Days of Brut and Beans

It was a combination Burns night and Wilson tribute set to a picnic.

While no haggis was involved, Holmes did invite me to dinner and a listening party on the night usually devoted to a traditional Burns supper. Having had haggis once, in Scotland, I was only too happy to swap out sheep innards for Buzz and Ned's barbecue and whatever records he was going to spin.

The whole reason for staying in rather than going out is Beloved's broken elbow, which has gone from the cumbersome plaster cast sticking straight out from her body she was wearing a month ago to a thick bandage covered by a contraption with a large hinge that at least allows her to look less like a statue, even if she still can't go to work.

When I got to Holmes' house, she immediately apologized for being in her pajamas and I countered by pointing out that I was still in my walking clothes, Either way, it was a picnic, a decidedly casual occasion, even if if we did wash it all down with Graham Beck Brut Rose in Holmes' mother's cut crystal glasses.

Once Holmes finished steaming shrimp and making cocktail sauce just the way Beloved and I like it (with enough horseradish to clear our sinus cavities), we sat down with our shrimp cocktails. Spread all over the dining room table was our feast: barbecued chicken, pork barbecue, Hawaiian rolls, cole slaw, baked beans and marinated cucumber and onion salad.

The only thing missing was corn on the cob, which Holmes had considered and decided against. A good call if you ask me. I'd just as soon do without and wait for summer rather than make do with winter corn.

The barbecued chicken had been my suggestion, making Holmes and Beloved's surprised enthusiasm for it especially gratifying. Big, irregular hunks of dark and white meat in a nicely-seasoned sauce resulted in nearly all of the chicken being eaten while barely a fourth of the pork met its demise.

It's a rare meal where yard bird trumps pig without it being fried. Of course, now that Facebook has told me that people who eat fried chicken once a day die 13% sooner than those who don't, I have to ask. Who eats fried chicken every single day?

After we'd stuffed ourselves silly, we retreated to the basement, where Holmes announced that tonight's theme was "compilations," beginning with "Attack of the Killer Bs Volume I." That's B for B-sides, so more obscure songs.

Picking and choosing, he started with Marshall Crenshaw's "You're My Favorite Waste of Time," again recounting the story to Beloved of me driving (as he tells it, going 40 mph in a 55 mph zone) him and I to Ashland Coffee and Tea to see Marshall Crenshaw.

Some friends just never forgive you for opening up about your personal life while they're stuck in the passenger seat.

But the record held other gems from bands like the Pretenders, the Ramones and Roxy Music. It was 1983 new wave, pop rock and punk of the highest order. And, really, shouldn't everyone listen to an occasional piece by Laurie Anderson ("Lou Reed's wife!" Holmes informed Beloved, as if that explained anything) just to appreciate that we have such performers in our world?

We had a secondary theme for the evening because since our last music night, vocalist Nancy Wilson had died. RIP.

All three of us are devoted fans of her 1963 "Hollywood My Way" record - the one where she's standing in front of a yellow taxi wearing a yellow jersey evening dress that hugs every part of her body and necessitated explaining what a sheath was to Holmes-  which gets played just about every time we get together, including tonight. "Days of Wine and Roses," just exquisite.

The last time we'd seen each other had been at Holmes' birthday dinner where they'd met Mr. Wright for the first time. When Beloved mentioned that she'd found him very attractive, Holmes piped up, saying, "I'd date him!" although it sounded a lot like "I'd do him!" which he denies saying.

Either way, they regretted cousin Billie monopolizing him so that no one else got a chance to get to get a word in edgewise or find out why he's my favorite waste of time.

Regrets, they had a few.

But not me. An evening with friends devoted to 'cue and old records after a week spent attempting re-entry into the real world was about as ambitious as I could muster.

I mean, where else in this town am I going to hear someone say, "Just listen to that Hammond B-3!" in such a reverential tone?

And at a Burns night picnic, too.

Giving the Peace Sign

The things you have to do at Thanksgiving.

When asked to fill out a foil "leaf" with what I was thankful for and hang it on a small brass tree, I reduced my gratitude to its simplest level: I am grateful for all the people who love me. And I am.

While I've always been thankful for devoted parents, siblings who can finish my childhood stories and friends who choose to spend time with me, this year's list got longer with the addition of Mr. Wright, a partner who not only braved the gauntlet of meeting my family, but talked me down after the madness ended.

Part of how he accomplished this, it should be noted, was by ensuring that the three mornings after Turkey Day all involved waking up on the water. Those who know me know that this is a sure-fire way to get me to my happy place.

Now that I think about it, I didn't get my usual pre-sisters stress zit, either, so maybe his presence in my life is working in myriad ways.

