry crust with nuts and confectioner's sugar on top, did a surprisingly fine job of addressing our sweet tooth.

On the way out, my friend admired the handsome wood bar while I admired the reasonably-priced wine list  where everything is $20 or $30, with some excellent values listed.

I have to say, I appreciate places who don't feel the need to do the typical restaurant markup on wine.

So unlike Mr. Lincoln, we didn't get our picture taken because we're not important enough to have our lunch documented.

Yea, but did anyone notice his skirt when he came in?

I think not.