Two by Two

What's with the sudden urge to pair up?

Before the night was over, I had one friend telling me the lengths her ex went to for her birthday - calls, a dinner invitation, flowers, a book of photographs of their relationship before he dumped her in a text -  and another friend laying out the series of steps required before he marries his main squeeze.

Did Noah send out another ark memo that didn't get to me?

We made the bartender at Acacia our fourth because we were the sole occupants of the bar and he was loquacious and witty. The only problem was he couldn't join us in enjoying Chateau Langlois Cremant de Loire, but at least he had a fat tip in his future.

During a discussion of the pleasure of eating duck, my friend asks him if he likes garlic butter. With a roll of his eyes, the barkeep responds, "I like oxygen, too." In other words, duh.

That kind of witty.

They must have been kindred souls, I'm thinking, because it takes a certain kind of man to offer a new acquaintance a pocket protector. And not even one that he had with him, just one that he had languishing at home somewhere, left over from college. Granted, the bartender did have four pens neatly lined up in his shirt pocket, a disaster waiting to happen. Not improbably, a conservation about pens spewing ink into white pockets ensued, complete with the barkeep's memories of a leaky pen ruining his R.O.T.C. uniform shirt in high school.

Some traumas you never get over.

They bonded over Russel Crowe and Denzel Washington movies, which pretty much left the womenfolk out of the conversation entirely. I tried to stay relevant by mentioning "BlackkKlansman" so we could talk about Denzel's son's talent, but they merely acknowledged me and moved on

Because we had the bartender's undivided attention, we could be as nosy as we liked. Talking about the benefits - wine at cost - and drawbacks - little playtime - of working every night the restaurant is open, he regaled us with his off-duty antics. Seems this past Sunday, that meant starting with bourbon and ginger upon waking up, a miscalculation that landed him back in bed by 8:30 that evening.

It's a marathon, not a sprint, son. Like the t-shirt I saw on the pot-bellied guy at the grocery store yesterday, "You can't drink all day if you don't start in the morning." That's some Confucius wisdom right there.

But he was also kind enough to share his current favorite wine, Riebeek Cellars Cape Rose, a ridiculously easy drinking pink that made our brains default to sunny days and porch afternoons. After pouring us glasses to taste, he acknowledged, "I never buy fewer than five bottles at a time," showing wisdom beyond his years.

Nor could our newfound friend join us in eating through the menu, although conversation revealed that he'd already done as much on his own. Now it was our turn.

So. Much. Food.

Crab fritters, fried oysters, white anchovies with Fourme d'Ambert. A salad of greens, apples, golden raisins and cashews in celery vinaigrette, just so I could live with myself. Entrees of rockfish, mahi mahi with roasted cauliflower and crispy potatoes and, my choice, rockfish collar with Brussels sprouts and mushrooms in a cilantro sauce, all nodded to the chef's talent with the bounty of the sea.

The manager stopped by to say hello and her outfit caught the attention of those of us who like retro fashion. A tan suede jumper over a cream turtleneck with dark brown suede boots was not only mod and Fall-like, but reminded my friend of an outfit she'd had in 1967. For me, it looked like something I'd aspired to in junior high.

Either way, we sent her off with effusive compliments about the look, even if Fall dressing does depress me.

So. Many. Layers. And it's only October.

Once we got the bartender dishing on problematic customers. we heard about those who order outrageous cocktails ("I'll have a Grateful Dead") and then when the bartender asks what's in it, have no idea. "You don't know and you're ordering it?" he asks them incredulously. Nope.

Our most serious discussion involved the differences for his generation versus ours in terms of what's attainable, a conversation that included debating trade schools versus college and how out of reach what his parents strove for was for him as an adult. I was feeling his pain right up until he said he and his girlfriend make $95K between them and after that I just had to question their budgeting skills.

Let's put it this way, when I told him how much I make, his eyes about bugged out of his head.

But nibbling on chocolate cremeux, sipping Cremant from a second bottle and listening to techno music, I couldn't help but acknowledge that life, especially mine, is good.

One highlight of the evening came not from the bartender but from my girlfriend, who pulled out a Baggie with a selection of old photographs from her 1987 group trip to Paris that showed her as a young woman, along with her best friend and the art professor she was secretly pining for.

But personal history aside, what caught my eye was how arresting her photographs were simply because she has such an artistic eye. One taken from her room at the Hotel de Lima shows a neatly parked street, the quaint old buildings receding into the distance. The composition is so perfect it would sell as a postcard.

All I could see, though, was how very different the Paris of 1987 was from the Paris I saw for the first time in 2016. Her Paris had only a fraction of the cars and people and none of them were looking at phones.

Another showed the nearby skyline through the leaded outlines of a rose window at Notre Dame. But my favorite showed her on the roof of a building as she stood behind a massive stone gargoyle "scratching" its back, the city spread out before her with the Eiffel Tower looming in the distance. She's smiling optimistically like she's having the time of her life.

Little did she know it would be another 25 years before she found the love of her life. Fortunately, there's wine, garlic butter and oxygen to keep a girl occupied until that finally happens and she qualifies to board the Ark.

In the meantime, whatever works.

You're Different

Your old person name is Pearl. You are full of bliss and you welcome the future with happiness. Joy runs deep through you and your warm spirit can cheer anyone up. 
~the Facebook oracle

Funny, I'd have thought my old person name would be Karen, but if it does turn out to be Pearl, it will be a nod to my great-aunt Pearl, whom I never met but heard about from my Richmond grandmother, Bessie (which is probably the most old-fashioned old person name on this or any planet).

As for my bliss, joy and warm spirit, well, I'm inclined to think that they qualify me for friends who not only appreciate those qualities, but also know who I am well enough not to underestimate me.

Ahem.

Tonight was all about staying on the Black Restaurant Week train, so I made plans to meet a friend at Croaker's Spot, but before he even arrived, I met a guy from Boston sitting at the bar. Truly, I was amazed to hear that the Hilton across from Philip Morris had suggested he come into the city and try Croaker's Spot.

All I can say is, go team Hilton.

Once my friend showed up, we headed to one of a very few available tables and tucked ourselves against the wall to stay out of the fray. Only one menu was free, so we shared.

It wasn't long before I overheard a server tell a table that they hadn't anticipated how busy Monday night would be (to be fair, it is the first Black Restaurant Week in Richmond) and later, when a server got busy rearranging small tables to form a table suitable for 12, we asked if a big party was in route.

"There's always a big party coming," she said smiling but rolling her eyes.

Our server had such a distinctive accent that after she left, my friend wanted my best guess on her origins. The first thing that came to mind was that she sounded like she had come from a British colony and I wasn't even sure what I'd heard that made me say that.

Naturally, when she returned, I asked. "Australia," she said, explaining that it was by way of the Philippines and Texas and her mother was Irish, so her accent was probably compromised Australian after 17 years and 4 children in this country.

She also insisted her ancestors had not been prisoners before taking our orders.

Friend opted for shrimp and grits while I'd known going in that my heart was set on seafood chili, the first dish I ever had at Croaker's, back when they were still in Jackson Ward. Luckily for me, he was gracious enough to share his brick o' sweet cornbread (we'd have called that cake in my family) with me.

Graceless
Is there a power to erase this?
Is it dissolvable and tasteless?
You can't imagine how I hate this
Graceless

Along with cornbread crumbs, on the table tonight were two of the key components of a long-lived friendship - an apology and an explanation - followed by more words than usual (up for debate was whether or not they'd been offered on a "soon" basis) for the simple reason that successful friendships - any relationships, really - are dependent on honesty and two-way communication.

Sure, I know not everyone needs as many words as I do, but in addition to being born a mover, I was also born a talker, so silent slugs need not apply.

When I look at the relationships I enjoy most, they're inevitably the ones with people who react to me as who I am and not as a stand-in for stereotypical expectations of gender, relationship uncertainties or preconceived notions.

Just recently, a new friend reminded me that I should stop expecting others to be as forthright (that's a polite way of saying direct) and forthcoming as I am because most people are unused to, not to mention uncomfortable, being candid. "You're authentic and most people aren't," he claimed.

Oh, you wouldn't want an angel watching over 
Surprise, surprise, they wouldn't want to watch
Another un-innocent, elegant fall
Into the un-magnificent lives of adults

Pearl's adult life, I feel certain, would be a magnificent one. Difference is a virtue.

Always Vice Versa

Gemini: Stay on top of a parent's or a higher-up's request. A fog seems to permeate through your creative and dynamic ideas. You feel good and have less of an expectation of others right now and vice versa.

Mom's only request was whether I was coming to visit this week, stated in the typical I-don't-want-to-be-a-bother maternal manner: "I think we were talking about Friday but don't worry if that doesn't work."

