Being ridiculously happy seems to leave little time to blog.
It's not like I'm not still doing stuff because of course I am. After all, I'm me, so how could I not?
After a meal in service of my hired mouth, Mac and I went to the Basement to see TheatreLab's production of "Topdog/Underdog," marveling at the tightly wound performances of Jeremy Morris and Jamar Jones as brothers with issues in the Pulitzer prize-winning play.
The production clocked in at a hefty two hours and 45 minutes (I knew I had that padding for a reason) and I thought Mac might have to dip out at intermission because of having to go to work early tomorrow, but instead she admitted how sucked in she was by such compelling performances.
Props to first-time director Katrinah Carol Lewis for providing her actors enough room to the create full, albeit flawed, characters before us.
Granted, we walked out of there feeling as if we'd been beat up, but truly great theater is always affecting in some way.
I finally made it to Goatocado, notable for the killer Tuscan arepa (Oaxacan cheese, red pepper, greens, guac and corn in a corn cake) I ate along with a pomegranate ginger-ade, but also for the 50 minutes it took some hapless, young employee to hang the canvas triangles that provided the scant shade on a sunny, blue sky day.
After ten minutes, I was feeling his pain because he was out there in the blinding sunlight without sunglasses. When I questioned the wisdom of that move, he explained that he didn't like clipping sunshades to his regular glasses. But isn't it excruciating to be out here with no sunglasses?
"I'm thinking next time I get glasses, I'll get that kind that darkens in the sun," he explained. "You know, 'cause I don't want to get cataracts." How cute is that?
And for the record, he hung and rehung those triangles unsuccessfully and repeatedly, finally asking two fellow employees to help - one to hook the pieces and the other more knowledgeable one to direct - for over 50 minutes before they were hung properly. Meanwhile, customers like us who wanted to eat outside (inside was full) had a choice of minimal shade or no shade, not the best options on a bright June day at high noon.
Fifty minutes. Have I mentioned that I weep for the future?
Lady G had finally re-surfaced and since our last rendezvous had been March 30, we were in dire need of a blather. Her suggestion was Lemaire at the Jefferson, fine by me as long as we ate outside on the patio and not inside with the business stuffy clientele.
Our table afforded a view of Franklin Street and featured a music speaker that looked like a rock in the flower bed adjacent to us. Yea, it was corny and kind of Flintstones-like, but, hey, it worked, turning the miscellaneous noises of the city into background for the jazz that was playing.
Because our time apart had encompassed April and May, Lady G insisted that it was a birthday celebration and let me choose the bottle: Argyle Brut Rose from a winery I'd visited. And while it took an inordinate amount of time to arrive (it appeared to be our server's first night and he was doing his best, at least at joking with us), it was worth the wait.
When our young server made the rookie mistake of placing the stand holding the wine near the outdoor server's station rather than tableside and G's glass went dry, she did what any self-respecting woman does: walked over, took possession of the stand and bottle and set them in their rightful place within easy reach of us.
The five-top table of young millennial women next to us knew they were in the presence of greatness. "We applaud you taking control!" one called out as the others clapped.
Someday you, too, will just take what you want, grasshopper.
We swapped updates over chilled English pea soup, crispy fried deviled eggs with cornichons and red pepper jelly and Pernod-steamed mussels with apple, fennel and chorizo while we watched people sit down and wait 20 minutes for anything more than water. Luckily, we were in no hurry, not with all the life evaluating we had going on at the table.
At one point, our charming server arrived unexpectedly and a tad out of breath, smiling and saying apropos of nothing, "I've missed you both so." What can you do but crack up at that? At the very least, a sense of humor is essential in the service industry.
We ended the evening on my balcony, where Lady G's birthday gift to me - a bottle of Chateau Kalian 2015 Monbazillac, an organic dessert wine with gorgeous notes of orange and lemon, but also with nice acidity - was opened and sipped chilled as dusk descended on Jackson Ward.
As she does every time she's on my balcony, she commented on some of the high-up architectural details on the house next door. The kind of flourishes barely visible from the street, but striking from mere feet away on the second floor. The kind of thing an artist notices and that's what Lady G is.
She and I have been swapping stories and keeping each other abreast of where the bodies are buried for two decades now, and if that's not worth toasting, I don't know what is.
Check that. Also worth celebrating is finding someone who keeps me so busy talking, laughing and traveling that blogging is all but forgotten.
Sorry/not sorry. Happiness and devoted attention, I have missed you both so.