To prepare for the psychological demands of spending the day with family, I'd made a point to do my usual Thanksgiving Eve blowout with Holmes and Beloved.

Beginning at Acacia, where the vibe was low-key and quiet but the crab fritters, grilled mahi mahi and beet/feta salad (the latter so good it won over the beet-hating Holmes) and chocolate cremeux were stellar, and then at Holmes' man-cave, where we listened to countless records - Elvis Costello to the Zombies - our evening was devoted to toasting the ghosts of Thanksgivings past with Graham Beck Brut Rose.

It's a tradition that goes back to 2010 for the three of us and shows no signs of letting up, no matter where any of us wind up having our turkey.

Come Thanksgiving Day, we motored to the house of Sister #6, a true hostess with the mostess and it's not only because her celebrations involve her husband shucking Old Saltes for anyone who will slurp them, although I'll be honest, that is my favorite part of it all. I'd stand there chatting with him, slurping 3 or 4 oysters and then taking 3 shucked beauties up to my Dad before returning to do it all over again. And again.

Because the 30 family members in attendance were seated at four tables over three rooms, my sister had come up with a plan for FFF - that's forced family fun, a phrase I first learned on a bev nap - to shake things up. Someone would get up, plate and glass in hand, and tap someone else on the shoulder, thereby usurping their chair and changing the make-up of that table.

The purpose, she claimed, was for everyone to get a chance to sit at the table with my parents, but I'm not sure she ran that plan by them first. I know that by the time I got to the fourth table, everyone was either in a food coma or tired of talking, which is saying a lot for this group.

All I'm saying is, it can be exhausting to eat and drink for seven hours with family.

But Black Friday dawned in Deale, Maryland, a little town on the Chesapeake Bay that offered up a big marina and, after a drive through its nearly empty waterfront streets, a cozy lunch (because they'd stopped serving breakfast five minutes before we'd arrived) at the South Country Cafe, a place where the cashier calls you "hon" and a stack of housemade pies sat on a ledge near the door.

Carter's Creek provided the wake-up water-views come the weekend, along with the usual pleasures of small-town life in Irvington. A walk to the Local Cafe for a bagel meant seeing lots of visitors to the Tides Inn and Hope and Glory Inn out and about on inn bicycles, a holiday market going on at the Steamboat Museum and, promptly at noon, a steady rain that ensured a snug, indoor afternoon.

Best of all, I'd brought along one of my recent  library book sale finds, a petite blue edition of "The Playboy Interviews with John Lennon and Yoko Ono" from 1981, a book guaranteed to occupy me for as long as it took for Mr. Wright to gather reference materials for an upcoming course he's teaching.

From the executive editor's foreword to the interviewer's introduction, I was immediately taken with these extensive conversations between John, Yoko and the Playboy writer because Lennon was willing to talk about everything. In fact, that had been the starting point for the book because the magazine interview couldn't include a fraction of what the couple had shared over multiple interviews and it was such good stuff.

That said, after reading for less than two hours, I pulled that chenille blanket over me and took a rainy day nap the likes of which can only be explained as sleeping out the final vestiges of Thanksgiving Day stress.

Post-rain, we headed to the Quays, an upscale Irish pub, meaning the fried fish fillets were mahi mahi and served over rice/quinoa instead of with chips, but also the sort of place where an appetizer of Dublin rolls (corned beef and cabbage in eggroll wrappers) arrived long after our entrees and not that far ahead of some pretty tasty butterscotch bread pudding.

Northern Neck charm or clueless management? You make the call.

From there, we only had to cross the hall to Walkabout Creek, where a DJ was onstage, lights were flashing and the locals were just getting cranked up for some serious Saturday night dancing, first to country, then to pop and hip-hop, and fortunately, with enough classic soul thrown in to get us up there, too.

Everybody dance now.

Today dawned so warm and sunny that all indoor activity was suspended so we could make the most of such late-November splendor. My walk took me across the grounds of the Dog and Oyster Winery and through their back 40, depositing me on the main drag which, as I quickly leaned, meant waving to every Sunday driver that passed.

While Mr. Wright assures me that in my short, pink athletic skirt, no one was going to take me for a local, I am nonetheless working on getting just the right Northern Neck wave mastered.

That and 79 cents will get me a copy of the Rappahannock Record at the gas station.

Down at the dock, the creek was muddy from yesterday's rain and the tide so high that it felt like we were on a boat. While checking the oyster garden float, we found it full of pine needles but no bivalves because apparently a storm had broken the frame and released the bottom.

