Handsome C-ville prof
Takes photographs of Pompeii
Shows slide of girlfriend
You know, just in case any of the women in the over-packed room and hall at UR had designs on him by the time he finished discussing his new exhibit, "Unseen Pompeii: The Photographs of William Wylie."
I kid you not, it was standing room only and UR worker bees had to bring in additional chairs at the last second, something I appreciated since I had been roosting on the air conditioning vents along with several female students, all of whom were freezing right along with me until we sat on our bags and blocked the direct air flow.
Pompeii as seen through the eyes of a UVA professor turned out to be a real draw. Who knew?
If I look beyond his well-sculpted professorial looks and ignore his self-deprecating humor, he'd still win points for admitting how thrilled he'd been to be in the amphitheater, the very same one where Pink Floyd had played a show to, well, no one, a show which was filmed in '72 and made into a documentary.
"I was thrilled that they'd had their gear there," he chuckled. Music nerds represent.
He was also a talker (not that I'd ever complain about such a desirable trait), but the end result was that he'd been so busy showing us images of the work of his photographic idols that he barely started showing us images of his work 45 minutes into the hour-long talk.
The screen, such as it was, fluttered in the crowded room, causing him to dryly observe, "I'm usually a still photographer."
Ordinarily, I'd be disappointed to be rushed through slides of art and deprived of information, except that with his exhibit opening, it's be far preferable to see the photographs in real life rather than digitally anyway.
Walking to Balliceaux along Hanover, I witnessed the business of life around me. A Dad arrived home only to have his two kids come running from the house, informing him that Mom isn't home yet.
"She's not?' he replies, his voice sinking.
A bit further down, a young woman sat comfortably in a rocking chair on her porch, talking work into her phone, with her face lit by the glow of her laptop.
On a slab of a concrete porch sprinkled with leaves, a shirtless guy sat on a plastic folding chair taking in the night air, looking very mellow indeed.
Like me, they all know that nights like this, nights that still feel warm and summery, are numbered. Fall and temperatures in the '80s have moved in to stay around here despite my pleas to the weather gods.
Dateless meal at bar
"Karen, sit here," calls prof friend
All "isms" fair game
Like me, she was there for Hand to Hand Haiku, but unlike me, she'd had to put her 17-year old cat down today while I've had five years to adjust to putting my 15-year old beagle down. Still, she was there to end the day on a better note than it had begun. Props.
Because food is forgotten when we lose loved ones, this was her first meal of the day, which she enjoyed while I had my third: caramelized chicken thigh with pickled cabbage, a killer complementary flavor duo that has yet to disappoint.
Naturally she, the vegetarian, fell in love with my cabbage.
We nattered on for a while about eating healthier, her new part time job and our fears about the development of the old Village before scooting to the back for poetry.
Among the many familiar haiku faces was a young couple at the table next to me, the woman explaining how excited she will be to become a second grade teacher. "I can already see how my classroom will look," she gushes. "I know how my bulletin boards will look!"
Youthful exuberance aside, I flashed back to dinner at the bar with my friend, who'd pointedly said, "I wouldn't go back to being 21 for anything, although I would take back my body then."
Hand to Hand Haiku got started with host Raven Mack riffing on his subject du jour, namely cleaning up the rubble of your life because everyone has it.
Oh, he likened the process to a myth and drove home the point that life is about cleaning up enough of your own personal rubble to create a small space where you could actually breathe a little, but the message was clear.
That's exactly why he's such a great MC - he can do it all. He sets the tone with a revelatory monologue, keeps score and plays cheerleaders to the haiku readers and writes haikus prolifically, honestly and cleverly.
Tonight we got a bonus rant because he'd chosen two flags to identify contestants: Uruguay's with a sun and Angola's with a machete, sending him off on a spirited tangent about the glories of owning machetes and their myriad uses.
Pulling the funny card, he was insistent that if we heard any haikus we'd heard before, we should boo. "Now, here's Ryan," he said to great effect.
Everyone's favorite anarchist was there with her four week old baby happily nursing at her breast (Raven says, "If anyone has a problem with a woman breastfeeding here, you can go outside." I'd already given her my thumbs up) even when she took the stage to read her haikus.
Her first, read in a clear, strong voice, set the tone:
Dude, if you are selling
moonshine legally
Then it's not moonshine. Duh.
