Dig, if you will, the picture of me having breakfast in front of Wink's, squinting at the ocean through sunglasses as I eat.
The only problem with this picture is that it requires leaving the beach followed by three hours in the car to make it the Continental for lunch.
Despite dire warnings about the UCI bike race, I have zero trouble getting back into town or my neighborhood and parking spaces abound.
Dream, if you can, a restaurant full to the rafters of customers, far too many of them with fussy young children. Our trio is fortunate enough to snag a table on the breezy patio while most of the squawking and food throwing is going on inside.
I should be ashamed to admit how much I enjoy a plate of dirty chips - housemade potato chips covered in jack and cheddar cheese, bacon and chives - and sips of boozy limeade, but I'm not.
For the second time today, I have absolutely no problem getting where I'm going despite seeing signs saying, "Bike Race in Progress" at several intersections.
Decide, if you choose, like a friend and I did, to meet at Toast for a fried dinner - sliders, fries and a seafood bucket - to trade tales of the last fortnight's beach trips (hers and mine), miscommunications (ditto) and soul-searching (always).
Driving over, the streets are noticeably empty, no doubt due to media fear-mongering about coming downtown. A pity, really.
Conceive, if you try, of a thought-provoking two-actor play called "Uncanny Valley," which is the term coined for the human tendency to react negatively to robots that seem human (see: "The Polar Express" movie - disconcerting, right?).
Produced by 5th Wall and performed at the tiny Hatt Theater out in the hinterlands (driving west on Patterson for what seemed like hours, my friend says, "Where are we? Canada?"), the play addresses the question of what it means to be human ("In your mind's eye, how old are you?").
And, more specifically, what does it mean to be human and so filthy rich that you can keep yourself alive indefinitely by having your life experiences and memories uploaded into a robot who looks like you at whatever age you choose for it to (34 in this case).
Alexander Sapp is brilliant as the robot being coached on human behavior by the maternalistic scientist played by the reliably-strong Jacqueline Jones ("We're a skittish species. That's how we've lasted so long.").
With the addition of each component - another arm, torso, legs, he becomes more human-like - but it's his early, robotic like voice and distinct learning curve that provide many of the early laughs while endearing him to the audience. This is Julian A.
A real relationship develops between the two and after much coaching from the patient Jones, he receives the download from the dying man (Julian B). The result is the new creature, Julian C, an amalgam of human and a robot.
Playwright Thomas Gibbons took the stage afterwards with director Morrie Piersol and the two actors to talk with the audience about the provocative nature of the play's subject matter, inspired by a National Geographic article he'd read at his dentist's office.
I don't know that an article on artificial intelligence would've grabbed me the same way, but the resulting play certainly did. Are we merely our consciousness? Can it be replicated for another body?
The play raises some hard questions, all the more significant for how close apparently we are to this sort of thing becoming, well, a thing. Only for the 1%, mind you, but that's even scarier since all the "immortals" will be the super-rich.
It may be time to start worrying about the Donald doing something like this.
Or, better yet, it's definitely time to go see "Uncanny Valley" because this is the very best kind of theater: beautifully acted, subtly directed and forcing us to look at some hard issues of personal ethics and technology.
As Gibbons pointed out in the talkback, algorithms already shape our daily lives. Should they be used to shape the minds and personalities of robots to achieve immortality?
Call me the skittish type, but you can probably guess how the woman without a cell phone or TV is going to weigh in on this.
Real life in progress. It's enough for me.
Showing posts with label toast. Show all posts
Showing posts with label toast. Show all posts
Sunday, September 20, 2015
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
They Heart Us,They Really Heart Us
You wouldn't know it to look at me, but I'm part of the ladies of RVA Dine.
Toast's owner Jessica had organized a benefit dinner at the now defunct 525 at the Berry Burke for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, staffed by an all female crew- chefs, hosts, servers and busers and even pulling from the food writing community. That's where I came in.
Of course I wanted to do my part, but with limited restaurant experience, I felt like my best contribution would be clearing dishes and pouring water, two things I long since mastered growing up in a large family.
And while plenty of the women serving had restaurant experience, many of them hadn't waited tables since the '80s. We were all inexpertly in this together.