Right.

The fog that's been permeating through all of me - not just the creative and dynamic sides - of late is a bad case of early seasonal allergies with a healthy dose of dog hair exposure at Sunday's party.

It was so dire, I washed down Benadryl with the final sips of my champagne last night.

But I did wake up feeling good, so good it must have shown in my walk because it was one of those days when everyone smiled and had something to say to me.

Walking across the street in front of my apartment, I passed a guy who must have recognized me because his first question was how many miles I planned to walk today. He gave me a thumbs up when I said six. "There's nothing old about you, there's nothing young about you. You're just right!" he said, continuing down the street.

As the first person to speak to me today, he delivered the goods.

A woman with short white hair and manicured pink nails standing in front of St. Paul's smiled and pointed a pink finger at my shorts. "Seems kind of optimistic to me," she said about bare legs on a 60 degree day, clearly unaware I was already sweating from climbing to the Capital from the river.

Two men walking toward me on Broad Street, one cis-gendered and the other clad in blue spandex pants and a hot pink turban with a bow in the front, parted like the Red Sea, their arms extended for me to pass through.

"Love the hat, honey!" the turban said. "Work it!" Already am.

Work involved finishing a restaurant review and interviewing a curator before I got to check out the Historical Society's enormous new exhibition, "Toys of the '50s, '60s and '70s."

Using period living rooms to evoke the decades when the toys and games were popular, the sheer number of items included was enough to dredge up long-forgotten memories, while informative signs told you things about them that you'd never have known as a kid.

Probably because your parents wouldn't have wanted you to.

I don't know about you, but I had no idea that Twister had been reviled as a sex game when it came out. Seems that using human bodies as playing pieces was considered taboo in the mid-sixties.

Nor had I been aware that when Mr. Potato Head was originally released in the '50s, you had to supply your own potato for the head, which necessarily follows that imaginative tots could have fashioned a Mr. Onion Head or Mr. Eggplant Head, assuming an Eisenhower-era Mom would have allowed such a thing.

There was crazy stuff like Alka-Seltzer-fueled rockets with fail safes for kids who couldn't resist using extra tablets. A '70s-era environmental test kit with tests strips that clearly read, "Contains lead." A chemistry set with radio-active materials involved. Lawn darts called Jarts which were eventually recalled when one pierced a little girl's skull and killed her.

And don't get me started on Baby Brother Tender Love from the '70s, the first anatomically correct baby doll. On the progressive side, it was available in a Black as well as Caucasian version, although there was no word on whether the anatomy size changed with the skin color.

I'm here to tell you it wasn't all sweetness and light at the toy exhibit, but it was a lot of fun.

Each of the period living rooms had a TV and with a push of a button, toy commercials from that era would play, providing a glimpse of cringe-worthy mid-century advertising targeted at America's gullible youth.

With less of an expectation of others right now, a last-minute invitation to a friend's house for wine and conversation provided just the right way to wile away an unplanned evening since he wasn't admitting to expecting anything of me, either.

Which is not to say, all things considered, that a game of Twister wouldn't have been a whole lot of fun. After all, I read somewhere that it was a day for feeling good.

I'd Rather Leave When I'm in Love

After being away so much the past few weeks, it was time to buckle down and we know what that means.

Massive intakes of food and theater.

My partner in crime was the lovely Mac, who'd cheated on me while I was away by walking with a 5'9" co-worker who complained about her fast pace.

Eager to be clear, Mac explained that she and I usually go even faster on our walks. "You must be running," her co-worker presumed. Nope, despite my diminutive 5'5" and Mac's even shorter stature, that's just our pace.

Keep up if you can.

Once we'd done the plenty tasty work of my hired mouth, we directed our attention to Richmond Triangle Players' production of "The Boy from Oz," a musical about Australian songwriter and performer (not to mention Oscar winner for the theme from "Arthur"), Peter Allen.

I won't claim to have known lots about the man beyond him being a songwriter ("I Honestly Love You," "I Go to Rio") and Liza Minnelli's first husband, but, please, doesn't that alone qualify him for dissection under the musical theater microscope?

Richmond Triangle Players has brilliantly cast Chris Hester as Allen, thus ensuring the audience will be dazzled by his myriad skill sets from a spot-on Australian accent to effortless-looking and impressive singing and dancing chops.

Looking fine in a t-shirt doesn't hurt, either, as any man or woman in the audience could have attested.

His performance alone could have carried the show, but the uncanny likeness of Grey Garrett as a '60s Judy Garland and Anna Grey Hogan as a budding "Liza with a Z" - both in looks, movement and singing - ensured that a play many of us had never heard of would be completely memorable.

Personally, I'm partial to plays where characters sing an ode to my people, the snappy "Only an Older Woman," in this case, acknowledging the wealth of life experience Judy can bring to up and coming performers.

You need an older woman to teach you
One who is barely reaching her prime
Who thinks you're fun, not someone to preach to
What do you say? Let's have a good time
Cause with an older woman
Nothing you do is a crime

Almost as good were costumes that evoked Garland's '60s style, Liza's budding "look" and Allen's trademark flashiness (think Hawaiian shirts and shiny silver loafers), but I'd also credit the fabulous falls the women in the ensemble wore (so very mod London-era) for nailing the little details.

Not only did we both have nothing but raves for the play afterwards (duh, the play's run wasn't extended for nothing), it also had had the best possible effect on us. Now we're both dying to read a biography of Peter Allen's oh-so interesting life, followed by a Liza bio so we can see where the stories overlap.

Mac even wants to read Garland's story, but I've read a couple versions so I already know it's pretty tragic.

But isn't that what well-executed theater does to its audience? Entertains but also engages to the point of informing, maybe even inspiring some post-show learning?

You know, like in school, except with glitter and jazz hands and no pesky grades at the end.

And even if there were, older women grade on a curve.

Only one who's been round the block
Can give you the ride that you need...

The Circle is Unbroken

A woman needs situational friends, the kind whom you only see on specific occasions, say a Banner Lecture at the Virginia Historical Society.

I have sat next to the same older woman with twinkling eyes on at least half a dozen occasions and we always find so much to talk about, whether our respective neighborhoods, her years volunteering at the VMFA or changing women's roles.

For today's "Rightful Heritage: FDR and the Land of America" lecture, which had attracted me for its focus on the Civilian Conservation Corps' monumental effort to build national parks, parkways and nature refuges, she had a sentimental reason for coming.

"I remember Franklin Roosevelt being President," she said of the man who, as we were soon to learn, was as avid a conservationist as his fifth cousin, ex-President "Uncle Teddy," espousing the progressive philosophy, "Conservation is the basis for permanent peace" and envisioning national parks as dispensers of our heritage.

Pretty rad for the time.

Most surprising fact gleaned from Douglas Brinkley's effortlessly delivered lecture: FDR ran a tree plantation and whenever required to fill out his occupation on a form, always wrote "tree farmer." Pretty far-removed from his image of Hyde Park, cigarette holders and a monocle, eh?

A woman needs gay friends because who else would write something such as, "I saw you on Sunday at the food event on Broad Street with your "baby doll" dress on, but I was too far away to yell so I thought I'd do it here."

Nope, never comes out of the mouth of a straight man (because they would have no clue what a baby doll style dress is), so it's flattering to know someone notices, even from a distance.

A woman needs married friends because they're so accommodating, if not always as well-trained as one might expect.

We used to meet up regularly with the blessing of his wife (a far less adventurous eater), at least until he took a three-year position that resulted in a daily work schedule and our get-togethers petered out. When I bumped into him at a booze panel last winter, he set the ball in motion by instructing me to call him.

It only took half a year to make it happen tonight at Castanea, a place he'd never been. Naturally, he began by detailing his parking difficulties and concerns with the neighborhood, as he is inclined to do being a white suburbanite out of his comfort zone, although for food, he'll venture most anywhere.

Recently that had been Mama J's Kitchen where he and his wife had been made to feel like regulars, had enjoyed a terrific dinner of soul food ("those greens...that cake!") and generally fallen for the irresistible combo of good food, welcoming atmosphere and agreeable prices (albeit where they were the only white people, which, we agreed, is exactly the situation more white people need to place themselves in).

A Southside resident and regular at Southbound's bar ("It's so close!") he regaled me with tales of the wonder that is the new Wegman's, having joined the 24,000 other people who'd visited it on opening day, although he'd purposely ignored the carts and only looked.

The rest of the story is that they've been back three times since, spent lots of money and the two of them are besotted with the place. He went so far as to suggest that Whole Foods and Fresh Market just go ahead and close up shop since they're now superfluous.

"They've got mushrooms I've only seen on television!" he said with obvious fungus lust.