Mr. Wright was the brilliant one who suggested that maybe a new oyster reef will form with the escapees, perhaps just beside the dock for easy shucking and slurping. If so, it'll give me one more thing to be thankful for next year.

Not that I need anything more given how good I have it these days. Like Reba McEntire said, "I have a lot to be thankful for. I am healthy, happy and I am loved."

Finally, the trifecta. Now if I could just nail how to wave to passing trucks, I wouldn't ask for anything more.

Don't You Forget About Me

If you were a betting person, you'd put your money on restaurants being dead the Monday after three nights of Valentine's Day celebrations.

You'd lose that money, at least, if you used Dutch & Co. as the measuring stick, you would.

Despite this morning's layer of snow with a crunchy topping of ice followed by rain - or maybe because of it since some people used that minor weather event as a lame excuse to close when it's far more likely they were just plumb worn out after catering to love birds all weekend - D & C were doing a brisk business.

We had our choice of seats at the bar when we arrived, but half an hour later, it was slim pickin's. And of course, there were plenty of industry people out on a Monday night: a wine store owner, a couple of restaurant owners, two wine reps with a lovely Spanish winemaker in tow.

The barkeep is one of my favorites with his low-key and dry demeanor and he soon set us up with a bottle of Badenhorst Secateurs before getting back to the non-stop business of making beautiful cocktails right in front of us.

Since the $5 chalkboard is always my starting point, I was happy to check out a new offering - rabbit pate with pickled mustard seed and apple - and one of my long-time favorites, smoked salmon blini, while having a mini-history lesson on which presidents appointed which Supreme Court justices. To help things along, I'd brought along a chart with the breakdown going back to Nixon.

In these busy times, a girl takes her history lessons where she finds them.

Dutch & Co.'s latest Monday enticement is a separate pasta menu (although we debated the validity of including a risotto as a pasta) created by new Chef de Cuisine Paul, who hails from Burlington, Vermont, as did my ex who also got tired of the cold and moved south.

So what better way to assess Paul's skills than by trying his new mini-menu?

My choice was a decadent gnocchi with Sweet Grass dairy Asher bleu cheese and pine nuts that melted in my mouth while my date opted for the equally rich but more toothsome spaghetti alla Carbonara with bacon, Parmesan, black pepper, egg and parsley.

Because who doesn't like nice fat chunks of bacon in their pasta?

Since it would hardly be fitting to end on anything but a sweet note, we did, and not just because of a lovely chocolate cremeux accompanied by a cinnamon fritter (fried dough, yum), pear chutney and hazelnut crumbles but because of what we drank with it: glasses of Navarre Pineau des Charentes Rose, a gorgeous and slightly funky fortified Cabernet Sauvignon that the bartender admitted was his favorite thing to drink in the house.

What he said.

Because we'd begun the evening early, there was time for a stop at the Hill Cafe for a sampler of '80s and '90s music, where we decided that a good president (Clinton) made for depressing music and a bad president (Reagan) made for upbeat music.

I feel pretty sure there's a thesis just waiting to happen there.

The bartender introduced himself, poured us Graham Beck Brut Rose (it was most definitely a South African-leaning evening and talk of passport renewals ensued) and said that his first concert had been the "Get It Together" tour at the Coliseum featuring Run DMC and the Beastie Boys.

He recalled walking past Sixth Street Marketplace that night and feeling extremely white.

Because it's the Hill, there was the usual assortment of neighbors and oddballs coming and going - the regular in the hat at the end stool who seemed to know anyone who came in, the drunk-looking woman who only wanted a shot of Espolon and who obviously didn't need it, the loud talkers and drunk girls with southern accents - while it turned out I knew most of the cigarette-smoking kitchen staff from other restaurants.

Man, that's an incestuous little world.

The roads, which had been icy and slick in places on the drive over were now clear and perfectly safe, and the temperature had easily risen ten degrees since I'd left my house. And to think some people closed tonight for "weather."

Get it together, people, or you're likely to miss out. Don't bet on me joining your ranks.

Woman of Heart and Mind

You know how it is with traditions.

You start doing something in 2010 when you're still trying to figure life out and next thing you know it's 2015 and it's still going strong. Thanksgiving Eve festivities, that is.

That first year involved dinner out at the long-shuttered Bonvenu, followed by music at Cary Street Cafe. We've since refined the process.

By mid-day, Jackson Ward was emptying out quickly. By the time I left to meet friends for the evening, it was starting to look like a ghost town. Slightly better in the Museum District (more older people likely hosting turkey day, I suppose), the trip in between was absent its usual traffic.