We had to be there a half hour in advance of the dinner to have our picture taken en masse, the best female chefs in RVA in their chef coats along with the ragtag service staff, all of us in "I (heart) the ladies of RVA Dine" t-shirts.
Waiting for the 120 people who'd reserved seats to arrive, we stood around discussing what was to come, not sure how much of a clusterf*ck it might be, but convinced that to some degree, it would be a shit show.
As the first course was being plated and all of us convened in the kitchen to start grabbing plates, someone announced, "Would you look at all this pussy power in the kitchen?" I might not have phrased it quite that way, but okay.
The evening unfolded as a continuous stream of delivering plates and clearing them with filling water glasses and chatting with guests in between.
A former food critic complimented my writing, saying, "I always enjoy reading your reviews." When I thanked her with a raised eyebrow, she insisted, "No, I'm not just saying that. I like the way you write."
I took a quick moment to go to the bathroom between the third and fourth courses, finding the ladies' room occupied (of course) but a woman guest headed into the men's room and invited me along, assuring me that she was just going to change her shirt.
"When I got here, I looked in the mirror and realized you could see right through my shirt and with the size of my boobs, that's not good," she explained, trading her sheer blouse for an RVA Ladies dine shirt while I took care of business.
For the rest of the evening, whenever I was near her table, she called me "bathroom girl" and giggled.
At another table, a guy with a superb mustache looked at me and said, "So you really like the Daily, I guess," an odd thing to say since I've never been to the Daily. "You're in there like three times a week," he insisted. "Okay, maybe 17 times in the past month."
Explaining that that was impossible, he was stunned. "Well, then, you've got a doppelganger and she comes into the Daily all the time. She's really pretty. You should come in, too."
I said I'd take it under advisement.
Things were hot and raucous in the kitchen, with a bottle of bourbon being passed around and servers delivering drinks to the chefs who wanted them, but the plates coming out of there were picture perfect, clearly the work of pros.
Food-wise, I was most surprised that the dish prepared by Chef Carly of C'est le Vin and Chef Lilly of Pasture seemed to be the most challenging for diners.
Very few plates of the divine combination of smoked wild mushrooms, balsamic braised collards, quinoa and arugula almond pesto with a poached egg sailing atop it all came back licked clean.
Either they'd left the quinoa (although how, I can't imagine), pushed the greens to the side, or left part or all of the egg.
I had it on good authority from two foodies that it was a fabulous dish, so perhaps the crowd just didn't get it. I know when I finally got a couple tastes, I had to question people leaving even one bite.
And speaking of Chef Carly, she teased me that part of her kitchen routine is to drop something on the floor and ask a cute waitress to pick it up."If I did that tonight, I'd drop it in front of you," she said coyly.
It may have been because I was the only person on staff wearing a skirt.
At one point, I was clearing dishes and I clumsily picked up a plate, apologizing that it was my first time being a buser.
The plate's owner grabbed my wrist and asked what I did in real life so I told her. "That's so cool! We have to go out together. Soon. Here's my card." I stuck it in my bra.
Another table, another unexpected attention. A man said he could get used to being waited on by movie stars.
We're not movie stars, I assured him, laughing at the notion. "But you're RVA stars!" he said. I gotta say, that's a new way of looking at the life of a freelance writer.
While we weren't technically up to speed on service - there was much going in the out door - the camaraderie was terrific and it was great fun for someone like me who hasn't spent time in a kitchen to become part of the rhythm of the night.
By the fourth course (spring lamb loin and shank, barley, English peas, maitake and ramp gremolata, yum) of seven, I was feeling pretty comfortable with what I needed to do to serve, clear and water as many tables as I could get to.
I was particularly proud because I seemed to be the only one who hadn't pulled out a phone during her shift, long one of my pet peeves for real servers.
Over a few courses, I developed a special relationship with the two guys sitting at a bar table away from the main dining room, teasing them almost as much as they teased me.
It was in between the fifth and sixth course that Emilia of Heritage taught me and another serving neophyte how to balance a third plate. We looked at each other in wonder, sorry that no one had schooled us three hours earlier.