Much of his praise was for the seafood section and the impressive whole fish displays from which fillets are cut on demand and myriad oysters for roasting abound, but he was also drooling about the cured meat and cheese offerings, which so tempted them that he said they made dinner of bread, meat and cheese three times last week.

"You'll have to go check it out," he tells me. Will I really? Having an embarrassment of fresh produce is really only meaningful if the market's in your neighborhood and south of the river, west of Huguenot is nothing close to mine.

Since we'd last gotten together, he'd become a devotee of sour beers and a decision maker at work, resulting in his insistence that I pick and choose what we'd eat tonight. For me, being bossy is like breathing, so when I'm actually asked to call the shots, I don't even pretend to demur.

After choosing monkfish, a mezze of sauteed zucchini and a smoked pancetta pizza, we settled back with a bowl of olives which led to a discussion of the Olivator, a tool for inserting bleu cheese (or, I suppose, anything sort of soft) into an olive. I'm not kidding, the subject got him so worked up that he pulled out his phone to show me the single-function device, which, it seemed to me, operated pretty much identically to a syringe.

Not a good visual, I know.

"Let's check the 'don'ts,'" he insisted, confusing me at first. "Still no cell phone? No TV? No air conditioning?" No, no and I've always had central air, I just choose not to use it.

He admitted he could only give me so much crap about my lack of phone because his wife still has a flip phone and can't text. "And I'm not allowed to bring it out for any reason when we're out. It has to stay in my pocket, no matter how badly I need to check something."

First, brilliant woman. Second, how civilized. Can we make this official policy?

The first dish out was the monkfish with Victory Farm pac choi sauteed with hot pepper and a salty tapendae on the side, a strong start because the pac choi was every bit as stellar as the rich fish. A huge party at a nearby table must have slowed down receipt of our next course, so I casually mentioned to our overwhelmed barkeep that I was hoping the pizza showed up soon and it did.

As delicious as it was tardy, the pizza hit the spot nicely.

The zucchini, however, never found its way to us, so we punted by ordering double chocolate gelato, declining an offer from a nearby writer who's leaving Richmond (at least for the time being, since they always come back) to buy us drinks and then by offering her our last two slices of pizza, for which she was giddily grateful and promised to stalk me on Facebook so she could buy me that drink another time.

A woman may not need a stranger owing her a drink, but it's not necessarily a bad thing, either.

Not If You Were the Last Librarian on Earth

It was a night for helplessly hoping, but then aren't they all?

A friend called while I was out, his words barely audible over the Crosby, Stills and Nash box set that's booming in the background. When I return the call, he brings me halfway up to speed on the Nash/Crosby fuel I didn't even know was happening.

Google it, he says, suggesting the 21st century answer to everything.

Walking in to see the 2004 Sundance Festival Documentary Grand Jury Prize winner, the booker looks at me and says, "What're you doing here? I thought I banned you." He's kidding, of course, and we move on to movies that should be shown in public places, with him suggesting "Harold and Maude" and "Being There," two of his favorites

As a fan of strangers and the dark, I assure him I'd attend both.

A friend suggests we meet up and do something fun, something I enjoy. When I tell him I enjoy dancing on a concrete floor for three to four hours watching bands exactly like I did last night but question his interest in doing the same, he comes clean.

"I guess it would depend on the show but, yes, standing 3-4 hours would require me to make a real commitment."

To what, I wonder, having a good time?

"Happy birthday!" a friend messages me. I remind him it's Monday but allow as how he's probably too busy smooching his new squeeze to notice such details.

"I thought I put it in my calendar last year, but no," he writes. "I have missed you this week, even with my new hectic schedule of thinking about her all the time."

I would never find fault with a man who can't stop mooning over his love.

As the film is about to start, a friend tells me his story of seeing "Dig!" in Holland over a decade ago. "We watched part of the movie, then they announced it was intermission and to go get beer." Sounds like a perfectly reasonable request.

"I got curry," he said, still sounding surprised at the idea of intermission curry. "And high."

Well, it was Holland.

The best pre and post-film discussion came from a 29-year old who sat down near me and immediately asked if I'd seen the film before. I hadn't but he had years ago and he was eager to see if his impressions of it had changed since that first viewing.

What struck me about our in-depth conversation on the subject was how much he identified with the '90s ("I'm mildly obsessed with that era"), despite having been born near the end of the '80s (what he referred to as "the plastic era").

"I can't understand how a band like Matchbox 20 were ever big," he mused. None of us could, friend. I have to say, I can't recall the last time a stranger wanted to discuss Sugar Ray, Third Eye Blind and Tonic with me.

More to the heart of the movie, afterwards we discussed whether the Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Dandy Warhols truly mattered musically. When I got up to leave, another familiar face wanted to chat about the same thing. Was either band talented? On the way out, a third brought it up.

Now that's a provocative film.

Today a friend sent me a birthday present, a t-shirt which reads, "I'm a librarian. That means I live in a crazy fantasy world with unrealistic expectations. Thank you for understanding."

Not that I'm complaining about a gift, but far better if instead of "librarian," it said, "I'm a reader" or even "I'm a Gemini," so the first statement would be as true as the second.

I want to be perfectly clear on my commitment to unrealistic expectations.

Beat Around the Bush

Just another evening ending in a history discussion on the front porch with a history major and an international studies major around midnight.

I scored major points in a discussion of British colonialism when I referred to Europeans as an invasive species, a discussion that could be traced back to theirs about the migrating patterns of one guy's Philippine ancestors (psst, there's a Philippine/Virginia pipeline) when I'd walked up.

They, naturally, were chain smoking, practically lighting one from another in that intense, deep discussion manner they probably first saw in an old '80s movie. Don't forget, this is the apartment downstairs that also yielded two guitarists, neither of whom knew much of anything about Prince or his significance musically when I brought up his untimely death.

Guitar players.

I stumbled on the history round table after getting home from an evening out with friends, wherein I found myself introducing two neighbors who live seven houses apart and didn't know each other despite decades in proximity.

Jaws dropped when we heard the story of the crazy neighbor - they all knew her, hell, I recognized her - who'd arrived at the neighborhood "Alley Cat" party, not only dressed as a cat, but pushing a cat dressed as a cat in a carriage. One neighbor used an air whistle to alert a friend of a sighting of her.

That's part of the magic that happens at the seductively-lit (and is that something that only people of a certain age notice?) Pizza Tonight - which deserves the more apt new name it's about to get - as I showed Holmes and Beloved tonight on our first date in two months.

Knowing what the kitchen is capable of with cabbage, how could we not try the cauliflower and capers that wove its spell on Holmes, a confirmed non-cauliflower eater? Or Beloved's suggestion of the warm olives, so far removed from the cheap martini garnish as to be of a separate botanical genus?

When a server went to remove the plate of pits, she checked for missed olives. The bartender scoffed. "That look on her face when she put that first olive in her mouth? No way she was leaving one!" They already had Beloved's number.

Fair to say that they also had Holmes' and mine with the shoegazing, dreampop soundtrack. After several songs so up my music-from-a-cave alley (and Holmes') that we looked for its source: the selfsame observant bartender. Curious, we asked.

"It's a band called Nothing," she said, making sure we knew it was a band, as if we were either 1) musical idiots or 2) clueless old people, reinforced when a woman nearby pointed out, "Or you could have just said, "It's Nothing."

Once we dispelled those notions, the evening unfolded with hours more of good music as she played us more Nothing from their last record, "Guilty of Everything," (and aren't we all?) along with Failure and her favorite, Hum, who were big in the '90s and broke up when the new millennium rolled around.

When Holmes suggested Bob Moses to her, she knew nothing of the band. What kind of electronica do you like, I wanted to know. She thought for hardly a moment and responded, "ELO," surprising the hell out of me because I would go right to prog rock if asked that.

But then this where Holmes, the consummate musician, comes to the rescue, explaining that their extensive use of synthesizers puts them squarely in the electronica camp, which totally makes sense for a woman raised by a Dad who loved Meat Loaf and pre-1990 Springsteen.

Coming highly recommended for the pig parts, the pizza of the week, Porchetta, onions and mushrooms was irrefutable evidence that whatever this place calls itself name-wise, its roots were in terrific pizza (and on the fly, at that).

When Beloved bragged about her latest estate sale find of the soundtrack to "Hair," a staffer jumped in, saying he had two copies, both of which had been mistreated before he got them. You heard right, people were debating their favorite "Hair" song at the bar, as if it isn't common knowledge that "Good Morning, Starshine" is the clear winner there.

We were told a great RVA stereotype story: apparently there are West End women who come to Carytown to brunch, ending their giggling forays buying cards at Mongrel, cards they then return a few days later when sober, unwilling after all to send Mom an Easter card with three forms of the verb "to suck" on it.