Walking in to Holmes' humble abode, I found him and Beloved deep in discussion of their Thanksgiving plans, which weren't sitting well with her. After wrapping up that business by saying they'd make the best of it, he turned to me and with mock seriousness proclaimed, "And tonight, we're going to do our best to have fun with Karen!"

Good luck with that, friends. That was the signal to pour glasses of Beaujolais Nouveau and toast to another year's harvest and friendship.

With Holmes at the helm and some killer blue-eyed soul courtesy of Paul Carrick playing, we glided through downtown, noting the scads of reindeer in place but not yet lighted (Grand Illumination being next week), to Castanea's welcoming light.

There, it was a family affair, with Chef Philip in the back and his wife out front. Since she's actually a nurse, she made an attentive and thoughtful server.

Best of all, I discovered that she's the source of their outstanding world music soundtrack, a stellar melding of Spanish and North African music that plays like the background of the coolest party you've never been invited to.

A bottle of the house Cava got us started while Holmes described going to the hot and sweaty July 1970 Atlanta Rock Festival in an attempt to make up for having missed Woodstock. There, he said, he saw Mott the Hoople and Procul Harum, but skipped Hendrix because he wasn't playing until 3 a.m. "I didn't stay up because I was trippin'."

Said Karen and Beloved never.

He recalled relaxing on the ground when a guy came by and informed him, "I hate to bum you out, man, but I think you're lying in poison ivy." From what he recalls, he wasn't.

We began with bacon-wrapped dates over a mango cardamom sauce, then went to what the chef calls adult fish sticks - brandade balls coated and fried up crispy - and fat albondigas swimming in a tomato sauce with pine nuts and the kick of paprika, before moving on to pizza.

Debating our topping options, Holmes opined, "It's not pizza if there's not pepperoni," and that's exactly what we got, the crust as fabulous as the thick slices of pepperoni.

And since nothing is better while eating than gross stories, Holmes regaled us with his days as an orderly at MCV circa 1971 to '73, making $1.90 an hour. "All the drugs, toilet paper and soap I wanted!" he says with gusto. Also, it turns out, all the patient meals he cared to eat, which was probably a lot given that he was 19.

If it sounds nervy of him to help himself, consider that he was the "prep" guy, meaning he had to shave people and give them enemas pre-surgery. "Yea, I had to wipe asses."

Pass the pizza, please.

The only way to top a story like that was with gelato, so we did and for my fifth visit to Castanea, I broke bad and didn't get double chocolate with coconut, choosing instead mint chocolate chip that tasted of fresh mint in the most unexpectedly refreshing way.

By the time we departed the Bottom, things were looking even deader than when we'd arrived, so the only logical thing to do was head back to Holmes' Hideaway and crank some vinyl.

Appropriately enough, he began by playing some live Buffalo Springfield, mainly because he'd seen them on November 19, 1967. Reading the liner notes, I learned that he'd seen them on the Buffalo Springfield annual Thanksgiving Tour, of all the unlikely coincidences.

The notes also divulged that on that tour, they'd been doing afternoon and evening shows and, sure enough, Holmes had seen them at the Richmond Arena one afternoon and BS had played DAR Constitution Hall that same night.

What band does that anymore?

I had no idea that Homes used to be a college DJ at UR, signing on saying, "Hi, I'm Holmes and this is the Feed Your Head show," before playing whatever the hell he wanted to, stuff such as John Cale's orchestral masterstroke, "Paris 1919," a baroque pop wonder that Holmes owns in multiple formats.

When Beloved and I requested some Joni Mitchell, he obliged with the sublime "Court and Spark" before introducing us both to the earlier "For the Roses" from 1972. She recalled "Turn Me On, I'm a Radio," but I didn't, although it didn't take long to see the beauty and sarcasm of the song.

Inside the album folder was a gorgeous picture of Joni naked from the back, standing on an outcropping of rocks in the ocean, sun glinting off the water, a picture I only wish someone would take of me.

We listened to so much music as we sipped the perfectly lovely Graham Beck Brut Rose, with Holmes only occasionally giving one or the other of us crap about our lack of knowledge or questionable taste. He justified it by saying, "I'm just an unmarried male curmudgeon in his '60s."

Things amped up when he pulled out a bottle of 120 proof Scotch and suggested we taste it. One sip in, Beloved recoils and says, "I think I hear Richard Harris when I smell this."  I stick to wetting my lips with it.

When he put on a 45 of Barbra Streisand's Barry Gibb-produced hit, "Woman in Love," he announced that it was a big drag song and began doing a pseudo-striptease for our amusement.