Let me just say that hers was far from the only anti-hipster haiku. And Raven's so talented he managed to write haikus about everything from low fat desserts to burning bridges to entering silver crescents.
Only Benjamin, with his haiku about whips, being dominated and his mistress ("It's a good day") topped our host on that subject ("He seems all quiet, but now we know what he's really about..." Raven observed after he read it).
And the young couple next to me surprised us all by getting onstage and facing off, each having written exactly one haiku while they were there.
The judges picked hers over his, but he shrugged happily and said, "At least we did it!" Apply that to most things in life and you'll go far, kids.
There was a loser buy back round allowing those who'd lost in the preliminary rounds to come back for a second shot.
"One of them's going to fail a second time," Raven told the crowd before an older brother beat his younger brother while their Mom filmed the whole thing. The losers brought some fine writing to the buy back round.
Let us be powered
by the twin engines of
peace and tranquility
The powers that be
do a great job of keeping
us in our places
Raven read us a handful from his latest "American" series and they were outstanding and more than a little depressingly honest about things, such as being as American as high fructose corn syrup. Truth.
As American
as demolition of hoods
being called progress
Paul won the whole enchilada, earning himself a haiku-inscribed railroad spike, undoubtedly the most brilliant combination of words and hardware imaginable.
He closed out with a saga of going cross country via train from Charlottesville to Chicago, then bus from there to Seattle, then train to L.A. ("It was cheaper") then bus to New Orleans ("That was rough") before a final train back to C-ville.
His point? That he'd not been disappointed in the goodness of America or its people, in fact, quite the contrary.
His take-home was that we could all benefit from talking to each other more often and that doing so helps each of us deal with our personal rubble clean-up. My take?
We're as happy as
the space we clear out, Rubble
gone means new chances
I'd go so far as to say it's a good day even without the whips.
Showing posts with label kampot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kampot. Show all posts
Thursday, September 15, 2016
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
Tell-All Tuesdays
Tinder Tuesdays aside, usually you have to go on a first date to get asked that many questions.
Instead, it was a solo night out.
Waiting at a stoplight en route, a gaggle of, yes, children (there really is no other word for them based on looks) crossed in front of me looking clueless and equal parts excited and terrified. Then I caught a glance at the back of one's t-shirt: VCU Class of 2020.
Well, now, that explains why they look like they need burp cloths.
My soundtrack for the drive over was "Best Kept Secret" by Case, Lang, Veirs, a harmony-fest as sunny and soul-soothing as the beautiful summer weather outside.
It's times such as that that you realize that the music randomly playing really is nothing more than the soundtrack to your life (cue long shoot from above).
Walking to Balliceaux after parking the car safely out of the parking nazis' purview, I had the pleasure of hearing before I saw him, a guy on a bike pedaling into the sun, a smile on his face as he whistled a song, not just loudly, but really well.
Already it was a good night. With a plan to park once and party thrice, I had some basic goals: eat, celebrate National Rum Day with a cocktail and hopefully get some laughs with Back Room Comedy. Modest intentions, really.
I may have confused the bartender a tad by wanting my food - caramelized boneless chicken thigh atop a forest of pickled cabbage - before my drink, but she played along as if she understood.
Just as I was starting to eat, the couple next to me took an interest in me and began chatting.
In that way that friendly strangers do, we began by talking about generalities - why wasn't Kampot busier, the pleasures of being able to walk out your door and have multiple worthy restaurants nearby, how it sometimes feels like you're always the oldest people at a venue - and soon found commonalities.
They live on Floyd Avenue and I did the same for 13 years. They feel perfectly safe walking around at night, as do I. We agreed that porches make great neighbors but also ideal perches for watching street theater unfold (including middle-aged people stumbling drunkenly down the sidewalk).
Honestly, I got so engrossed in our conversation about all the stuff that goes on in Richmond and how I (or anyone) finds out about it that I almost forgot to order my drink and what kind of a way is that to celebrate National Rum Day?
I found my party in a glass with a Billie Holiday in Cambodia made of Plantation 5-year rum, tamarind, palm sugar and fish sauce (Mac, are you listening? It's everywhere!) with a kaffir leaf floating on top like a dead frog in a pool skimmer basket. Except tastier, much tastier.