Coaxing from me and the staff got my friends trying their first sugar toads, mastering the eating method easily and moaning about the richness of the buttery fish like they'd never had puffer fish before.

Over dessert of an almond cake an Italian would appreciate and a couple of exquisite cream puffs, we grooved to the '90s with Superdrag, another bartender fave ("I should have been born ten years earlier so I could have experienced the whole '90s thing firsthand.") making for interesting music at an appealing volume, an all too rare combination.

More than once we discussed Pop ' Roll, a sub genre of Rock that Holmes is devoted to, and, for the bartender, a different way of looking at her musical taste.

As pre-history debate meals go, it's pretty hard to beat low lighting, honest food and another evening heavy on laughs and early morning singing songs.

Hellbent for Leather

I want to open mouth kiss this weather.

I want to believe that we have turned a corner and that I won't have to turn my heat back on until November. I want to hope that, like tonight, I get to eat dinner on a patio with a view of people walking their dogs a few feet away on the sidewalk. I want to wear shorts on my walk every single day and, like today, shorts to an interview if I so choose.

It's crazy how Spring fever is instantly affecting people, too. My phone never rings this much.

Mid-afternoon, a neighbor calls to invite me on a prolonged stroll tomorrow. "Let's walk down Monument Avenue and talk about architecture!" he suggests. Let's.

Another friend calls up to remind me that we haven't gotten together recently and can we rectify that pronto? And by pronto, he means tonight. We can.

After over-indulging al fresco, we set out for the Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen, only to end up on a one-lane bridge on the far side of Old Washington Highway. Truthfully, I don't even know what county we're in.

The benefit of this is that we are in the sticks and the sound of frogs singing surrounds us. It may as well be June.

"It just got warm last week!" my friend jokes. "I thought frogs took 21 days to germinate! Where'd they all come from so fast?" That I don't know, but judging by the symphonic chorus of croaking we're hearing, they're fully formed.

After backtracking, we land at  the Cultural Arts Center and find seats in the November auditorium, the size and luxury of which surprises my friend. We're there to see a live radio broadcast of "When Westerns Were King," showcasing John Ford's "Stagecoach" (originally broadcast in 1949) and "The Lone Ranger: Footlights on the Frontier" from 1944.

A young girl in a period dress, looking very "Little House on the Prairie"-like, gives us a program and counts us off on her clicker.

Waiting for the show to begin, we get on the subject of pickling and although he says he's not a big pickle person, the fact is, he does love bread and butter pickles and pickled onions, so I figure he just needs more exposure. Ergo, I suggest we attend the upcoming Pickled & Fermented festival.

Now he's a on a roll. "My Dad used to make pickles, grew his own cucumbers and made bread and butters. He made balloon wine, too with grape juice and sugar." He's still explaining to me how a balloon enters into wine-making when the lights go down.

A man in a cowboy hat, bandana and jeans comes out to start the show, tossing his hat up in the air, explaining the applause light and how to clap properly (double time works best) for the first-timers, one of whom I'm sitting next to.

Suddenly, we're in Radio Gulch and drinking sarsaparilla.

"Stagecoach," billed as a romance of the West, gives us all the great tropes of the genre: gun shots, galloping horses and a bad girl named Dallas who really has a heart of gold. She's part of the group - you know, the usual: alcoholic doctor, pregnant woman, and our hero, the Ringo Kid aka the John Wayne role - heading to Lordsburg on the stagecoach.

It's just that the Apache Indians aren't real happy about white folk crossing into their territory. Fortunately, all that drama is leavened with lines like, "Well, I guess I can't break out of prison and into society in the same week." Probably not.

The fun in watching these radio plays comes from the actors playing multiple roles and the array of sound effects created onstage. We got to see a lot of sandbags hitting the floor tonight to simulate people falling off their horses after being shot.

"The Lone Ranger" episode was cornier, but saved by the Shakespeare-spouting actor ("Are you calling me a ham?") who helps save the buried miners and reveal the owner of a neighboring shaft as the bad guy, all in the guise of a performance.

Just as much fun were the commercials for "the new breakfast cereal, Cheerios," touted as the ideal way to break the monotony of corn cereals for breakfast every day. Hell, I didn't even realize we had cold cereals in the '40s.

Ordinarily, I'm not much of a Western fan - too much adventure for me - although honestly, I'm not sure how many I've seen, but it's tough not to enjoy a radio script with lines such as, "Let's plant some bullets where they'll do the most good."

And right after that, let's rustle up some balloon wine and plant that where it'll do the most good, preferably on a sunny patio where I'm wearing shorts.

Hi-ho, Silver.

Trippingly on the Tongue

I am but mad north-north-west.

What are the chances I'd see "Hamlet" the same day I saw the film that takes its name from a line in "Hamlet"? Apparently, pretty good.

It wasn't very difficult to find a willing date for dinner and outdoor theater, even if we did arrive at Agecroft just minutes before the sky opened up, full as ticks and willing to sit in the car and listen to music until the subsequent rainbow appeared and we felt cleared to make our way to the courtyard.

There, from our second row seats, a minstrel greeted us with song - "Welcome to Elsinore, leave your morals at the door" - as the post-rain weather enveloped us in cooler temperatures and lower humidity.

Don't tell Quill Theater I said it, but perhaps every production should begin with pouring rain to clear the air.

Be thou familiar but by no means vulgar.

Despite it being my 17th year of attendance, my date was a first-timer to Shakespeare at Agecroft, agog at the 500-year old architecture and entranced with the notion of theater there. To prove to me his devotion to "Hamlet," though, he recited soliloquies learned long ago in his nerd days. You know I was impressed.

And not just with him, but with Molly Hood as Hamlet. Make no mistake, I was well aware of her stunning ability to play Shakespeare's men, having seen her in any number of local director BS Maupin's gender-reversed Shakespeare readings over the years (a long-time favorite series of mine...hey, BC, when's the next one?). The woman is a master with the Bard's language.

When I had seen this hot love on the wing.

Director Jan Powell had updated the play in other ways, with actors carrying cellphones and taking selfies, the seersucker suit-wearing Polonius pulling out his checkbook and Rozencrantz and Guildenstern (wearing Wittenburg baseball caps) dressed as preppies.

I have lost all my mirth.

My date took as much pleasure as I always do from the distinctive moments that are unique to an Agecrodt performance: the sound of a train rolling by, the lightening bugs and moths that join the actors onstage, the bats swooping overhead.

Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.

During intermission, I grabbed my companion and took him on a tour of the grounds, up to the terrace for a view of  the panorama, down to the gazebo where couples could be alone, to the picaresque herb garden and along every darkened path, all under a fingernail sliver of a moon.

When I pulled out a bar of dark chocolate with sea salt, he said, "You really are the best date ever." Roger that.

When you're working with a script the caliber of "Hamlet," a director can only hope for a cast worthy of it and Powell had chosen well.

Casting Hood had been a brilliant stroke because she can play heartbreaking and ball-breaking equally well, but just as impressive was her decision to refer to her as a "she," and a she who was in love with another she, Ophelia.

That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.

For sheer watchability, Jeff Clevenger nailed both his roles as the eager but inept Polonius and the southern-accented grave digger singing "I Ain't Got Nobody" as he shovels skulls out of the ground, to great comedic success.

Thomas Cunningham, strong in every role I've ever seen him in, was Hamlet's bespectacled rock as Horatio and Foster Solomon commanded his scenes with his sheer physical presence and authoritative diction as the plotting Claudius.

You would pluck out the heart of my mystery.

No matter how many times I see the tragedy of Hamlet play out, I am struck by the sheer sadness of its scope - the evil, the corruption and deception, the overwhelming grief that finishes with so much death and loss.

"I teared up at the end," my date told me walking out. That's the most ringing endorsement I can imagine for his baptism by fire with the Richmond Shakespeare Festival.

Only problem is, now that he's seen Molly Hood in the lead role, he may never be able to go back to a male Hamlet. The play may be the thing, but in this case, it played far more compellingly with girl parts.

Therein lies the rub.

Hello, Old Friends

When you usher in an historic presidency, it forges bonds.

After waiting in line for over two hours to vote that memorable day, I watched the 2008 presidential election results roll in at the home of a reliably liberal couple I'd known for years. Although we'd both shared Floyd Avenue addresses, I'd moved after 13 years, while they were still there. All of us were rooting for Obama.

With each state that got on board with the progressive agenda, I cheered and noshed on appetizers, keeping one eye on the TV screen. Yes, we can make this change for the better. I, for one, was more than ready for my president to be someone other than a white man.

Flash forward six years.