When he put on the soundtrack to "Shaft," he immediately asked our permission to turn it up and bathe us in Isaac Hayes' immersive soul sounds. Beloved and I wanted to hear the whole thing, but he was dissatisfied listening to what he called "incidental soundtrack music" and moved on to the Pretenders.

We were several hours into Thanksgiving before calling it quits. The two of them had to get up at a reasonable enough hour to make corn pudding, so we put a period on our Thanksgiving Even tradition with another evening of terrific company and entertainment under our collective belt.

My head had been fed, as had been my belly. Happy Thanksgiving Eve to us and many more.

I'm Going In

Slow September is the worst month for restaurants, at least according to a piece in Eater I read today.

Unless you're a new restaurant on a Friday night, which The Betty on Davis is, and the place is bursting at the seams with loud sippers, suppers and more than a couple children.

Admittedly, it's too soon to discern anything, but sometimes you just want a first bite.

That distinctive, low-ceilinged space has gotten a face lift although I'd have preferred zero screens to the three they had and music over the shrill din.

I don't want to shout unless I'm in a club.

The menu surprised me with sandwiches so I tried fried chicken schnitzel sandwich on top of chayote, cabbage slaw and pickled red onion. Tasty.

A special of pastrami hash with sweet potatoes, corn Brussels leaves, sassafras gastrique under a soft boiled egg less so, with far too many pure fatty to meaty pieces nestled in the overly-large chunks of sweet potato.

They haven't even been open a week but I recalled the Eater article and it seemed clear that for those people who do go out in September, a fair number of them were in the Betty

And the beat goes on...

Next I met a favorite couple for my first foray to St. Benedict's Oktoberfest, obviously not intending to eat after schnitzel and slaw, but playing willing conversational partner for the walk over there and while they chowed down.

Since I'd never been, I have no basis of comparison, but it seemed like a goodly number of people were there after 9:00.

My last Oktoberfest was at the state fair ground in 1990 so I recognized the oompha music immediately, but they felt no compulsion to eat under the plastic canopies on folding chairs.

Instead we walked back to his house, put on Donovan, poured Graham Beck Brut Rose and talked about current events while they had dinner.

After dinner there were "amusements," in the form of my host diving into his music collection to play songs that then remind him of something else he wants to play and musical tangents are followed with no thought for the original starting point.

After he plays John Lennon's "Jealous Guy," I posit that the Bryan Ferry version is better and he pulls out the Roxy Music compilation CD to compare and contrast.

It suddenly occurs to him that he has a rare single of this song in record form and wants to show it off.

Grabbing a flashlight, he holds up one finger and says animatedly, "Give me 30 seconds," determined to prove he knows where everything is in his collection, despite a dubious-looking and widespread filing system.

From the depths of the floor behind the bar, I finally hear, "How about Todd Rundgren?"

My guess is he can't find the single and he's trying to distract me with someone he knows I love.

He's right.

But we don't go there because Todd is in LP form and he has no working turntable. Alas.

He plans to stump me with something unlikely and he does with Joe "King" Carrasco and his Crown from a 1995 anthology of the previous 17 years.

My reaction was immediate. Early '80s?

1982, he tells me. New wave via a Tex-Mex singer. I've no doubt I danced to it somewhere when it came out. So distinctly of that era.

I got to hear some of the songs my friend had written and played guitar and viola on, surprised to hear that most had been written as gifts for Christmas and wedding presents and the like.

"This is the closest to Beethoven I ever wrote," he said of one particularly striking passage.

Looking at his soft pink finger pads, he made fun of his hands for being un-calloused, meaning he'd not been playing much music for a while.

He tried to use the "I lost the briefcase with my music in it" alibi but I only chided him for being fortunate enough to have musical talent (I have zip) and squander it.

And, yes, I used that word specifically to make my point.

He allowed as how he could just get additional copies of the music so he could start back up."I may look dense, but I'm really smart," he said, grinning manically and tapping his forehead.

Then practice your talent, my friend.

To round out the evening's musical diversions, he played what he called "Ryan Adams' most gorgeous ballad," the soul-stirring "When the Stars Go Blue" from the 2001 Gold album, which I don't have and a song I don't know.

It's so tender, so sweet and moving, sung in the voice of a guy who knows he hasn't always gotten it right.

When the song ended, he headed upstairs to say goodnight to his girlfriend who was packing it in after a long day fighting humanity in a service-oriented job.

Me, I grabbed the remote and played the song again. Sigh, such a lovely note on which to end.

Meanwhile, back in J-Ward, I arrive home to roving clutches of VCU party-seekers, talking loudly, laughing self-consciously and, in the case of the females, dressed Friday night cute.