He was a builder and they were both real estate agents (although she admitted it with downcast eyes and a side glance that was pretty funny) but her curiosity revolved around my work, leading to stories from my past covering legal sex harassment, how I found my spirit liquor at a job interview and why a future mayoral candidate would want me to tell people what to do.
Seriously, those are stories that usually get trotted out on first dates.
Not wanting to scare them off, I neglected to mention my biggest eccentricities, thus avoiding the whole "Karen is so odd" conversation while we're still in the honeymoon phase of our budding relationship.
Things got eerie twice, once when we were talking about same sex families (they had three boys and I grew up with five sisters) and I told a story using the name "Cindy," which, oddly enough, turned out to be her name.
Just as surprising to me was when, apropos of nothing, she asked me if I blogged and while that wasn't an unusual question circa 2009 or 10, I do find it odd now that Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat have replaced blogging in the hearts of device-carrying people, namely the entire first world except me.
Why, yes, thank you, I do blog, have blogged for close to nine years now, both for journaling purposes and as writing exercise.
Do I intend to write a book with so much material, she wondered. Why would I not might be a better question.
And like any good first date prospect, I answered all the queries about who I am, where I live, what I do and where I like to go. When pressed about my weekend plans, I shared Friday's, genuinely excited to entice new friends to see two favorite musicians playing a show together.
Especially new friends who like to talk.
Since my original intention had been to see stand-up and they were long since finished eating, we parted ways with all kinds of new information about former strangers. Cindy and I both speak very quickly and eschew clothing for sleeping, for instance. Her husband and I share a passion for tequila and hearing compromised by too many loud shows and no regrets about it.
By that estimation, the three of us are practically a match made in heaven.
Things almost got dicey when I let slip that I sleep nine hours a night and Cindy looked at me like I'd grown two heads. According to her husband, it's all that stressing out at 3 a.m. that keeps her from the same, a bad habit he long since left behind since there's no gain to it.
In the back room, I was solo again and had missed some of the comedians, but had no problem finding a good seat with a table and a view for the next one up, Winston.
Talking about adult children living with their parents, he immediately pulled me in by joking about his people, "The millennial plan is to live at home until you inherit it." Hilarious.
Having problems with a heckler seated with three young giggling women, he observed, "He doesn't need a $3 rail drink, he needs a $30 Uber back to his apartment. Alone." More tittering from the peanut gallery, who may or may not have been there because it was Tinder Tuesday.
John came next and jumped right into his foot fetish and sucking big toes, although a poll of the room proved that most men didn't share his attraction to feet. He was having trouble getting a stronghold with the audience.
"I like you guys," he told the room. "You have a very humbling response." Sometimes impassive faces and no laughter really do tell the whole story.
Cory was next, riffing on whatever his gaze landed upon. Balliceaux's name ("I thought it was "Ball o' cocks"), decor ("They got the theme for this place from, what, Noah's ark?") and ordinary signage ("That fire exit sign says no smoking or drinking in the alley, but the only things people do in alleys is smoke and drink. Occasionally kill people").
Instead of a heckler, he had a couple at the bar - although the guy came from the same Tinder table as the heckler - who were talking loudly non-stop through his set.
He tried calling them out but they didn't hear him for their conversation. Naturally he began mocking them and specifically, the guy's flip-flops and sleeveless shirt ensemble. It was funny stuff.
The show's last segment involved John and Cory facing off on topics called out by the audience, which is apparently what they do on their podcast. Pro wrestling! This killer heat! Chain saws! Sandwiches!
"Sandwiches need to be talked about," John announced, making a case for square cut sandwiches over diagonally cut ones. A poll of the room revealed a distinct preference for diagonal.
"I have taken sandwiches back to WaWa because they were cut diagonally," John said, causing Cory to roll his eyes and end the topic.
It got even funnier when John began talking about trying to buy a chainsaw to take down a bush in the backyard of his newly purchased house. When he couldn't decide on the proper chain saw, he decided to go with an ax, a terribly challenging endeavor he discovered.
"Now that's something that needs to be live-streamed on YouTube," Cory insisted, trying to hold back laughter. "A black man chopping down a bush with an ax. You know that would've gone viral!"
Before it was all over, I (and apparently more than a few others in the room) had learned that lingerie football is a thing and so are trampolines in the Olympics.
Looking as aghast as I felt, Cory responded to that bit of news with, "Then there's hope for everyone now."