Despite shared ideologies, tonight was the first time I'd caught up with my Obama-supporting friends in ages. They walked into Sidewalk Cafe where I'd taken up residence near the end of the bar for dinner. Welcome, old friends and Democrats.

Of all the places to finally run into them, that it was at Sidewalk Cafe made perfect sense. A place that's been around since 1990 back when the first Bush was in the White House, it's a reliably easy place to end up for a quick meal, extended drinking or C, all of the above.

While it seems like every year another group of VCU graduates takes ownership of its booths and tables for happy hour and late night bull sessions, the reality is that it's an easy go-to for neighbors and long-time city dwellers on occasion, too. Think Joe's Inn without so many screaming toddlers.

For years, I was never more than an occasional customer mainly because of its devoted smoking clientele and the sepia-toned walls that held the odor and color of nicotine. But post-smoking ban, fond memories of their blackened steak and blue cheese salad were enough to put me back there and in place to randomly run into my former neighbors.

The strange part was, I almost didn't recognize them when they came in. Part of that was how bundled up they were for the weather, but another part was simply that they looked older than they had that historic November night years ago.

Because we all do. Life exacts its toll on our faces and bodies - changes my mother with her glass half full brand of optimism always referred to as "badges of honor" - exacerbated by poor lifestyle choices and lessened a little by good DNA.

Coco Chanel famously said that nature gives you the face you have at 20, but it's up to you to merit the face you have at 50. In my friends' faces, I could see the years of expended energy they'd put into raising three sons, but I could also see the easy companionship of their long-time marriage.

On my way back from the loo, I stopped at their table to hear about what's going on in their lives these days and we fell into easy conversation about many things. Once we got busy talking, I wondered how in the world I hadn't immediately recognized them. Their passion for politics and enjoyment of life was still very much in evidence with every word that came out of their mouths.

That's the thing, really. It's not being a certain age that changes how people look, it's how they live their lives as the years go by. Speaking from my own experience, I'd say passion and enthusiasm go a long way toward keeping your spirit young.

Which is not to say I'm giving up walking, sunscreen and moisturizer any time soon. I like it when someone posts a six-year old photo of me online and a friend in Scotland comments, "Do you have a portrait in the attic by any chance???"

What I've got is excitement for whatever - current events, pudding, dancing - is catching my fancy lately. I'd like to think it's written all over my face.

Just Getting Warmed Up

For me, the attraction was the weather. For others, it was the night before.

We may end up with no more than a dusting of snow, but baby, it's cold outside.

Monday means Shoryuken Ramen is up and running at the Lunch space, so I made sure I arrived at 5:00 sharp to get a a stool (I had to displace a woman's large, silver bag to do it) and a bowl.

I was remembered from my last visit and the first question was if I'd been at the Elby's last night. Holding up my still-sore feet now encased in flats after last night's platforms, she laughed saying she couldn't hang with the restaurant crowd. "Too hardcore for me. I'm in bed by 9:30."

She was right. No way she could hang with that crowd.

Explaining that the weather had brought me in, she said some people suffering from Elby hangovers had called this morning hoping to get delivery of soul-reviving ramen to their homes mid-day. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way.

Luckily, only my feet were hurting this morning, so my ramen needs didn't arise until an appropriate dinner time.

Even tucked into a corner, every time the front door opened to admit new guests, an icy gust would sweep through the dining room. A woman I had seen talking to a man in a car outside came in to ask for a table for two, despite being alone.

"He's outside, but he's coming in, even though he doesn't want to," the woman explained to a server. When the man did come inside, it was only to sit sulkily across from her while she ate a bowl of ramen. The things we do for love.

The door kept opening. One of last night's Elby award-winning restaurateurs and a friend came in for dinner. A friend of a friend I'd run into just the other night at Dutch & Co. arrived, saying she'd gotten off work at 4:00 so she could ensure making it to the pop-up in time to score a table. Her husband and a friend were joining her and she kindly invited me to be their fourth but I demurred, not wanting to horn in on other people's plans.

Anyway, I soon had company at the bar in the form of a young couple who were making their first visit to Shoryuken after being bitten by the ramen bug eating at noodle shops in San Francisco.

They were the last two people to slide in and find seats in the first wave. After that, newcomers had their names put on a  list and went to wait patiently either in their cars or next door at Supper.  This time of year and in this weather, tiny Lunch barely has room for its legal number of occupants and their accompanying big coats.

Tonight's special - because it's always classic ramen or a vegetarian version plus one special - was Thai peanut ramen, a double soup ramen with pickled papaya, peanuts and Thai basil. The smell coming from the kitchen was beyond enticing and the girl near me said as much as they waited to order. "The smell is killing me," she moaned.

It didn't help when my bowl arrived and I began slurping up noodles while they eyed me hungrily. They were right to covet my bowl because the depth of flavor in the broth spoke to the beauty of combining two types for a complexity that would have been fantastic any day, but on a windy cold night like tonight, was sheer perfection, especially along with assertive but not fiery Thai heat. And the yolk of the soft-boiled egg was that one perfect bite that required eye closing to fully appreciate.

As much as I want to try the classic ramen one of these days, Chef Will keeps offering these killer specials (last time it was wontononmen) I can't resist.

But the couple had gone classic and once their bowls arrived, we chatted while we all ate. They were aghast when I told them about the man who'd eaten nothing while his wife ate and amazed at how small the Lunch space was.

It makes sense, though, as  a friend who lived in China said that noodle shops are tiny places there. Clearly they've nailed the authenticity on that point. Our stools faced directly into the kitchen, causing my dinner companion to observe, "We've got the best view in the house."

It was true. Watching the ebb and flow of movement as the kitchen staff put together bowls of ramen was a study in anticipation as people leaned and ducked to allow others to finish a movement as bowl after bowl got the final touches.

I was the fifth person of the first wave to finish and much as I might have wanted to continue the chat with my fellow bar sitters, seats are at too high a premium for that, so I made my way over to talk to the people who'd invited me to join them and meet their friend.

Like me, all three had ordered the Thai peanut ramen and its tantalizing aroma was wafting up from the table as we talked restaurants and movies. But you can only stand in the aisle and block servers for so long before you know it's time to cede the space to the second wave.

It was only fair. My soul had been fed, my belly warmed and now it was time to address my lingering post-Elby's pain. Time to soak my disco-weary feet and start a new book.

Maybe not the most exciting Monday night, but all in all, not a bad way to spend a frigid evening. Unless, of course, I get a better offer.

Heartstrings and Chablis

Sapiophile (noun): Someone who is sexually attracted to intelligent people.

"Do you still blog?" the chef who cooked my dinner asked me tonight. Seems I do.

Unexpectedly, I got asked on a date tonight where we wound up at Rowland's and my intentions to go to Balliceaux for storytelling were cast aside like yesterday's underwear.

We were the first customers in, meaning we had our pick of the place, and still ended up at the end of the bar under the ceiling fan.

I'll admit, the music was not my thing - Pandora set to Creedence Clearwater Revival - but our server must not have liked it any better either because she soon changed it, praise be.

Unfortunately, it was to the Jack Johnson station, which is like nails on chalkboard to me, and I tolerated it for about five songs before asking that it be changed.

Steely Dan was far better.

Since it was Bastille Day, I chose a Muscadet for sipping, paying homage to France in my own little way.

Over Rowland's classic butterbean cake, my date told me about his recent building project, what it's like to train a young buck and about how quickly tuna macaroni becomes tiresome.

I countered with tiny houses, a breakup and my favorite Neil Diamond lyrics. Obviously, I was a tad rusty on this dating business.

Given that it had been our request to change the music, it was only natural that we talked about what we were hearing, namely Tears for Fears, America, and Spinners, and the correlations that led Pandora from Steely Dan to them.

When it came time to order food, we briefly considered the three-course tasting menu, but instead chose off the regular menu.

My choice was almond-crusted brook trout over haricots vert and roasted beets, while he wanted the quinoa bowl with pork schnitzel.

At one point, the server raced outside to lower the umbrellas in anticipation of a storm which never really materialized.

Which is not to say that I didn't appreciate the darkened sky and flattering mood lighting.

After a while, the chef came out to chat, taking advantage of the nearly empty dining room - hey, it's July and everyone is out of town - to socialize since there was nothing pressing to cook until a three-top arrived.

I admit, we did our best to derail his good intentions to return to the kitchen, engaging him about his past gigs on luxury yachts (seriously, he worked for both the Scripps family of Scripps Howard fame and the Knight clan of Knight-Ridder acclaim...between the two he'd cooked for major media owners) and the hoops he'd had to jump through.

You know, as someone who has worked for several newspapers, those are major player names right there. And serious money.

