To Say and Do Whatever I Please

You want to spend a long holiday weekend in town? I'm your girl.

Make no mistake, if I'd gotten an invitation to the beach or river, I'd have been gone. But years gone by have also taught me the pleasures of staying in town when so many people are gone. Easy parking, half empty restaurants, leisurely pace. It's Richmond as a different animal.

Not to brag or anything, but if I'd been eager to show off the range of what Richmond has to offer, I'm not sure I could have done a finer job of doing so.

Friday night started at Hardywood for the Shangri-Lords, because a holiday weekend is best rung in with a man singing lead on girl group songs. Midway through their set, as I was admiring the matching go-go boots and stellar dance moves of the female back-up singers, a man approached me tentatively, saying, "Karen?"

Joe? That's how we wound up seated at a table with the former dean of VCU's art school and his wife, with both of the guys reveling in hearing the soundtrack of their youth. It was also, oddly enough, the second night in a row that I heard a cover of Leslie Gore's "You Don't Own Me."

C'mon, what are the chances?

Next came a stop at Carytown Gyro, which replaced Doner Kebab - a long-time fave of Mac's and mine - and while the chicken shawarma had good flavor, they don't make their own pita and the difference was disappointing. It was justa  few doors down to Garden Grove Brewing and Urban Winery for a couple of glasses of their Vidal Blanc/Chardonnay blend (which they don't bottle, an interesting side note) and a chance to enjoy the Brazilian music of Quatro na Bossa.

Unlike every other place this weekend, Garden Grove was mobbed with talkers who made hearing singer Laura Anne's beautiful voice challenging at best, so we left when the set ended. Who's so uncouth they talk loudly over such transcendent music anyway?

Saturday began with a pipeline walk before moving on to the ICA for artist Paul Rucker's talk about his exhibit, "Storm in the Time of Shelter," of colorfully patterned KKK robes and hoods and the array of lynching and anti-black memorabilia in the cases around the gallery. He was a forceful speaker on the topic of systemic and institutionalized racism, challenging the mostly white crowd on how well they knew their history.

Answer: rather poorly. But his talk was rich in commentary about the realities of race in this country circa 2018, just the kind of talk that makes white people uncomfortable. The kind of talk Mac and I seek out for that every reason.

We followed heavy talk with bagels at Nate's Bagels, notable because unlike every other visit, it was all but empty. But Nate was there and stopped to chat before heading home to his real family and leaving his bagel crew to carry on without him. And while they were out of everything bagels (holiday weekend, you know) we managed with one onion bagel and one rosemary and sea salt bagel instead.

On the plus side, I now know what something besides an everything bagel at Nate's tastes like. I've been called a creature of habit for good reason.

To fully embed a come-here into the myriad pleasures of Richmond, thrifting was also required. A stop at the Clothes Rack not only introduced a newcomer to its bargain pricing, but also provided a fitted summer wardrobe. Let's face it, we've got months of shorts-wearing weather left. The Hall Tree netted only a couple of shirts, but they were winners.

I like to remind people that recyclers do it over and over again.

Acacia offered proof positive that half the city was missing when we showed up at prime dinnertime and easily found stools at the bar, unheard of on a normal Saturday. We celebrated the first 24 hours of our extended play weekend with multiple glasses of Mimi Bulles Rose and an entire dinner (well, except for the chocolate cremeux) that had begun life in the sea: a salad of smoked salmon, cucumber, pickled onion, hard egg, radish and lettuces in a lemon dill vinaigrette, fresh caught rockfish over a luscious summer salad of heirloom tomatoes and greens in balsamic and shrimp, linguine and spinach in an obscene garlic butter sauce.

When we walked out, Cary Street was just this side of dead. On a Saturday night, mind you.

Come Sunday, we packed up an Ellwood Thompson picnic and headed to the mountains, namely King Family Winery, so that the newbie could see his first polo game. Situated under one of the few shade trees, we sipped King Family Viognier and watched riders taking their horses up and down the enormous field to score goals.