Everyone? I'm still holding out for an Olympic talking event. It's my only chance at a gold.
Instead, it was a solo night out.
Waiting at a stoplight en route, a gaggle of, yes, children (there really is no other word for them based on looks) crossed in front of me looking clueless and equal parts excited and terrified. Then I caught a glance at the back of one's t-shirt: VCU Class of 2020.
Well, now, that explains why they look like they need burp cloths.
My soundtrack for the drive over was "Best Kept Secret" by Case, Lang, Veirs, a harmony-fest as sunny and soul-soothing as the beautiful summer weather outside.
It's times such as that that you realize that the music randomly playing really is nothing more than the soundtrack to your life (cue long shoot from above).
Walking to Balliceaux after parking the car safely out of the parking nazis' purview, I had the pleasure of hearing before I saw him, a guy on a bike pedaling into the sun, a smile on his face as he whistled a song, not just loudly, but really well.
Already it was a good night. With a plan to park once and party thrice, I had some basic goals: eat, celebrate National Rum Day with a cocktail and hopefully get some laughs with Back Room Comedy. Modest intentions, really.
I may have confused the bartender a tad by wanting my food - caramelized boneless chicken thigh atop a forest of pickled cabbage - before my drink, but she played along as if she understood.
Just as I was starting to eat, the couple next to me took an interest in me and began chatting.
In that way that friendly strangers do, we began by talking about generalities - why wasn't Kampot busier, the pleasures of being able to walk out your door and have multiple worthy restaurants nearby, how it sometimes feels like you're always the oldest people at a venue - and soon found commonalities.
They live on Floyd Avenue and I did the same for 13 years. They feel perfectly safe walking around at night, as do I. We agreed that porches make great neighbors but also ideal perches for watching street theater unfold (including middle-aged people stumbling drunkenly down the sidewalk).
Honestly, I got so engrossed in our conversation about all the stuff that goes on in Richmond and how I (or anyone) finds out about it that I almost forgot to order my drink and what kind of a way is that to celebrate National Rum Day?
I found my party in a glass with a Billie Holiday in Cambodia made of Plantation 5-year rum, tamarind, palm sugar and fish sauce (Mac, are you listening? It's everywhere!) with a kaffir leaf floating on top like a dead frog in a pool skimmer basket. Except tastier, much tastier.
He was a builder and they were both real estate agents (although she admitted it with downcast eyes and a side glance that was pretty funny) but her curiosity revolved around my work, leading to stories from my past covering legal sex harassment, how I found my spirit liquor at a job interview and why a future mayoral candidate would want me to tell people what to do.
Seriously, those are stories that usually get trotted out on first dates.
Not wanting to scare them off, I neglected to mention my biggest eccentricities, thus avoiding the whole "Karen is so odd" conversation while we're still in the honeymoon phase of our budding relationship.
Things got eerie twice, once when we were talking about same sex families (they had three boys and I grew up with five sisters) and I told a story using the name "Cindy," which, oddly enough, turned out to be her name.
Just as surprising to me was when, apropos of nothing, she asked me if I blogged and while that wasn't an unusual question circa 2009 or 10, I do find it odd now that Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat have replaced blogging in the hearts of device-carrying people, namely the entire first world except me.
Why, yes, thank you, I do blog, have blogged for close to nine years now, both for journaling purposes and as writing exercise.
Do I intend to write a book with so much material, she wondered. Why would I not might be a better question.
And like any good first date prospect, I answered all the queries about who I am, where I live, what I do and where I like to go. When pressed about my weekend plans, I shared Friday's, genuinely excited to entice new friends to see two favorite musicians playing a show together.
Especially new friends who like to talk.
Since my original intention had been to see stand-up and they were long since finished eating, we parted ways with all kinds of new information about former strangers. Cindy and I both speak very quickly and eschew clothing for sleeping, for instance. Her husband and I share a passion for tequila and hearing compromised by too many loud shows and no regrets about it.
By that estimation, the three of us are practically a match made in heaven.
Things almost got dicey when I let slip that I sleep nine hours a night and Cindy looked at me like I'd grown two heads. According to her husband, it's all that stressing out at 3 a.m. that keeps her from the same, a bad habit he long since left behind since there's no gain to it.
In the back room, I was solo again and had missed some of the comedians, but had no problem finding a good seat with a table and a view for the next one up, Winston.