To that point, the chef told a story of running out of milk (for half and half) and limes while out at sea. He engaged a private puddle hopping plane to procure the milk and limes, returning them to the ship for a mere $500 in airfare costs.

My goodness, I am so not the 1%.

I insisted he share the saga of how he'd met his Peruvian wife 25 years ago, a sweet story that involved him being both lovesick and seasick, not to mention hungover and out to sea.

Call me a sucker for a good love story.

With pre-Lindsay Buckingham Fleetwood Mac and Gwyneth Paltrow-era Coldplay playing, the chef returned in earnest and we got into an alliterative dissection of Richmond restaurant issues -permitting, parking - and partisan politics.

Before I knew it, my date had been derailed for a discussion of the trouble in Israel and what the US role should be in its resolution.

Not to minimize an important topic, but I was on a date here. Hello, wooing in progress.

On the other hand, sapiophiles love it when our dates start analyzing topical issues.

So much for the storytelling. Date on.

Under My Umbrella

Thank god a pragmatist invited me to dinner. You know the type - don't get your hopes up and you won't be disappointed.

Blah, blah, blah.

What I mean is, thank god on a 98-degree day that I was picked up in an air-conditioned car to be taken to an air conditioned restaurant for the evening. Not that I would have turned on the stove had I stayed at home, but you get my point.

The only problem was that we walked into Belmont Food Shop (home of the handsomest wooden walk-in in all of Richmond) five minutes after every seat except one in the entire (and tiny) place was occupied.

My conclusion? Weather wimps who'd all dashed out of their houses the same moment the earlier rainstorm had ended.

My date graciously allowed me to commandeer the lone empty bar stool while he stood (obediently? respectfully? graciously?) next to me, but saddled with a gaggle of tattooed, monosyllabic stylists from a nearby salon just over his shoulder.

As it turned out, they weren't much of a problem because they spent just as much time outside on the bench smoking and talking on their phones as they did at the bar saying "like" every third word.

Pulled fresh from the oven, two piping hot gougeres arrived like a greeting from the kitchen, an amuse bouche to tease us of what was to come.

With a full house, a recent rain and the stylists' inability to close the door on their frequent trips in and out (raised in a barn, as my grandmother used to say), the restaurant was a tad warm and the tinny '20s music a little tough to hear sometimes, but with a dry, white Bordeaux, we were in no hurry so we settled back to wait out the first wave.

But patience deserves reward, so we asked for the bluefish spread with frisee to tide us over, which, to my date's credit, he gallantly ate standing up while people around us discussed golf courses and child-rearing ad nauseum.

At long last, the stylists gathered up their cigarettes, phones and wallets to leave for greener pastures, leaving a row of empty stools behind. My date placed his backside in the one closest to me and our evening began in earnest.

After placing our dinner orders, we took some conversational tangents - the appeal of vacationing in Argentina wine country, the location of Indiana Avenue in D.C., Anne Bancroft's age when she made "The Graduate" - until our tuna tartare and roasted chicken arrived.

I was swooning over my tartare's caviar and lemon vinaigrette but even so, couldn't help but be wowed by the simplicity and beauty of perfectly roasted chicken, both light and dark meat, crispy-skinned and satisfyingly seasoned ("Salt and pepper and leave it alone," the chef later confided) when my date offered me a bite.

For amusement, the big front window provided a view to the street theater of Belmont Avenue, a ceaseless parade of people coming and going from Carytown, some with bags or kids in hand, others moving slowly as if in a food coma.

Once all but one table had cleared out, the chef came out to speak to each of the remaining groups of diners at the bar, saying how unexpectedly popular tonight's squash blossoms and short ribs had been. All I know is both had been 86'd before we got there.

But that's okay. When you go out with a pragmatist, you don't expect much, so every delicious bite, every silken sip, every witty bon mot is a nice surprise.

At least until I get hit by a bus...and won't that be heartbreaking?

As You Like It

My evening was glaringly devoid of culture.

Sure, I could have gone to hear haiku, could have gone to see a silent movie or even an anniversary show. All those things were on my calendar as possibilities.

Instead, I got home from an afternoon of indulgence with a girlfriend to find an invitation for a dinner date and promptly said yes. So much for feeding my mind and soul tonight.

Even so, I'm not quite as hedonistic as a fellow Gemini who bragged, "I've been 44 for exactly 12 hours and 20 minutes and we've put down five bottles of wine and a pound of shrimp."

So it was with a clear conscience that my date and I headed out just as the pre-rain wind began kicking up, sending bits of paper in the recycling bins sailing through the air.

We landed at Bistro 27 before the first drop fell and joined a group of guys at the bar where we had a fine view of the street and any incoming precipitation. Summer weather makes such a good show.

A bottle of sparkling Vouvray helped assuage any lingering guilt about selling out culture for mere food while the trio next to us provided entertainment with endless chatter about their favorite movies.

One guy began describing the scariest movie he'd ever seen, only to have no idea what the title was. Finally, he gave up trying to use his brain and called his wife, keeping it short and simple. "Hey, what's that scary movie we just watched? Okay, thanks."

After abruptly hanging up on her, he turned to his buddies and announced, "'The Conjuring. Scary as hell."

Why waste time talking to your beloved when you could be discussing Alec Baldwin versus Harrison Ford in Tom Clancy movies?

For dinner, I started with one of tonight's specials, a lobster, corn, red onion, potato, Chorizo and crab soup with a burst of micro-greens on top, my second soup of the day and a beaut.

It may be hot outside, but when the soup's this good, I'll happily eat it and a bite of my date's lamb and pork house pate, full of olives and made even better with a swipe of preserved lemon thyme yogurt.

Announced by the flag outside suddenly flying horizontally, the rain finally arrived and people without umbrellas went scurrying by the window in search of shelter.

The guy next to me soon shifted into bender mode and began ordering his drinks with the cheapest bourbon they had and "as much as you're allowed to give me." Not a good sign.

Turns out he lived upstairs, so at least getting home wasn't a problem, and he described his very cool studio apartment as having 20' ceilings. I couldn't decide if that was an exaggeration.

For dinner, I chose crab salad with corn, pickled red onions, avocado, baby arugula and spinach in an avocado/buttermilk dressing. Yes, it shared a few ingredients with my soup and yes, it was perfectly delicious, light and fresh-tasting.

After four or five bourbons, bender boy asked the barkeep if they had any Malbec. Affirmative and he moved on to two glasses of that.

As he's sipping, he's telling his bud about the tiny Puerto Rican girl he's dating and how adorable she is because since he keeps his apartment at 65 degrees, she gets chilly and sits with a pillow on her lap to stay warm.

She was also adorable, he said, because she doesn't drink, which made me wonder how compatible they were given his ability to throw them back.

Mostly, though, they talked movies and drinker guy had a frame of reference for every movie he'd ever seen - where he saw it, what sport he was playing at the time, what grade he was in.

By the time we finished our meal, he was on to Calvados, assuring his friend that it was what men drank after they landed on the beaches of Normandy. As if he knew that.

His friend, an older guy who admitted that his life was dull, shared how he'd saved $9,000 toward a fund for his 14-year old daughter's first car, but admitted that he hadn't saved the first dime for her college education. Meanwhile, she'd been nagging him to borrow from the fund to finance thousand dollar concert tickets, something he couldn't understand but had acquiesced to anyway.

"No band is worth that," he told the friend. No parent should be foolish enough to give it to her, I wanted to say. Who's the adult here anyway?

By the time he said goodnight to go home to the wife and family, bourbon boy had moved on to beer and we were just waiting for him to fall off his bar stool or the rain to stop, whichever came first.

Our conversation- about early morning shopping, building things and the upcoming GWAR bar in Jackson Ward - paled in comparison to the hours of mindless guy talk beside us.

Perhaps it was my comeuppance for spending my evening with nothing more cultural than the yogurt on my date's plate.

Note to self: take a double serving of culture tomorrow night so as to feel better about my lapse.

Indulgence bender over.

Cool Girls Meet-up

Sometimes the best nights start with a question.

"On the unlikely chance that you don't have plans, I'm available for supper tonight."

The fact was, I did have plans tonight to meet up with my Style Weekly compatriots at Southern Railway Taphouse.

The new bar/restaurant in the former deli was tough to find a place to park, but easy to spot the group of writers and sales people.

And while I was late to the party, I arrived in time for the door prizes (I didn't win) and the trivia contest (my food editor did not go to Woodstock, despite many guesses that she had) and an over-priced Don Julio ($12).

At the bar, I ran into a man who recognized my name, remembered my byline and professed to be a regular reader of my work.

"I read you all the time, " he claimed. "And I recognize you!"

That's just creepy, sir. We've never met.