By the time we got to the double dessert course (and praise heaven because the staff had worried that we'd have to serve two dessert courses), I got some lovely validation.
At a table of all men, one looked at me and asked if he could get a coffee. His buddy nudged him and said, "Don't ask her. Karri's our server."
"I don't want Karri, " he said, ignoring his buddy and grinning at me from six inches away. "I want her instead." Coffee was never served with more care or a bigger smile.
So it only took me seven courses to get the hang of it.
If this freelance writing thing goes up in smoke, looks like I'll always have busing to fall back on.
Toast's owner Jessica had organized a benefit dinner at the now defunct 525 at the Berry Burke for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, staffed by an all female crew- chefs, hosts, servers and busers and even pulling from the food writing community. That's where I came in.
Of course I wanted to do my part, but with limited restaurant experience, I felt like my best contribution would be clearing dishes and pouring water, two things I long since mastered growing up in a large family.
And while plenty of the women serving had restaurant experience, many of them hadn't waited tables since the '80s. We were all inexpertly in this together.
We had to be there a half hour in advance of the dinner to have our picture taken en masse, the best female chefs in RVA in their chef coats along with the ragtag service staff, all of us in "I (heart) the ladies of RVA Dine" t-shirts.
Waiting for the 120 people who'd reserved seats to arrive, we stood around discussing what was to come, not sure how much of a clusterf*ck it might be, but convinced that to some degree, it would be a shit show.
As the first course was being plated and all of us convened in the kitchen to start grabbing plates, someone announced, "Would you look at all this pussy power in the kitchen?" I might not have phrased it quite that way, but okay.
The evening unfolded as a continuous stream of delivering plates and clearing them with filling water glasses and chatting with guests in between.
A former food critic complimented my writing, saying, "I always enjoy reading your reviews." When I thanked her with a raised eyebrow, she insisted, "No, I'm not just saying that. I like the way you write."
I took a quick moment to go to the bathroom between the third and fourth courses, finding the ladies' room occupied (of course) but a woman guest headed into the men's room and invited me along, assuring me that she was just going to change her shirt.
"When I got here, I looked in the mirror and realized you could see right through my shirt and with the size of my boobs, that's not good," she explained, trading her sheer blouse for an RVA Ladies dine shirt while I took care of business.
For the rest of the evening, whenever I was near her table, she called me "bathroom girl" and giggled.
At another table, a guy with a superb mustache looked at me and said, "So you really like the Daily, I guess," an odd thing to say since I've never been to the Daily. "You're in there like three times a week," he insisted. "Okay, maybe 17 times in the past month."
Explaining that that was impossible, he was stunned. "Well, then, you've got a doppelganger and she comes into the Daily all the time. She's really pretty. You should come in, too."
I said I'd take it under advisement.
Things were hot and raucous in the kitchen, with a bottle of bourbon being passed around and servers delivering drinks to the chefs who wanted them, but the plates coming out of there were picture perfect, clearly the work of pros.
Food-wise, I was most surprised that the dish prepared by Chef Carly of C'est le Vin and Chef Lilly of Pasture seemed to be the most challenging for diners.
Very few plates of the divine combination of smoked wild mushrooms, balsamic braised collards, quinoa and arugula almond pesto with a poached egg sailing atop it all came back licked clean.
Either they'd left the quinoa (although how, I can't imagine), pushed the greens to the side, or left part or all of the egg.
I had it on good authority from two foodies that it was a fabulous dish, so perhaps the crowd just didn't get it. I know when I finally got a couple tastes, I had to question people leaving even one bite.
And speaking of Chef Carly, she teased me that part of her kitchen routine is to drop something on the floor and ask a cute waitress to pick it up."If I did that tonight, I'd drop it in front of you," she said coyly.
It may have been because I was the only person on staff wearing a skirt.
At one point, I was clearing dishes and I clumsily picked up a plate, apologizing that it was my first time being a buser.
The plate's owner grabbed my wrist and asked what I did in real life so I told her. "That's so cool! We have to go out together. Soon. Here's my card." I stuck it in my bra.
Another table, another unexpected attention. A man said he could get used to being waited on by movie stars.