Only the obnoxious sound of an air horn marking the start and end of each chukka marred the idyllic setting at the foot of several mountains. By the time we broke camp, the staff was busy setting up for a wedding on the lawn and no doubt a glorious summer party afterward.

Polo-watching can be exhausting, which is why we only went two blocks for dinner. Tiny Victory, the colorful new Fillipino restaurant on Broad, welcomed us with a dish of shisito peppers, sweet corn on the cob, watermelon radishes and burnt honey.

Next came kinilaw of snapper with coconut, citrus and red onion, elevated with a thick shmear of avocado inside the bowl's edges. I swiped every bite of snapper with avocado as I brought it out of the bowl and then used the crispy shrimp chips to get the rest. We closed out the meal with pancit, a mixture of rice noodles, mushroom XO, Napa cabbage, spicy pickled carrot and crispy garlic that got raves from the healthy eater across from me. Me, I was already full from the first two courses.

Also, really glad to have a restaurant in that space again, given its proximity to my apartment.

Sunday meant a trip to the VMFA to see "Howardena Pindell: What Remains To Be Seen," a fascinating exhibition by a black, activist artist about whom we knew nothing. Located in two separate places in the museum, the show was enormous. Here was a woman who'd never been shy about exploring the intersection of racism, violence, feminism, slavery and exploitation since the '60s and doing it using unconventional materials like glitter, talcum powder, postcards and chads, in some cases, chads she'd taken the time to number.

Her attention to detail and the sheer amount of time her pieces took set her apart from other abstractionists of that era.

And while we'd gone to see her show, both of us were captivated by the small show of works on paper, "The Precisionist Impulse." Drawings, photographs, watercolors and prints, most - but not all - made between the World Wars showed a decidedly neo-Cubist bent and attraction to modern urban subjects such as architecture, infrastructure and mechanics.

When you talk about the benefits of a world-class museum in your home town (besides the absinthe drip upstairs at Amuse, still my favorite place to unwind at the VMFA), one of them has to be happening on a small, unexpected show (or work of art) that you hadn't come to see. It's like finding an extra Christmas gift tucked away once you start clearing out all the balled-up wrapping paper. Oh, look, something else for me?

Keeping to the theme started with Paul Rucker and continued through Howardena Pindell, "BlackkKlansman" seemed like a natural. Sure, I'd seen it, but I'd also left knowing I wanted to see it again, so here was my chance.

No surprise, Movieland wasn't the least bit crowded for a late afternoon Labor Day show, so when better for my partner-in-crime to see Spike Lee's latest? Much as I appreciated the film on many levels when Mac and I first saw it, I knew there was plenty I'd missed.

Not to mention plenty I wanted to see a second time, including that wonderful dance scene set to the Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose's "Too Late to Turn Back Now." Thank you, Spike Lee, for allowing the scene to unfold languorously and not as a quick cut.

Walking out, a woman in front of me summed up her impressions. "Spike Lee always teaches you something, doesn't he?" Indeed he does.

Once out of the theater, we must have sat in the car for at least a quarter of an hour, talking about the film: how it had been made, how it must have begun shooting before the Charlottesville incidents that close out the film even happened, how much the film concerned prejudice against Jews as well as blacks.

We met the challenge of finding an open restaurant on Labor Day by heading directly to My Noodle, which was mobbed. Our table was all but on top of the table of the couple next to us, but we can ignore practically anyone with chopsticks flying into plates of broccoli and chicken in black bean sauce.

Back in the Ward, it was obvious that cars and their owners were back in the city, even if things were still a bit quiet. We figured everyone was hunkered down, gearing up for work or the upcoming school year.

Not us. Instead, we got settled on my balcony for a night devoted to listening to cover albums - "Bleeker Street: Greenwich Village in the '60s," Shawn Colvin's "Cover Girl" and "If I Were A Carpenter," a '90s take on the music of the Carpenters. Overhead, puffy little clouds stayed visible in the night sky and an occasional breeze rewarded us with reasons to linger.

And if this Labor Day weekend in town was about anything, it was about the lingering. Why go when staying is this pleasurable?

That's a rhetorical question, by the way.