The good news was I had a blast getting to meet all sorts of people I knew only by name and heard stories of a Carver resident who never goes to the Camel and the real Woodstock attendee who saw a guy (tripping) waggling his member against a girl's nose.

The new hire who'd moved from Boston got a lecture from me about being more active in the scene.

I also heard details of several people's trip to Hopscotch, San Fermin being a decided highlight, and joined the discussion of what the Folk Fest coverage should be, at least ideally.

Until we get the Folk Fest right, we can't possibly begin to plan an alternative music festival a la Hopscotch.

And that's definitely one thing we need to do in order to put Richmond on the map.

In the mean time, I'm just trying to meet my co-workers and have some conversation.

"It's always the cool girls who get left behind," the music writer observed once the higher-ups had cleared out, leaving us to dish about discovering bands, ears ringing and day drinking.

Ain't that a shame?

Double Dutch DInner

Once isn't always enough.

Tonight that meant two dinner dates, with the first at Toast.

I'd reviewed Toast last Fall, but it's located way out of my limited world, so I hadn't been back since my four visits back then.

But when one of my couple date suggested dinner there, I happily agreed, even offering to drive.

As we headed westward ho, it became clear from the darkening sky that we were just going to beat the rainstorm.

Walking in with my umbrella clutched in hand, the hostess complimented my wisdom, noting that I was the first to come in prepared.

Well, I was a girl scout.

Within minutes, the skies opened up and a deluge began to fall outside.

I'd offered my extra umbrella to one of my companions, but she'd turned it down, commenting, "I don't melt in a little rain."

Honey, this was a lot of rain and I may not melt, but I can do without wet hair at the beginning of an evening out.

Over peach sangria and happy hour beer, we slowly narrowed our food selections.

Since I had a second dinner date, I kept my choice light with the grilled avocado and cheesy corn chip salad with cucumber, sprouts, sunflower kernels, tomatoes, and pico de gallo in a lemon/smoked honey vinaigrette.

Our food took forever to come out and I wondered if perhaps it had been sitting a while since the cheese on my four corn chips was cold and hard, meaning a long way from freshly melted.

Luckily, the rest of it was fresh and quite delicious, so I overlooked the sub-par chippage.

As we ate, we watched people rush in from the monsoon, eager to escape the outside for drinks and eats.

Meanwhile, we moved on to Toast's signature doughnuts with honey mascarpone, the only dessert I know of that arrives being shaken in a paper bag.

I'm here to tell you that the smell of freshly fried doughnuts shaken in cinnamon sugar is enough to make a person forget she has further dinner plans.

If I'm going to leave my personal orbit and venture as far as Three Chopt and Patterson, these doughnuts are as worthy a reason as I know of.

By the time we left Toast, the rain had stopped and a rainbow was arching over Patterson Avenue as we drove back to the city and all I hold dear.

Dinner #1 done.

Stop #2 was at the home of my friend, Holmes, and the occasion was a visit by a mutual friend.

Our little quartet has an affinity for bubbles and LaMarca Prosecco, the favorite of Holmes' beloved, had ben earmarked as the beverage of the evening.

By the time I arrived, the three of them were already starting the second bottle so I had to hit the ground running.

First order of business was choosing wine tags for our glasses.

Holmes had already claimed "immature," his beloved went with "earthy," the guest chose "rich" and I opted for "supple."

Sometimes we label ourselves as we are and other times as we wish we were.

In any case, it didn't stop people from drinking from the wrong glass on occasion, but what's shared cooties among friends?

My work was cut out for me when I noticed that there was no music playing because I don't see how people can have a dinner party without it.

Holmes allowed me to choose the music (probably since he knew I had to pick from his collection so how bad could it be?) and I began with the Finn Brothers' 2004 album, "Everyone is Here."

One of my favorites on that record is "Anything Can Happen," which seemed like an apt metaphor for tonight's gathering.

I could never give it up
I could never relent
And I can't wait to see
What will happen to me next

Music blasting from the dining room, we prepared to commence the business of making dinner.

This involved grilling shrimp in Holmes' secret sauce whilst preparing chicken and steak to be grilled afterwards.

Despite keeping the meal simple with jasmine rice and sliced Hanover tomatoes sprinkled with Old Bay, it wasn't long before the kitchen and deck resembled a Keystone Cops caper, with people coming and going, taking things that others were looking for and constantly losing what mattered.

But as long as the LaMarca kept flowing, no one seemed to mind.

It seemed to me that such chaos required '80s music, so my next album choice was "Natural History: The Very Best of Talk Talk," a record I never expected to find in Holmes' collection.

Au contraire, he informed me; he had four Talk Talk albums.

Man, you think you know a person.

Funny how I blind myself
I never knew
If I were sometimes played upon
Afraid to lose

By the time we finally sat down to eat, it was on Holmes' new Japanese placemats, purchased yesterday at an estate sale and leading to a discussion of the pleasures of said sales.

Sometimes it's not about the stuff for sale (an $18,000 cabinet?) but about being inside a house you'd never otherwise get to see.

With three women and only Holmes to represent the simpler sex, I'm afraid the conversation took a decidedly feminine turn, settling on the intricacies of relationships.

Is living together necessarily the goal of a relationship? How long is too long to wait for commitment? How important is the concept of the "right person"?

Hell if we knew.

Once the conversation devolved into our misspent youths, we decided it was dessert time.

Fortunately, bubbly goes extremely well with chocolate eclairs and chocolate mousse cake.

We gorged on sweets while listening to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's "Deja Vu," a true time warp, but well-suited to Holmes' taste.

Groovy vibes permeated the room, or perhaps that was the Prosecco.

Everybody, I love you
Everybody, I do
Though your heart is in anger
I need your love to get through

Nothing like a Sunday night with everybody.

Our visiting friend told me she had never seen me looking happier or more vivacious.

I'm just happy to wait and see what will happen next.

Legs on a Lily Pad

We went for the glider tables.

A friend suggested the Lily Pad for dinner and while I knew the Osborne boat landing park, I'd never set foot in the simple little restaurant at the waterfront.

We must not have looked like locals since all conversation stopped when we walked in, but with a few comments and smiles in their direction, it was soon back to business as usual.

Choosing a (surprisingly pleasant) Malbec off the cinder block-wall selection, we looked around the quaint little restaurant.

Cloth tablecloths of varying patterns, fresh flowers on several tables, a giant clock to keep track of when the wife expects you home, all the necessities of a local joint.

If I had any complaint with it, it was the radio tuned to oldies because I just don't need to hear those songs anymore.

Turns out Tuesdays are sushi night and we were given a list to choose from.

Thinking that a hearty Malbec was probably not the best pairing for sushi, we settled for a Rivah Roll (with avocado misspelled) and a lovely-looking roll arrived, shrimp tails sticking up and out of the slices.

As the place began to clear out, our server warned us that the kitchen would be closing early since clearly the rain was keeping people away.

Without even asking for menus, we ordered off the specials board, my companion asking for a steak and provolone (also misspelled) sub while I couldn't resist what was described as a "juicy cheeseburger."

For that matter, the chalkboard also suggested asking "one of our lovely servers" for the sushi listing, so adjectives were big here.

My cheeseburger was juicy, mainly due to getting it with everything, a lot of which kept sliding off the roll.

The cook stood at the end of the bar, probably watching us chew so he could clear our plates and get going, so we didn't linger over our food.

Instead, we went outside to one of the table gliders, a covered contraption with a glider on either side and a table in the middle.

And, yep, a gentle push off and the gliders rocked rhythmically while we sat facing each other, both with views of the river behind us.

I fully intend to go back some time when the weather is better and do my eating and drinking out there.

The sun was getting lower in the sky so we walked along the dock to the main one where a family was fishing as the sunset reflected off the still water.

It was amazing to think how far away it felt from the city and yet how relatively close it was.

Heading back into town, Church Hill seemed like the logical place to stop for a drink and since one of us had never been to Dutch & Co., it won by default.

Friend knew the bartender, I knew three of the lovely servers, including one I'd not seen since before she and her boyfriend moved to Maine to work on a farm.

Continuing the red wine theme, we got a bottle of Paul Hobbs Crossbarn Pinot Noir, a lovely accompaniment to the cheese plate of cloth-bound Cabot cheddar, herb spetzle, apple and smoked duck lardons.

Following up my juicy cheeseburger with such a stellar dessert and even better conversation was about as good as it gets on a misty Tuesday evening.

I say that but I also admit that it got even better when one of the servers came over and said in my ear, "I've seen you in tights and leggings so I knew your legs were good, but seeing them bare, I can't believe how beautiful they are."

If you ask me, that's a lovely server.

Damn, if only a man would say that to me, I'd be all set.

After the Deluge

It's not often I can help bring the median age of a room down.