It's after midnight but before 1, so people are shifting allegiances with so much of the night still ahead.

In the time it's taken me to write this, I've heard one bottle broken (a girl who shrieked), a guy ask a giggling girl group, "Do you live in the dorms?" and one car driver threaten a group who wouldn't move out of the street so traffic could pass.

Kids today.

Apparently the September rule doesn't apply to college parties.

Sometimes It Just Turns Out That Way

You hang as long as you can hang.

At times, it veered toward "The Big Chill," except without the death part.

It was a gathering of friends.

A favorite couple had invited me to join them for an evening of too many cooks in the kitchen, situational tests of memory and music old and new.

We brought each other up to date on our lives.

Over Ca'Berto Prosecco, they shared details of their weekend in Lovitsville, which seemed to be a delightful blend of reading, drinking and seeing the sights, while I countered with crabs, dolphins and wine.

Music selection got off on the right foot with "Under the Covers," a CD of '60s and '70s covers done by Matthew Sweet and Susannah Hoffs of the Bangles, two musicians I like a lot.

We had random dancing in multiple rooms.

Their version of "Cinnamon Girl" was excellent, "Different Drum" took me over the moon, but truly, it was the Who's "The Kids are Alright" that had me dancing with myself in the dining room, just my Ca'Berto and me.

We all pitched in for meal prep.

Then duty called so I joined my hosts in the kitchen to chop, slice and present a summer supper of the best kind.

Garlicky hummus with a hot sauce finish. Olli sausage Toscano and a dry Italian sausage. Sliced cukes. Bowls of olives and gherkins. Pita. Three kinds of mustard.

My contribution had been four succulent tomatoes raised in downtown Jackson Ward, which I sliced and gave a whiff of pink salt to before placing on the table.

We had our major chord feel-good moment.

Happy vibes abounded as we listened to the Sweet/Hoffs cover of "Monday, Monday" while eating these exquisite summer tomatoes, all three of us smiling, dancing and head bobbing in our chairs as tomato juices dripped down our hands.

We had surprises.

My host is a multi-talented man who impressed us over several times with his ability to do or know something.

At one point and only slightly off topic, he informed us with no warning, "I castrated bulls in the '70s." It's the kind of thing you expect to read in a Hemingway novel.

But just to clear (because he did clarify), he's only seen other types of castration.

Apparently that's a distinction a lot of castration veterans want to make.

We had a killer soundtrack.

The music rotated through Sergio Mendez and Brazil '66 (more dancing), Roxy Music (limpid movements and swooning) and Bobby Darrin (to give you some idea of the vibe) as we each spun stories and sipped Graham Beck Brut Rose.

Our humor exceeded the sum of our parts.

At one point, my host had to take his glasses off because he was laughing so hard he was crying. You don't see that every day.

And the conversation grew and bloomed like a stinkweed in a city yard.

We had information sharing.

They were unimpressed with Southern Seasons, she's coveting a steak from Belmont Butchery and he acknowledged men having sensitive nipples.

This is noteworthy mainly because I saw a friend's video this afternoon in which he commented, "Men's nipples really do get hard," after ice water is thrown on his head.

I can't say I've ever had a day where nipples came up so often.

While my host provided color for the conversation with small detours and slight tangents, we tucked into chocolate eclairs and chocolate lava cake, perfectly lovely with the Graham Beck.

You have to appreciate a man who lays in supplies of bubbly and chocolate.

We had laugh attacks.

During a conversation about goodness know what, my host tried to use the word "bodices," pronouncing it "bo-deeces," sending us off into gales of laughter.

We've all been there - read words, understood them, but with no kind of idea how to pronounce them.

My friend couldn't resist playing and talking about the band Time for Three, a classically trained string trio that seemed to meld every genre of music - bluegrass, jazz, rock, classical.

"I'm buying seven or eight copies and giving them to people for Christmas," my friend said. Can't say I've given Christmas presents a  moment's thought.

We shared future plans.

There was my friend's screenplay idea, which involves Beethoven, Bach and Mozart being dropped into the '60s to see how they would have changed music. Brilliant.

But after 5 1/2 hours together, these people who had gotten up way earlier than I had today were getting tired.

We went our separate ways.

Back in Jackson Ward, roving packs of freshmen were walking up and down sidewalks, looking for the party, the cool place, to be seen.

Getting out of my car, a trio passes by, all of them intent at making a success of their first Friday night away at college.

"Let's stay up all night!" one squeals as I put the lock in my door and smile to myself.

It's 12:15.

That's a hell of a hang you have ahead of yourself, son. Do what you can.