Showing posts with label patio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label patio. Show all posts
Thursday, June 7, 2018
Wednesday, March 9, 2016
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.
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.
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Tending and Stoking
I am the daughter of a master fire-maker.
Growing up in what is now reverently called "mid-century modern" and what we then referred to as a three-bedroom rancher, I remember how my parents were always adding something to the little house.
First it was more bedrooms, a necessity given six children. Then a bay window with window seat in the dining room overlooking the backyard. A pool, but not until all six of us were old enough to swim so as to assuage my mother's fear for our safety.
But the most dramatic change began with a giant hole.
I came home from elementary school to find a gaping opening where one of the living room walls had been when I'd left that morning and as we ate an after-school snack of warm-from-the-oven cookies and milk (yes, really), Mom explained that we were having a fireplace put in.
And not just a standard fireplace, but a white brick one with a raised hearth and built in seats on either side with areas for log storage underneath that would take up the entire wall.
It was about as mid-century modern groovy a fireplace as could be imagined and once completed, my father took it upon himself to school all six daughters on fire-making.
We were taught the difference between tinder and kindling, how to properly use bellows and when to add logs to an existing fire.
As we grew up, I can guarantee you that every one of used our fire skills to impress a guy at some point or another.
But mainly, Dad instilled in us an appreciation for a well-made fire and the pleasures one brings in cold weather.
This is a roundabout way of saying what an unexpectedly wonderful time I had with a date in front of a fire last night.
Our destination was far beyond the city, not usually my first choice, but a leisurely drive out River Road landed us at Portico, a place I knew of, but hadn't been.
He'd been for lunch a couple of times so dinner-wise, it was a first for us both.
Honestly, considering it seemed like we were out in the sticks, I was surprised at how busy it was for a Monday evening.
There was a large, older group with loud voices and napkins tucked under chins. Beside us was a young couple, also on a date, although she was very dressed up in a one-sleeved red cocktail dress. Near them was another couple looking at a map and discussing going to Bowling Green via Route 301. Several couples arrived after we did.
We took a table with a view of the garden patio with its big stone fireplace full of logs burning briskly beneath a candlelit mantle.
Over a bottle of Pinot Noir, we considered the all-purpose menu (burger, sandwiches, pizza, pasta, entrees) while doing the early-stage date chatter about what each of us had been up to lately.
I told him I'd been reading in the Washington Post about how so many restaurants up there keep their patios open year-round, adding fire pits and heaters and serving toddies and hot buttered rum to enhance the experience...and their bottom line.
We agreed that a heated rooftop bar with a view of the monuments and a drink sounded right up our alley. The date was going well.
But for now, food was the priority, so beginning with simple green salads, we moved on to penne bolognese and pizza rustica, more notable for its Italian sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms and pepperoncini oil flavor than for its flacid crust.
The music, when we could hear it over the noisier customers, was safe and soft, artists like Willie Nelson and James Taylor.
It was while we were sharing a creme caramel that my date suggested we finish the evening outside by the fireplace with some other sort of warming beverage and our server said he'd go throw some additional logs on the fire for us.
We wouldn't be able to see any monuments, but the tables on the slate-floored patio were twinkling with tea lights and that fire had a nice glow to it.
Carpe diem and all that.
Not surprisingly for Goochland, the tequila choices were limited, but my date encouraged me to give Cabo Wabo a try and if not Sammy Hagar tonight, if not in front of a roaring fire, if not with a date thoughtful enough to suggest such a thing, then when?
In a bonus bit of forethought, he asked for his bourbon and my tequila in snifters, the better to warm them.
We had the patio to ourselves and with snifters in hand, stood in front of the raised fireplace (shades of childhood) laughing, drinking and enjoying the kind of late-stage date banter that feels like it could go on all night.
I'll even admit things got pleasantly warm out there with him and maybe a small part of that was my occasional stoking of the fire.
There is nothing like being wooed well and making Dad proud at the same time.
Growing up in what is now reverently called "mid-century modern" and what we then referred to as a three-bedroom rancher, I remember how my parents were always adding something to the little house.
First it was more bedrooms, a necessity given six children. Then a bay window with window seat in the dining room overlooking the backyard. A pool, but not until all six of us were old enough to swim so as to assuage my mother's fear for our safety.
But the most dramatic change began with a giant hole.
I came home from elementary school to find a gaping opening where one of the living room walls had been when I'd left that morning and as we ate an after-school snack of warm-from-the-oven cookies and milk (yes, really), Mom explained that we were having a fireplace put in.