But when a friend suggested Tastebuds, a northside restaurant I'd never been to, for dinner, I was game.

First we had to make a stop at the Brook Road post office so one of us could mail a Father's Day card.

For the record, it wasn't me.

Somehow I had never noticed Tastebuds on that little strip before, but given how many tables were already taken, I must have been in the minority on that.

I was inclined to think that a lot of the customers were neighborhood dwellers and I noticed that the overall hair color definitely slanted white, although to be fair, we were eating dinner mighty early.

All at once we were greeted by a familiar handsome face, a former Carytown business owner we both knew, who asked us where we'd been when the thunderstorm hit.

Friend had been stuck in the Carytown Kroger shopping to kill time while I'd watched it from the safety of my Jackson Ward apartment, the trees out back almost horizontal in that incredible wind.

Even better, he shared how as a server at Bistro Bobette, he'd recently waited on our current movie star-in-residence, Rob Lowe.

Nice, polite, slight tan, very fit and overall incredibly handsome in person.

Well, a girl's gotta ask.

We started with a bottle of Rose and fried crab dumplings after our server's recommendation that he could eat them every day.

I'd have liked a little more crab, but then, I grew up in Maryland where we think everything could use more crab.

A spinach and red onion salad with goat cheese and a lemon-parsley dressing followed while we discussed restaurants worth driving an hour east or west for.

My thinking is that an hour is just about the perfect amount of road trip to reach a dining destination when you want to feel like you're getting away without the full commitment of, say, driving to D.C.

Friend had the chicken medallions in a mushroom ragout while I went with something more porcine: pork adobo-filled corn crepe with avocado crema and jicama/radish slaw.

You really can't go wrong with crunchy slaw on pig.

By that time, the white hairs were on their way out so we no longer helped the average age in the restaurant as a younger crowd began coming in.

Just like that, we became the room's elder diners.

Dessert was a chocolate mousse-filled crepe which interested my friend not at all, the better for those of us who can eat an entire sweet course unaided.

That said, when Friend suggested a post-meal walkabout in the neighborhood to help settle dinner, I was more than happy to oblige and help work some of that mousse down.

Everything was still pretty damp from the thunderstorm earlier, but the area is picaresque, if completely quiet and shut down by that (early) point, so unlike my own neighborhood.

Fortunately, Jackson Ward was the next stop for me, the woman who returned home knowing she's now got one degree of separation from Rob Lowe.

Not a bad takeaway after an evening's meal.

White Lightning

It would have been a day, even if the only major event had been George Jones dying.

But it wasn't, at least for me, so I was happy when Holmes extended the invitation to come join him and his honey for dinner at his house.

She's recovering from recent surgery, so the idea was to stay in and have a low key evening, just the three of us.

I should have known better.

"Do you like linguine and clam sauce?" he asked jovially over the phone, letting me know that they were already well into the bubbles.

When I arrived a few minutes later, I was greeted with Holmes singing "Busy Girl" to the tune of  the La's' "There She Goes," probably a tribute to my schedule.

I've cooked and eaten with these two before and it's a hoot.

If I'd been smart, I'd have brought some of the basil and Italian parsley growing in my dining room windowbox to contribute to the dish.

It's funny, Holmes considers himself in charge, dictating what the womenfolk should be doing, even though I inevitably take over and make the sauce myself.

The good thing about being at his house is that we're both music lovers, so he always spends the evening playing things he wants me to hear.

Tonight we began with jazz (Mel Hefty, Mel Torme) before moving on to Paul Carrack, whom he described as "my favorite blue-eyed soul singer. I don't like Hall and Oates."

Me, I was busy sauteing onions and garlic and throwing back Prosecco.

Over dinner, we talked about the Wesselmann exhibit at VMFA, which they've not seen but are eager to.

I've seen it once, but offered to accompany them for the sake of another look.

We discussed whether it's better to have a drink before an exhibit or after (or both), with Holmes coming down on the side of after, while the girlfriend and I saw no reason not to pregame and re-convene for post-art dissection.

Sopping clam sauce with our heavily-buttered garlic bread, we marveled at the VMFA getting the first full-career retrospective of Wesselmann's work in the country.

This is what happens after multiple bottles of bubbles when you have two art history geeks across the table from each other.

Dessert became a shared effort as Holmes and I made a chocolate sauce of dark Ghiradelli chocolate and butter for the ice cream and eclairs that satisfied the chocoholic needs of those of us with XX chromosomes.

Meanwhile, he played Patty Griffin's unreleased 2000 album, "Silver Bell," filling me in on the back story and walking me through his favorite tracks.

Meal over, it was on to the business at hand: George.

Holmes pulled out a bottle of Herradurra Silver, got out two very different shot glasses (mine was a skeleton head, for what that's worth) and began pouring so we could toast the late, great Mr. Jones.

The recovering one abstained from tequila, probably a wise move.

By then, we were listening to something truly unique, a CD of music recorded by Holmes, a lifelong musician, and various of his musical friends.

There was stuff written in the '70s and onward, including one called "Friend" dedicated to Holmes by the songwriter.

I've heard Holmes play his viola live, so it was a treat to hear him tearing it up on song after song, introducing, as he put it, "the wild card" element which mitigated, as he put it, "the perfection of Josh's songs."

Frankly, when someone's playing a twelve string guitar, I can't find a lot to complain about.

Since I've only known Holmes for ten years, it was fascinating to hear his 20-year old self playing with so much passion, the talent of a young man I never knew.

But I never knew George, either, although the tales of his drinking, stormy relationships and no-show concerts were legendary enough that even a non-country music fan like me knew of them.

A good enough reason to drink tequila and toast what no longer is, George included.

Even busy girls get the blues.

Killing Monday

It was a simple plan.

I took the remaining sections of Sunday's Washington Post and went to dinner at Bistro Bobette, content to have reading material and good eats.

The end result was so much better.

When I arrived, it was to a server who recognized me and directed me to the bar with a smile.

There, I found two couples who graciously welcomed me.

I began with a glass of a grenache/mouvedre blend and a look at the bar menu.

As I slurped a bowl of the soup du jour (vegetable/pasta with Parmesan) and enjoyed a mixed green salad (where did they get such flavorful grape tomatoes this time of year?), the couple at the end of the bar introduced themselves.

Except that they weren't really a couple.

He was from Raleigh, N.C. and she was from Arlington and they'd both brought their own bottles of wine since there's no corkage fee on Monday nights.

Before long, they wanted to know my back story and I wanted to know how they'd ended up eating together.

Next thing I knew, they were inviting me to join them for lunch tomorrow at Buzz and Ned's for baby back ribs and further conversation.

Seems they're both regular visitors to Richmond and were excited at the idea of having a local guide.

They insisted that at the very least, I meet them back at Bobette next Monday for more chatting.

Meanwhile, I moved on to lamb tenderloin over couscous, swooning over the buttery-textured meat and savory grain.

It didn't hurt that the music was Pandora with a starting point of Thievery Corporation, meaning a nice range of jazz to bossa nova for my listening pleasure.

The chatty couple said goodnight just after a new mustached arrival took a seat near me.

He turned out to be the producer of "Killing Lincoln" and had just come from Mama Zu's.

I was introduced by the owner and enjoyed a bit of conversation with a man who will be in Richmond through the end of the summer.

Cataloging where he'd eaten so far (Arcadia, Tio Pablo, Kuba, Kuba, Edo's, Millie's), I tried to make suggestions to better represent Richmond.

He told a charming story of buying a nice watch for his son when he was 18 and holding on to it until the son was 27, the better for him to appreciate it.

I had to assume he was a smart man based on that story alone.

After he left, the Raleigh guy returned and offered to buy my girlfriend and I a drink.

Given that he'd already made a stop at Tobacco Company since we'd seen him last, we declined.

Not to be unkind, but the chef had finished cooking and come out and he was far better company than someone who was obviously on the prowl.

"I see how men look at you," my friend observed. Like idiots, I asked?

Because the chef cooked for many years in my hometown, Washington, we got off on a tangent about what works there versus here,

He lamented that kidneys and other exotica no longer get ordered at his restaurant.

Sweetbreads are about the only offal he consistently sells, he said.

When a French-speaking customer stole the chef's attention, my girlfriend and I returned to the matter at hand: girltalk.

Men and bathrooms and space. The important stuff.

Best line overheard: I'm a pain in the ass but I'm always right.

I finished my meal with chocolate truffles and more wine, while we discussed good and bad Asian food, the pursuit of nose to tail menus and our preference for brunch menus that don't depend solely on egg dishes.

But then maybe we're atypical.

Next thing I knew, it was closing time and I had yet to open my Post.

Newspapers can wait, perfect strangers not so much.