People Got a Lotta Nerve

Two weeks in a row for me at Friday Cheers. It may be a signal of the coming apocalypse.

Actually, I'd bought my ticket for tonight's Neko Case show months ago, thrilled at a chance to see her for only ten bucks.

J-Ward friends invited me to walk down to Brown's Island with them, but we couldn't align our schedules so I went alone.

Once on the island, I gravitated to a group of familiar faces, WRIR DJs mostly, but within moments, my neighbors appeared and I got to hear about her escapades last week as part of the James River Batteau Festival.

Let's just say now I know how those women pee off the sides of the boats.

We were in the middle of a discussion about the musical "Hair," which I'd seen last night and knew they'd love when I felt a shadow across me and there stood one of my favorite people, a guitarist and terrific conversationalist I hadn't seen in ages.

I accompanied him to get a beer bracelet and beer while we caught up with each other's lives.

By then Laura Viers had begun playing, sans band, so we parted ways and I found a spot under a tree with plenty of shade to watch her.

After a drummer joined her onstage, she brought up a discussion they'd had about the early modern English phrase "believe you me," which she didn't understand, nor did he. Come on, you two, it's verb-subject-object, as any language geek knows.

She did the lovely "Sun Song" and "July Flame," appropriate given how imminent July is.

July flame
ashes of a secret heart
falling in my lemonade
Unslakable thirsting in the back yard
Can I call you mine?

How does a woman who uses the word "unslakable" not get "believe you me"?

Kelly Hogan, Neko case's back-up singer, came out to join Laura, bringing her a cloth to wipe her sweat ("She's a true southern woman," Laura said) and they did a fabulous job on Daniel Johnston's "True Love Will Find You in the End."

I'm counting on it.

During the break, a 20-something guy sitting next to me struck up a conversation, asking me about my musical taste and sharing that he'd driven in from Lynchburg for the show.

A musician, he didn't have much good to say about Lynchburg's scene, meaning he often hit the road for musical reasons.

When he got up to go buy Laura Veirs' record, I made my way to the stage for Neko's set. Not long after it began, he showed up, record in hand to stand nearby.

Neko came out looking fabulous, as always, her red hair recognizable from 100 paces. But it's that distinctively beautiful voice that kills me.

It was during "This Tornado Loves You" that I noticed a guy up on the 7th Street bridge, taking pictures and watching everything from above.

A couple of songs in, she said, "I just want to thank Comfort for not making their cornbread too sweet or putting jalapenos in it. It was so good and now my belly is full," and here she gestured at her flat stomach, "of cornbread with a rice pudding hat on top. I'm like a python who just ate."

Before long she picked up her guitar to play it, the better, she said, to camouflage her "python."

Tonight's weather couldn't have been more different than last week's, the sun hidden behind clouds once she came on and a light breeze blowing over the packed crowd. "Look at that sexy river!" she called out.

"How are you doing, Richmond?" Neko asked. "I'm hot, sweaty and grody!" I was right there with her, especially after having sat on dirt and now sweating in the crowd.

Like the other times I've seen her perform, she'd put her hair up and soon let it down again, catnip to guys in the crowd.

And how's this for odd? I was standing there watching her when all of a sudden, Lynchburg guy puts his arm around my shoulder.

For a minute, I thought it was another friend - I'd seen the Hat, the neighbor, the drummer - approaching me from behind, but when I saw it was him, I whipped around and gave him the have-you-lost-your-mind look.

"I hope she does "People Got a Lotta Nerve," he said in all seriousness. "That song just gets inside my head."

Just keep your head and your hand to yourself, please.

I never tire of hearing "That Teenage Feeling" or the song about her first boyfriend "The Pharaohs" ("Still the best boyfriend I ever had," she said) and the band rocked out hard to "I'm a Man."

It was during that song that a train approached on the overhead track while people waved and the conductor blew the horn.

My high point was probably "Hold On," but at the end of their set, Neko said, "Thank you, Richmond and thank you, railroad train for honking. That may be the best moment of my life!"

I'm not sure about that, but tonight was the sixth time I've seen her in the past decade and easily the most fitting setting for the wild child that is Neko Case. Even she commented on the beauty of the setting multiple times.

After she sent us out into the night, I continued my evening at Holmes' abode for a dinner party, already in full swing when I arrived.

A good guest offers to help and my job was frying corn and tomatoes in rendered bacon fat, an easy enough job to do while sipping Prosecco.

Others manned the grill, steamed shrimp, set the table and changed the music, all with flutes in hand.

Our soundtrack varied from Dylan to a CD of music from the Kennedy White House - "Camelot," Chubby Checkers, Aaron Copland- eventually landing on a CD of the BeeGees number one hits before the night was over, the latter not to everyone's taste.