We're not movie stars, I assured him, laughing at the notion. "But you're RVA stars!" he said. I gotta say, that's a new way of looking at the life of a freelance writer.
While we weren't technically up to speed on service - there was much going in the out door - the camaraderie was terrific and it was great fun for someone like me who hasn't spent time in a kitchen to become part of the rhythm of the night.
By the fourth course (spring lamb loin and shank, barley, English peas, maitake and ramp gremolata, yum) of seven, I was feeling pretty comfortable with what I needed to do to serve, clear and water as many tables as I could get to.
I was particularly proud because I seemed to be the only one who hadn't pulled out a phone during her shift, long one of my pet peeves for real servers.
Over a few courses, I developed a special relationship with the two guys sitting at a bar table away from the main dining room, teasing them almost as much as they teased me.
It was in between the fifth and sixth course that Emilia of Heritage taught me and another serving neophyte how to balance a third plate. We looked at each other in wonder, sorry that no one had schooled us three hours earlier.
By the time we got to the double dessert course (and praise heaven because the staff had worried that we'd have to serve two dessert courses), I got some lovely validation.
At a table of all men, one looked at me and asked if he could get a coffee. His buddy nudged him and said, "Don't ask her. Karri's our server."
"I don't want Karri, " he said, ignoring his buddy and grinning at me from six inches away. "I want her instead." Coffee was never served with more care or a bigger smile.
So it only took me seven courses to get the hang of it.
If this freelance writing thing goes up in smoke, looks like I'll always have busing to fall back on.
Monday, July 29, 2013
Double Dutch DInner
Once isn't always enough.
Tonight that meant two dinner dates, with the first at Toast.
I'd reviewed Toast last Fall, but it's located way out of my limited world, so I hadn't been back since my four visits back then.
But when one of my couple date suggested dinner there, I happily agreed, even offering to drive.
As we headed westward ho, it became clear from the darkening sky that we were just going to beat the rainstorm.
Walking in with my umbrella clutched in hand, the hostess complimented my wisdom, noting that I was the first to come in prepared.
Well, I was a girl scout.
Within minutes, the skies opened up and a deluge began to fall outside.
I'd offered my extra umbrella to one of my companions, but she'd turned it down, commenting, "I don't melt in a little rain."
Honey, this was a lot of rain and I may not melt, but I can do without wet hair at the beginning of an evening out.
Over peach sangria and happy hour beer, we slowly narrowed our food selections.
Since I had a second dinner date, I kept my choice light with the grilled avocado and cheesy corn chip salad with cucumber, sprouts, sunflower kernels, tomatoes, and pico de gallo in a lemon/smoked honey vinaigrette.
Our food took forever to come out and I wondered if perhaps it had been sitting a while since the cheese on my four corn chips was cold and hard, meaning a long way from freshly melted.
Luckily, the rest of it was fresh and quite delicious, so I overlooked the sub-par chippage.
As we ate, we watched people rush in from the monsoon, eager to escape the outside for drinks and eats.
Meanwhile, we moved on to Toast's signature doughnuts with honey mascarpone, the only dessert I know of that arrives being shaken in a paper bag.
I'm here to tell you that the smell of freshly fried doughnuts shaken in cinnamon sugar is enough to make a person forget she has further dinner plans.
If I'm going to leave my personal orbit and venture as far as Three Chopt and Patterson, these doughnuts are as worthy a reason as I know of.
By the time we left Toast, the rain had stopped and a rainbow was arching over Patterson Avenue as we drove back to the city and all I hold dear.
Dinner #1 done.
Stop #2 was at the home of my friend, Holmes, and the occasion was a visit by a mutual friend.
Our little quartet has an affinity for bubbles and LaMarca Prosecco, the favorite of Holmes' beloved, had ben earmarked as the beverage of the evening.
By the time I arrived, the three of them were already starting the second bottle so I had to hit the ground running.
First order of business was choosing wine tags for our glasses.
Holmes had already claimed "immature," his beloved went with "earthy," the guest chose "rich" and I opted for "supple."
Sometimes we label ourselves as we are and other times as we wish we were.