Talking about adult children living with their parents, he immediately pulled me in by joking about his people, "The millennial plan is to live at home until you inherit it." Hilarious.
Having problems with a heckler seated with three young giggling women, he observed, "He doesn't need a $3 rail drink, he needs a $30 Uber back to his apartment. Alone." More tittering from the peanut gallery, who may or may not have been there because it was Tinder Tuesday.
John came next and jumped right into his foot fetish and sucking big toes, although a poll of the room proved that most men didn't share his attraction to feet. He was having trouble getting a stronghold with the audience.
"I like you guys," he told the room. "You have a very humbling response." Sometimes impassive faces and no laughter really do tell the whole story.
Cory was next, riffing on whatever his gaze landed upon. Balliceaux's name ("I thought it was "Ball o' cocks"), decor ("They got the theme for this place from, what, Noah's ark?") and ordinary signage ("That fire exit sign says no smoking or drinking in the alley, but the only things people do in alleys is smoke and drink. Occasionally kill people").
Instead of a heckler, he had a couple at the bar - although the guy came from the same Tinder table as the heckler - who were talking loudly non-stop through his set.
He tried calling them out but they didn't hear him for their conversation. Naturally he began mocking them and specifically, the guy's flip-flops and sleeveless shirt ensemble. It was funny stuff.
The show's last segment involved John and Cory facing off on topics called out by the audience, which is apparently what they do on their podcast. Pro wrestling! This killer heat! Chain saws! Sandwiches!
"Sandwiches need to be talked about," John announced, making a case for square cut sandwiches over diagonally cut ones. A poll of the room revealed a distinct preference for diagonal.
"I have taken sandwiches back to WaWa because they were cut diagonally," John said, causing Cory to roll his eyes and end the topic.
It got even funnier when John began talking about trying to buy a chainsaw to take down a bush in the backyard of his newly purchased house. When he couldn't decide on the proper chain saw, he decided to go with an ax, a terribly challenging endeavor he discovered.
"Now that's something that needs to be live-streamed on YouTube," Cory insisted, trying to hold back laughter. "A black man chopping down a bush with an ax. You know that would've gone viral!"
Before it was all over, I (and apparently more than a few others in the room) had learned that lingerie football is a thing and so are trampolines in the Olympics.
Looking as aghast as I felt, Cory responded to that bit of news with, "Then there's hope for everyone now."
Everyone? I'm still holding out for an Olympic talking event. It's my only chance at a gold.
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Not a Hiking People, Either
I ♥ oceans, but I accept that some people ♥ mountains.
For them, there was Secretly Y'All, Tell Me a Story at Balliceaux tonight. Or, excuse me, Kampot at Balliceaux, as the re-formulated kitchen is now called.
That's right, stories about mountains at what amounts to an entirely new restaurant concept inside a mostly familiar setting.
Decor or art installation? Three small vintage TV (2 black and white, 1 color) sets mounted over the bar showing an endless loop of retro bike footage, interspersed with a fake snake (head rearing back) between TVs and a nearby pastel statue of Mary (with picaresque garland). You make the call.
But what to eat, what to drink at this new spot with the likes of Miguel playing overhead?
When I heard they had housemade root beer, I was thrilled, doubly so when a tall glass of creamy, foam-covered root beer showed up. I've had housemade root beer before - I'm quite fond of Weeping Radish's - but never with a head like this on it.
It was such terrific root beer I'd go back just for that.
But they didn't only score in the libations department because everything we ordered was pretty tasty. Our server began by explaining the tapas concept to us (hopefully that bit of unnecessary speech-giving will cease and desist soon) and we wasted no time making check marks next to ones that sounded promising on the menu.
Fried chicken skins because yes (the drier texture beginning uninterestingly but becoming more appealing after several bites). Caramelized boneless chicken thigh (because we wondered about a connection between those skins and thighs and inquiring minds wanted to know) with a piquant boost from pickled cabbage.
Grilled, marinated pork shoulder (because some judge a kitchen by its pig) with a sassy jaew sauce that, if it got too hot on the tongue, could be cooled down with iced yu choy leaves brought at the same time.
I didn't need it, but some people did.
One of the brightest tastes was the lobster and local greens Siam-wich (clever, sort of) with Kampot lemon vinaigrette. My unintended brilliance was in ordering cabbage 3 ways - Thai basil, chili, and Virginia peanuts - which provided a perfectly balanced plate of crunch and flavor to complement all the protein courses.