Minor Key with Straw Hat

I am not and never have been a weather wimp.

So, despite a forecast of sunny and 90 degrees, I found a willing partner to go to King Family Winery for a polo match on Sunday afternoon.

Although we arrived after the match had begun, we found an ideal spot under the shade of a large tree not far from the stables.

Yes, there was a trio already in place under the tree, but they gave us permission to join.

With a view of the action, the shade of the tree, the breeze across the field and a picnic, we were almost all set.

A detour to the tasting room yielded a bottle of Crose, a refreshing rose tasting of grapefruit and cranberry in an ice-filled bucket, and finally we wanted for nothing.

With the satisfying sound of horse hooves on the field, we opened our picnic and immediately had a guest.

The winery's corgi showed up the second I unwrapped a baguette with soprasetta on it.

And not just showed up, but sat so close that its hair tickled my bare legs.

Soon a couple with a beagle walked by and the girl called, "Love your dog!" as if this rogue corgi was mine.

I told her I was just going to say how much I liked her beagle.

Later a guy walked over to pet "my" corgi and I had to correct him, too.

I'm a beagle person, not a corgi person, just for the record. Can't you tell just by looking at me?

Polo has a certain thrilling aspect because of the presence of large animals galloping towards the edge of the field where small people sit.

But it's also because of the sense of history that comes with polo playing, as I'd been reminded more than once at the "Maharaja" exhibit yesterday.

I'm just happy somebody's playing polo regularly so I can watch the pageantry. Who wins is of no real interest to me.

Oh, this is a competition and not just spectacle?

Once the match ended, the field was fair game for the visitors so soccer balls and kites came out.

I'll take kite-flying at the beach over kite-flying anywhere else, but I have to admit they were pretty in the sky against the nearby mountains.

Many people bolted the moment the match ended, but we were not among them.

Our picnic lunch took some time to eat and who wants to rush through a bottle of rose, even when it is ridiculously quaffable on a warm day?

Once it got to be close to winery-closing time, though, we finally packed up and headed east for music.

Tonight was the first of the Fan's Meadow Park concerts (I try to make them every year), so we arrived early enough to secure a partially shaded bench for the show, no easy feat given the setting sun and the park's western orientation.

But there is a distinct pleasure to early evening summer sun. A little sweat should be par for the course in mid-June.

The park was especially pretty tonight because of the presence of dozens of paper cranes, origami-folded constructs of various pastel colors, hanging from trees and in bushes.

Young families with children were everywhere and Susan Greenbaum was playing a mix of covers and originals.

Beginning with Paul Simon, she then did a song called "Fireworks," her own "Everything But You" and even some Norah Jones.

"As long as I'm playing songs in minor keys," she said before doing a fine cover of  Sting's "Fragile," and satisfying us minor key lovers.

Greenbaum reminded us from the stage that there was free ice cream courtesy of the Fan District Association and she only had to tell us once before we high-tailed it over to score some.

I chose a cone of chocolate royale and my companion got strawberry which we enjoyed back on our bench.

When we finally went to leave, we heard our names being called.

Going in to Garnett's was a friend and her beau, so we crossed the street to join them on the colorful park chairs outside the restaurant.

We heard stories of kayaking, temper tantrums (no, they don't have kids) and scalpings before he started dropping hints about pie.

Once his words sunk in and we all agreed that wine and pie were just through the nearby blue door, we got up to get some.

"I made that happen," he said under his breath, in a most satisfied tone.

And he had.

Companion and I had just had ice cream, so we weren't particularly thinking of pie then, but within moments, there was a bottle of Gabriele Rausse Vin de Gris on the table and pear with mixed berry pie and coconut cream pie followed in short order.

Pie and wine put us all in mind of a future time when we don't have to do anything we don't want to do.

Someone mentioned running a bed and breakfast because of the amount of free time that would allow for pie at any given moment.

Call me lucky, but I'm pretty open to pie (and wine) just about any time already.

And if they present themselves on a sunny day with the dust of the polo field and the sweat of a warm picnic already on me, all the better.

Only a weather wimp would hold that against me.