In any case, it didn't stop people from drinking from the wrong glass on occasion, but what's shared cooties among friends?
My work was cut out for me when I noticed that there was no music playing because I don't see how people can have a dinner party without it.
Holmes allowed me to choose the music (probably since he knew I had to pick from his collection so how bad could it be?) and I began with the Finn Brothers' 2004 album, "Everyone is Here."
One of my favorites on that record is "Anything Can Happen," which seemed like an apt metaphor for tonight's gathering.
I could never give it up
I could never relent
And I can't wait to see
What will happen to me next
Music blasting from the dining room, we prepared to commence the business of making dinner.
This involved grilling shrimp in Holmes' secret sauce whilst preparing chicken and steak to be grilled afterwards.
Despite keeping the meal simple with jasmine rice and sliced Hanover tomatoes sprinkled with Old Bay, it wasn't long before the kitchen and deck resembled a Keystone Cops caper, with people coming and going, taking things that others were looking for and constantly losing what mattered.
But as long as the LaMarca kept flowing, no one seemed to mind.
It seemed to me that such chaos required '80s music, so my next album choice was "Natural History: The Very Best of Talk Talk," a record I never expected to find in Holmes' collection.
Au contraire, he informed me; he had four Talk Talk albums.
Man, you think you know a person.
Funny how I blind myself
I never knew
If I were sometimes played upon
Afraid to lose
By the time we finally sat down to eat, it was on Holmes' new Japanese placemats, purchased yesterday at an estate sale and leading to a discussion of the pleasures of said sales.
Sometimes it's not about the stuff for sale (an $18,000 cabinet?) but about being inside a house you'd never otherwise get to see.
With three women and only Holmes to represent the simpler sex, I'm afraid the conversation took a decidedly feminine turn, settling on the intricacies of relationships.
Is living together necessarily the goal of a relationship? How long is too long to wait for commitment? How important is the concept of the "right person"?
Hell if we knew.
Once the conversation devolved into our misspent youths, we decided it was dessert time.
Fortunately, bubbly goes extremely well with chocolate eclairs and chocolate mousse cake.
We gorged on sweets while listening to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's "Deja Vu," a true time warp, but well-suited to Holmes' taste.
Groovy vibes permeated the room, or perhaps that was the Prosecco.
Everybody, I love you
Everybody, I do
Though your heart is in anger
I need your love to get through
Nothing like a Sunday night with everybody.
Our visiting friend told me she had never seen me looking happier or more vivacious.
I'm just happy to wait and see what will happen next.
Tonight that meant two dinner dates, with the first at Toast.
I'd reviewed Toast last Fall, but it's located way out of my limited world, so I hadn't been back since my four visits back then.
But when one of my couple date suggested dinner there, I happily agreed, even offering to drive.
As we headed westward ho, it became clear from the darkening sky that we were just going to beat the rainstorm.
Walking in with my umbrella clutched in hand, the hostess complimented my wisdom, noting that I was the first to come in prepared.
Well, I was a girl scout.
Within minutes, the skies opened up and a deluge began to fall outside.
I'd offered my extra umbrella to one of my companions, but she'd turned it down, commenting, "I don't melt in a little rain."
Honey, this was a lot of rain and I may not melt, but I can do without wet hair at the beginning of an evening out.
Over peach sangria and happy hour beer, we slowly narrowed our food selections.
Since I had a second dinner date, I kept my choice light with the grilled avocado and cheesy corn chip salad with cucumber, sprouts, sunflower kernels, tomatoes, and pico de gallo in a lemon/smoked honey vinaigrette.
Our food took forever to come out and I wondered if perhaps it had been sitting a while since the cheese on my four corn chips was cold and hard, meaning a long way from freshly melted.
Luckily, the rest of it was fresh and quite delicious, so I overlooked the sub-par chippage.
As we ate, we watched people rush in from the monsoon, eager to escape the outside for drinks and eats.
Meanwhile, we moved on to Toast's signature doughnuts with honey mascarpone, the only dessert I know of that arrives being shaken in a paper bag.
I'm here to tell you that the smell of freshly fried doughnuts shaken in cinnamon sugar is enough to make a person forget she has further dinner plans.