And not just a standard fireplace, but a white brick one with a raised hearth and built in seats on either side with areas for log storage underneath that would take up the entire wall.
It was about as mid-century modern groovy a fireplace as could be imagined and once completed, my father took it upon himself to school all six daughters on fire-making.
We were taught the difference between tinder and kindling, how to properly use bellows and when to add logs to an existing fire.
As we grew up, I can guarantee you that every one of used our fire skills to impress a guy at some point or another.
But mainly, Dad instilled in us an appreciation for a well-made fire and the pleasures one brings in cold weather.
This is a roundabout way of saying what an unexpectedly wonderful time I had with a date in front of a fire last night.
Our destination was far beyond the city, not usually my first choice, but a leisurely drive out River Road landed us at Portico, a place I knew of, but hadn't been.
He'd been for lunch a couple of times so dinner-wise, it was a first for us both.
Honestly, considering it seemed like we were out in the sticks, I was surprised at how busy it was for a Monday evening.
There was a large, older group with loud voices and napkins tucked under chins. Beside us was a young couple, also on a date, although she was very dressed up in a one-sleeved red cocktail dress. Near them was another couple looking at a map and discussing going to Bowling Green via Route 301. Several couples arrived after we did.
We took a table with a view of the garden patio with its big stone fireplace full of logs burning briskly beneath a candlelit mantle.
Over a bottle of Pinot Noir, we considered the all-purpose menu (burger, sandwiches, pizza, pasta, entrees) while doing the early-stage date chatter about what each of us had been up to lately.
I told him I'd been reading in the Washington Post about how so many restaurants up there keep their patios open year-round, adding fire pits and heaters and serving toddies and hot buttered rum to enhance the experience...and their bottom line.
We agreed that a heated rooftop bar with a view of the monuments and a drink sounded right up our alley. The date was going well.
But for now, food was the priority, so beginning with simple green salads, we moved on to penne bolognese and pizza rustica, more notable for its Italian sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms and pepperoncini oil flavor than for its flacid crust.
The music, when we could hear it over the noisier customers, was safe and soft, artists like Willie Nelson and James Taylor.
It was while we were sharing a creme caramel that my date suggested we finish the evening outside by the fireplace with some other sort of warming beverage and our server said he'd go throw some additional logs on the fire for us.
We wouldn't be able to see any monuments, but the tables on the slate-floored patio were twinkling with tea lights and that fire had a nice glow to it.
Carpe diem and all that.
Not surprisingly for Goochland, the tequila choices were limited, but my date encouraged me to give Cabo Wabo a try and if not Sammy Hagar tonight, if not in front of a roaring fire, if not with a date thoughtful enough to suggest such a thing, then when?
In a bonus bit of forethought, he asked for his bourbon and my tequila in snifters, the better to warm them.
We had the patio to ourselves and with snifters in hand, stood in front of the raised fireplace (shades of childhood) laughing, drinking and enjoying the kind of late-stage date banter that feels like it could go on all night.
I'll even admit things got pleasantly warm out there with him and maybe a small part of that was my occasional stoking of the fire.
There is nothing like being wooed well and making Dad proud at the same time.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Burgers Under a Blue Sky
(With apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
Carytown Burgers how do I love thee?
Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My mouth and soul can reach
I love your large, misshapen patties
Encased in a soft over sized bun
I love the oozing ketchup and mustard
Yellow as the mid-day sun
I love your thick cut fries
Salted and seasoned and hot
I inhale your enormous milkshakes
Even though I know I should not.
But what I love best is that tiny little patio area back by the a/c units. Not the plastic-encased "patio," where most people sit, but the back two-table gravel-floored rectangle where the sky is the ceiling and today it was so beautifully blue that it alone could make a person feel like anything was possible.
And maybe it is...once I stop feeling quite this full.
Carytown Burgers how do I love thee?
Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My mouth and soul can reach
I love your large, misshapen patties
Encased in a soft over sized bun
I love the oozing ketchup and mustard
Yellow as the mid-day sun
I love your thick cut fries
Salted and seasoned and hot
I inhale your enormous milkshakes
Even though I know I should not.
But what I love best is that tiny little patio area back by the a/c units. Not the plastic-encased "patio," where most people sit, but the back two-table gravel-floored rectangle where the sky is the ceiling and today it was so beautifully blue that it alone could make a person feel like anything was possible.
And maybe it is...once I stop feeling quite this full.
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