As the dance party king commented later when I told him about the meal, "We used to have no great Asian and now it's exploding everywhere." They say it's all about timing and I suppose that applies as much to restaurant trends as to romance.
The crowds began arriving for storytelling, so we moved to the back (on the way a woman stopped me and said, "I love your metal straw." Cue Jackson Browne story), where chairs had been set up in rows all the way to the back wall, the first time I'd seen that. Even so, plenty of people wound up standing or sitting on the floor.
With larger, younger crowds come more younger storytellers and tonight's group proved that in spades. With a theme of "mountains," we heard from more than a few hikers and mountain-huggers.
Taylor had gone to Alaska to find herself, as told in her story "Fire Weed," in which she para- glided (or, as she put it, jumped off mountains with strangers) in the rain. Metaphors followed.
Richard, a semi-regular legend at Secretly Y'All (also, co-organizer Colin's father, but that's not why we enjoy his stories so much), turned out to be a native of West Virginia (hence his story's title, "The Mountain State"), with the funniest bit being about how being a newsboy delivering in the hills gave him strong, muscular calves.
"Still the strongest part of my body," he bragged, lifting his legs. "Wanna feel them?" Awkward on purpose is always funny.
Joe's story, "I Guess I Like Hiking" concerned him being shorter and fatter as a teen. "But what I lacked in height and cool, I made up for in succumbing to peer pressure." He scored points by pooping in the woods on a hike because this is what impresses 15-year old boys. Succumbing naturally led to his first pot-smoking experience, which involved Dads who hiked slowly, a Bic pen and tin foil.
I don't pretend to understand.
Another story involved taking a selfie on Mount Everest after being able to only (only!) climb 18,198 feet. What was dire wasn't that she was oxygen and sleep-deprived - though she was and apparently a girl doesn't look her best when she is - but that her phone was at 4% power when she began her selfie attempts.
For the curious, she was willing to show the photo afterwards. Extra points for show and tell.
Charlie's "Slow Step Saji and the Sermon of the Switchbacks" began on a balcony on Monument Avenue waiting for the sun, moved on to a two-month backpacking trip through Utah and eventually to the end-of-hiking day pleasure of a Snickers bar and stripping off his clothes on top of a mountain.
Can I have the same kind of Snickers bar he's having?
We got a Hiking 101 lecture from Kylie who impressed us with her knowledge of hiking hunger, as in the sheer amount of calories she consumed on the trail (9,000 per day) and the heightened senses that come with being in that state.
Woman claims she smelled detergent in the middle of the wild, only to run into a pack of day hikers in (ah ha!) freshly-laundered clothes 20 minutes away. That's some nose.
Alicia said she was a writer but before we could romanticize that notion, she informed us she works for Capital One, about the least romantic job imaginable.
Her saga involved escaping Giles County and the lifestyle that has sucked her mother and sister back in to its mountainous clutches.
Ain't nothin' romantic abut that.
There was a story about a six month road trip that involved three weeks without a shower, seeing an eagle flying overhead after outdoor sex and a 12-year old being obnoxious on a Sea-Doo (or maybe that's redundant).
They decided to end the trip the day after the high school musical theater group stayed up all night practicing next to their campsite.
Remind me again why people think hiking and camping are fun?
Margaret was very nervous, but not so nervous she couldn't tell us her trail name ("Murder Worm") and that she found family in other hikers.
I liked John's style - he carried his PBR in his shirt's breast pocket for easy access - and gumption. Speaking of his relationship, he said he'd reached the point where it was time to shit or get off the pot.
"This was a shit I wanted to take," he said to explain his decision to propose to his girlfriend. The mystery was why he decided to do it near a mountain (as his GF put it, "We're not a hiking people" Indeed. They moved here from Brooklyn).
Among the highlights of his story: he planned the proposal with his parents (no comment), he did it on Black Friday (a high holy day in his cheapskate family) and after proposing, she grabbed the ring from him, effectively stealing his thunder.
You had to feel for John and his Mickey Rourke sausage fingers.
I didn't have the ♥ to tell him that real romance is David proposing to his girlfriend Maggie on the dance floor after a cheesy '80s cover band plays Journey's "Faithfully" in Urbanna Saturday night.