If I'm going to leave my personal orbit and venture as far as Three Chopt and Patterson, these doughnuts are as worthy a reason as I know of.
By the time we left Toast, the rain had stopped and a rainbow was arching over Patterson Avenue as we drove back to the city and all I hold dear.
Dinner #1 done.
Stop #2 was at the home of my friend, Holmes, and the occasion was a visit by a mutual friend.
Our little quartet has an affinity for bubbles and LaMarca Prosecco, the favorite of Holmes' beloved, had ben earmarked as the beverage of the evening.
By the time I arrived, the three of them were already starting the second bottle so I had to hit the ground running.
First order of business was choosing wine tags for our glasses.
Holmes had already claimed "immature," his beloved went with "earthy," the guest chose "rich" and I opted for "supple."
Sometimes we label ourselves as we are and other times as we wish we were.
In any case, it didn't stop people from drinking from the wrong glass on occasion, but what's shared cooties among friends?
My work was cut out for me when I noticed that there was no music playing because I don't see how people can have a dinner party without it.
Holmes allowed me to choose the music (probably since he knew I had to pick from his collection so how bad could it be?) and I began with the Finn Brothers' 2004 album, "Everyone is Here."
One of my favorites on that record is "Anything Can Happen," which seemed like an apt metaphor for tonight's gathering.
I could never give it up
I could never relent
And I can't wait to see
What will happen to me next
Music blasting from the dining room, we prepared to commence the business of making dinner.
This involved grilling shrimp in Holmes' secret sauce whilst preparing chicken and steak to be grilled afterwards.
Despite keeping the meal simple with jasmine rice and sliced Hanover tomatoes sprinkled with Old Bay, it wasn't long before the kitchen and deck resembled a Keystone Cops caper, with people coming and going, taking things that others were looking for and constantly losing what mattered.
But as long as the LaMarca kept flowing, no one seemed to mind.
It seemed to me that such chaos required '80s music, so my next album choice was "Natural History: The Very Best of Talk Talk," a record I never expected to find in Holmes' collection.
Au contraire, he informed me; he had four Talk Talk albums.
Man, you think you know a person.
Funny how I blind myself
I never knew
If I were sometimes played upon
Afraid to lose
By the time we finally sat down to eat, it was on Holmes' new Japanese placemats, purchased yesterday at an estate sale and leading to a discussion of the pleasures of said sales.
Sometimes it's not about the stuff for sale (an $18,000 cabinet?) but about being inside a house you'd never otherwise get to see.
With three women and only Holmes to represent the simpler sex, I'm afraid the conversation took a decidedly feminine turn, settling on the intricacies of relationships.
Is living together necessarily the goal of a relationship? How long is too long to wait for commitment? How important is the concept of the "right person"?
Hell if we knew.
Once the conversation devolved into our misspent youths, we decided it was dessert time.
Fortunately, bubbly goes extremely well with chocolate eclairs and chocolate mousse cake.
We gorged on sweets while listening to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's "Deja Vu," a true time warp, but well-suited to Holmes' taste.
Groovy vibes permeated the room, or perhaps that was the Prosecco.
Everybody, I love you
Everybody, I do
Though your heart is in anger
I need your love to get through
Nothing like a Sunday night with everybody.
Our visiting friend told me she had never seen me looking happier or more vivacious.
I'm just happy to wait and see what will happen next.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
A Toast to the Mallet Master
No one wants to be informed that they're giving the toast as the bubbly is being poured.
But as the oldest daughter, that responsibility fell to me.
I'd driven up to suburban Maryland, a place I despise, solely because today was my Dad's birthday celebration and it's a big year for him, one that ends in a zero.
Because of that, pretty much my entire extended family was in attendance. All five sisters with husbands and children, aunts, uncles, the whole gang.
I honestly can't recall the last time we were all in the same place.
And while I have no need to do it again anytime soon, the chaos of so many people eating, drinking, looking at old photographs and just catching up was great fun.
I especially enjoyed an album of photos from my Dad's youth because he grew up here in Richmond.