"None of these songs are in my top five BeeGees songs," Holmes grumbled to no one in particular.

Dinner was a veritable feast: steak, barbecued chicken, fresh North Carolina shrimp, the aforementioned bacon/corn/tomato medley, Asian marinated cucumber salad, two kinds of rice, the ripest sliced tomatoes with balsamic glaze and garlic cheese sticks.

There were toasts to friendship, a tale of private eyes on the divorce trail and stories of boyfriends taking sexy pictures of girlfriends. Dessert was Haagen Daz vanilla with fresh sliced peaches and caramel sauce, the nail in the coffin of the evening for those who'd been up since the crack of dawn today.

I was fine, but we're not talking about me.

Even the usual surefire method of opening a bottle of Graham Beck Brut Rose failed to entice those in a food coma.

And when pink bubbles fail to reignite this group, you'd better believe the apocalypse is nigh.

With Baited Hook

We lost an hour over the weekend, but it felt like a whole lot more.

Between finishing up several assignments Saturday, I made it over to the Blue Bee Cidery tasting briefly, along with scads of people, including a favorite Museum District couple, clutching bottles of Aragon 1904 and Mill Race Bramble, listening to the sounds of Poisoned Dwarf (great band name, right?) and eating lamb (my choice) or pork sandwiches in the sunshine facing the downtown skyline.

It was to laugh when a guy led some friends across the parking lot and pointed to the buildings on the other side of the river, extending his arm in a "ta-da!" moment as if they'd had to wind through a forest to come to the view when it's in plain sight no matter where you are there.

Hours later, dinner ended up being in almost the exact same spot when Holmes and his beloved suggested I join them at Camden's for a United Nations-worthy evening of pink bubbles- Lucien Albrecht Brut Rose, Graham Beck Brut Rose and a hearty bright pink Cava with a name too long to remember by the time I got home - along with succulent pork belly festooned with the Christmas colors of cranberries and sauteed spinach.

Knowing we were destined to lose an hour, we probably shouldn't have stayed up so late chatting and sipping but it had been ages since I'd seen them and there was so much to talk about.

When Sunday dawned clear and warm, it seemed a shame not to walk somewhere for brunch and the Rogue Gentleman got the nod for its proximity.

We were the first to arrive even though they'd been open for two hours at that point, but given my last visit on a mobbed opening night, it was kind of nice to have the place to ourselves.

Well, that's a stretch because between the kitchen staff and wait staff, there were easily four times as many of them as us, but with the sun on our backs in bar stools up front, who was counting?

Punkt sparkling Gruner Veltliner gave way to eggs and bacon and a dish of polenta and eggs, a stellar layering of flavors with preserved lemon under polenta topped by harissa tomato sauce, two fried eggs and pickled thyme.

Since some of us require something sweet for breakfast, I also got brioche doughnut holes rolled in pistachio dust, my only complaint being that they weren't hot.

Not that I said that out loud.

After a stroll through the Hebrew Cemetery and Shockoe Hill cemetery to check on Henrietta Guggenheim and Dr. Norton's grave sites (my pebbles still in place), we headed for the November theater to see Virginia Rep's final production of Moliere's "Tartuffe."

As to be expected, the audience was a seasoned one, but the older couple who sat next to us and immediately began chatting were delightful.

When I told her it was my first time seeing this play (although I've seen "School for Wives"), she recalled that the last time she'd seen "Tartuffe" had been at the Old Vic in London.

The closest I could come was having once seen "Batboy" in London, but no Moliere.

I was expecting fabulous and funny language but was just as taken with the commentary on relationship foibles ("When we're forgotten by a woman's heart our pride is challenged; we, too, must forget; or, if we cannot, must at least pretend to"), not to mention the glorious sight of (Ryan Bechard as) Tartuffe's bare bottom. Twice.

There really aren't enough naked male parts on view in Richmond theater.

Beauty without intelligence is like a hook without bait.

Since it was the last performance, the cast was spot on, completely comfortable in their roles and playing them to the hilt. Add to that a gloriously French interior set, lavish costumes and it made for a slapstick, witty and sharp commentary on hypocrisy and religion.

The heathen in me ate it up.

Spilling out of the theater a couple of hours later, it took a few minutes to realize why it was still so sunny and bright out. That lost hour was repaying us now with some bonus time to enjoy a promenade on a beautiful day and talk about the play.

Happily, my date suggested exactly that.

Public scandal is what makes the offense; sinning in private is not sinning at all.

Don't I know it. And, incidentally, not because I went to the school for wives.