Oh, yes, that did, too, happen. I saw it on Facebook. But there are no mountains in the northern neck, so they couldn't share that story tonight. Pity.
With three beers in her already, Kathleen attempted to interweave two stories of why she and her girlfriends now qualify as mountain women.
A year after their first camping experience, they decided to re-wild. You heard right, re-wild.
Despite using Air BnB to score a sketchy RV and relying on a case of Coors Light and a bottle of Jack Daniels to sustain them, she believed that the one-time camping trip in Colorado during a hail storm was preparation for anything.
Two things came out of re-wilding: coffee brewed using a sports bra and an empty Coors can and the satisfaction that all the mountain women involved had "worked some shit out," probably about relationships, she guessed.
Unlike past Secretly Y'Alls, I really didn't have a theme-appropriate story to share tonight, even if I were brave enough to try, which I'm not.
My lone pseudo-mountain story involved a date suggesting we hike Humpback Rock. I remember two things from that day: we listened to the new John Mayer record "Heavier Things" on the drive there and that my Witty Fuchsia lipstick melted in the car while we were hiking.
Needless to say, after that kind of trauma, I knew it was time for me to get off the mountain pot. Mercifully, I've never felt the need to re-wild.
Oh, and did I mention I ♥ oceans?
For them, there was Secretly Y'All, Tell Me a Story at Balliceaux tonight. Or, excuse me, Kampot at Balliceaux, as the re-formulated kitchen is now called.
That's right, stories about mountains at what amounts to an entirely new restaurant concept inside a mostly familiar setting.
Decor or art installation? Three small vintage TV (2 black and white, 1 color) sets mounted over the bar showing an endless loop of retro bike footage, interspersed with a fake snake (head rearing back) between TVs and a nearby pastel statue of Mary (with picaresque garland). You make the call.
But what to eat, what to drink at this new spot with the likes of Miguel playing overhead?
When I heard they had housemade root beer, I was thrilled, doubly so when a tall glass of creamy, foam-covered root beer showed up. I've had housemade root beer before - I'm quite fond of Weeping Radish's - but never with a head like this on it.
It was such terrific root beer I'd go back just for that.
But they didn't only score in the libations department because everything we ordered was pretty tasty. Our server began by explaining the tapas concept to us (hopefully that bit of unnecessary speech-giving will cease and desist soon) and we wasted no time making check marks next to ones that sounded promising on the menu.
Fried chicken skins because yes (the drier texture beginning uninterestingly but becoming more appealing after several bites). Caramelized boneless chicken thigh (because we wondered about a connection between those skins and thighs and inquiring minds wanted to know) with a piquant boost from pickled cabbage.
Grilled, marinated pork shoulder (because some judge a kitchen by its pig) with a sassy jaew sauce that, if it got too hot on the tongue, could be cooled down with iced yu choy leaves brought at the same time.
I didn't need it, but some people did.
One of the brightest tastes was the lobster and local greens Siam-wich (clever, sort of) with Kampot lemon vinaigrette. My unintended brilliance was in ordering cabbage 3 ways - Thai basil, chili, and Virginia peanuts - which provided a perfectly balanced plate of crunch and flavor to complement all the protein courses.
As the dance party king commented later when I told him about the meal, "We used to have no great Asian and now it's exploding everywhere." They say it's all about timing and I suppose that applies as much to restaurant trends as to romance.
The crowds began arriving for storytelling, so we moved to the back (on the way a woman stopped me and said, "I love your metal straw." Cue Jackson Browne story), where chairs had been set up in rows all the way to the back wall, the first time I'd seen that. Even so, plenty of people wound up standing or sitting on the floor.
With larger, younger crowds come more younger storytellers and tonight's group proved that in spades. With a theme of "mountains," we heard from more than a few hikers and mountain-huggers.
Taylor had gone to Alaska to find herself, as told in her story "Fire Weed," in which she para- glided (or, as she put it, jumped off mountains with strangers) in the rain. Metaphors followed.
Richard, a semi-regular legend at Secretly Y'All (also, co-organizer Colin's father, but that's not why we enjoy his stories so much), turned out to be a native of West Virginia (hence his story's title, "The Mountain State"), with the funniest bit being about how being a newsboy delivering in the hills gave him strong, muscular calves.
"Still the strongest part of my body," he bragged, lifting his legs. "Wanna feel them?" Awkward on purpose is always funny.