There were shots in front of their house on Colonial Avenue, in front of the Richmond Dairy where my grandfather worked and even a newspaper clipping of my Dad as one of "five husky youngsters playing at Humphrey Calder Playground."
Even funnier, there were photographs of me and my sisters in nearly identical little girl dresses (why would you do something that corny with six girls?) as well as of us with bad 80s hair.
It's astounding how big our thick, straight hair got during those years.
My brother-in-law pulled out a long-forgotten picture of him and me and our respective main squeezes at the time sitting on the dock at Kerr Lake after water-skiing (more correctly for me, after attempting to water-ski).
Did I ever look that impossibly young? Yes, apparently I did.
Hours into all this strolling down memory lane and catching up, my bossiest sister (#5) decided it was toasting time, to be followed by (hazelnut/chocolate) birthday cake time.
As I'm helping her pour dozens of glasses of Blanc de Blanc, she leans in and says, "You're doing the toast."
When the competitive sister (#3) hears this, she hisses, "How come you're giving the toast?" as if I've usurped her job or something.
She does consider herself Dad's favorite.
To my defense comes the most introverted sister (#2) who says loudly enough so that even the non-family members can hear, "Because she's the OLDEST!"
I do not once in my entire life remember being introduced by one of my sisters that it wasn't with the clarification that I am the oldest.
Just in case there was any doubt.
So with no time to prepare something well-thought out, cameras were turned on and I stood up to toast a man who has shaped the woman I became.
"You talked to us. You listened to us. You taught us to play croquet. To the best Dad any six daughters could ever ask for."
Brother-in-law #3 waited a beat and then raised his glass to my Dad.
"And that was a lot of listening!" he said to great cheering.
But what smart man doesn't want to listen to the talkative females around him?
And my Dad has always been a very smart man. Which makes me a very lucky daughter.
But as the oldest daughter, that responsibility fell to me.
I'd driven up to suburban Maryland, a place I despise, solely because today was my Dad's birthday celebration and it's a big year for him, one that ends in a zero.
Because of that, pretty much my entire extended family was in attendance. All five sisters with husbands and children, aunts, uncles, the whole gang.
I honestly can't recall the last time we were all in the same place.
And while I have no need to do it again anytime soon, the chaos of so many people eating, drinking, looking at old photographs and just catching up was great fun.
I especially enjoyed an album of photos from my Dad's youth because he grew up here in Richmond.
There were shots in front of their house on Colonial Avenue, in front of the Richmond Dairy where my grandfather worked and even a newspaper clipping of my Dad as one of "five husky youngsters playing at Humphrey Calder Playground."
Even funnier, there were photographs of me and my sisters in nearly identical little girl dresses (why would you do something that corny with six girls?) as well as of us with bad 80s hair.
It's astounding how big our thick, straight hair got during those years.
My brother-in-law pulled out a long-forgotten picture of him and me and our respective main squeezes at the time sitting on the dock at Kerr Lake after water-skiing (more correctly for me, after attempting to water-ski).
Did I ever look that impossibly young? Yes, apparently I did.
Hours into all this strolling down memory lane and catching up, my bossiest sister (#5) decided it was toasting time, to be followed by (hazelnut/chocolate) birthday cake time.
As I'm helping her pour dozens of glasses of Blanc de Blanc, she leans in and says, "You're doing the toast."
When the competitive sister (#3) hears this, she hisses, "How come you're giving the toast?" as if I've usurped her job or something.
She does consider herself Dad's favorite.
To my defense comes the most introverted sister (#2) who says loudly enough so that even the non-family members can hear, "Because she's the OLDEST!"
I do not once in my entire life remember being introduced by one of my sisters that it wasn't with the clarification that I am the oldest.
Just in case there was any doubt.
So with no time to prepare something well-thought out, cameras were turned on and I stood up to toast a man who has shaped the woman I became.
"You talked to us. You listened to us. You taught us to play croquet. To the best Dad any six daughters could ever ask for."
Brother-in-law #3 waited a beat and then raised his glass to my Dad.
"And that was a lot of listening!" he said to great cheering.
But what smart man doesn't want to listen to the talkative females around him?
And my Dad has always been a very smart man. Which makes me a very lucky daughter.
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