Joe's story, "I Guess I Like Hiking" concerned him being shorter and fatter as a teen. "But what I lacked in height and cool, I made up for in succumbing to peer pressure." He scored points by pooping in the woods on a hike because this is what impresses 15-year old boys. Succumbing naturally led to his first pot-smoking experience, which involved Dads who hiked slowly, a Bic pen and tin foil.
I don't pretend to understand.
Another story involved taking a selfie on Mount Everest after being able to only (only!) climb 18,198 feet. What was dire wasn't that she was oxygen and sleep-deprived - though she was and apparently a girl doesn't look her best when she is - but that her phone was at 4% power when she began her selfie attempts.
For the curious, she was willing to show the photo afterwards. Extra points for show and tell.
Charlie's "Slow Step Saji and the Sermon of the Switchbacks" began on a balcony on Monument Avenue waiting for the sun, moved on to a two-month backpacking trip through Utah and eventually to the end-of-hiking day pleasure of a Snickers bar and stripping off his clothes on top of a mountain.
Can I have the same kind of Snickers bar he's having?
We got a Hiking 101 lecture from Kylie who impressed us with her knowledge of hiking hunger, as in the sheer amount of calories she consumed on the trail (9,000 per day) and the heightened senses that come with being in that state.
Woman claims she smelled detergent in the middle of the wild, only to run into a pack of day hikers in (ah ha!) freshly-laundered clothes 20 minutes away. That's some nose.
Alicia said she was a writer but before we could romanticize that notion, she informed us she works for Capital One, about the least romantic job imaginable.
Her saga involved escaping Giles County and the lifestyle that has sucked her mother and sister back in to its mountainous clutches.
Ain't nothin' romantic abut that.
There was a story about a six month road trip that involved three weeks without a shower, seeing an eagle flying overhead after outdoor sex and a 12-year old being obnoxious on a Sea-Doo (or maybe that's redundant).
They decided to end the trip the day after the high school musical theater group stayed up all night practicing next to their campsite.
Remind me again why people think hiking and camping are fun?
Margaret was very nervous, but not so nervous she couldn't tell us her trail name ("Murder Worm") and that she found family in other hikers.
I liked John's style - he carried his PBR in his shirt's breast pocket for easy access - and gumption. Speaking of his relationship, he said he'd reached the point where it was time to shit or get off the pot.
"This was a shit I wanted to take," he said to explain his decision to propose to his girlfriend. The mystery was why he decided to do it near a mountain (as his GF put it, "We're not a hiking people" Indeed. They moved here from Brooklyn).
Among the highlights of his story: he planned the proposal with his parents (no comment), he did it on Black Friday (a high holy day in his cheapskate family) and after proposing, she grabbed the ring from him, effectively stealing his thunder.
You had to feel for John and his Mickey Rourke sausage fingers.
I didn't have the ♥ to tell him that real romance is David proposing to his girlfriend Maggie on the dance floor after a cheesy '80s cover band plays Journey's "Faithfully" in Urbanna Saturday night.
Oh, yes, that did, too, happen. I saw it on Facebook. But there are no mountains in the northern neck, so they couldn't share that story tonight. Pity.
With three beers in her already, Kathleen attempted to interweave two stories of why she and her girlfriends now qualify as mountain women.
A year after their first camping experience, they decided to re-wild. You heard right, re-wild.
Despite using Air BnB to score a sketchy RV and relying on a case of Coors Light and a bottle of Jack Daniels to sustain them, she believed that the one-time camping trip in Colorado during a hail storm was preparation for anything.
Two things came out of re-wilding: coffee brewed using a sports bra and an empty Coors can and the satisfaction that all the mountain women involved had "worked some shit out," probably about relationships, she guessed.
Unlike past Secretly Y'Alls, I really didn't have a theme-appropriate story to share tonight, even if I were brave enough to try, which I'm not.
My lone pseudo-mountain story involved a date suggesting we hike Humpback Rock. I remember two things from that day: we listened to the new John Mayer record "Heavier Things" on the drive there and that my Witty Fuchsia lipstick melted in the car while we were hiking.
Needless to say, after that kind of trauma, I knew it was time for me to get off the mountain pot. Mercifully, I've never felt the need to re-wild.
Oh, and did I mention I ♥ oceans?
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