That's What Lookin' So Bohemian Gets Ya

I am inspired by the appearance of a bohemian in the new millennium. ~ John Malkovich

And I am happy to carry the bohemian flag into this century, despite my credentials having been earned in the last one.

However, do not ever call me at 9:40 a.m., or really, any time before 10:30 a.m., or you will get a return email hours later that, yes, answers the burning questions you left on your message, but also reminds you of my long-standing rule. Which, I might add, you should know by now.

Bohemians sleep 9 hours and they don't get up early if they can help it. That's how we cover multiple millenniums without burning out.

I'm a girl from a good family who was very well brought up. One day I turned my back on it all and became a bohemian. ~ Brigitte Bardot

Right? Although honestly, I'm not sure I ever considered embracing the alternative.

Heading to the river on my walk this morning, I paused to chat with a friend who works out of a nearby building because the garage doors were up. That's his signal for me to holler so he'll know I'm on the sidewalk and we can exchange pleasantries.

Once he joined me, the weather  became our first topic because it was already apparent it was going to be a changeable day. Humid, but intermittently cloudy and sunny, the weather has been warm enough of late that we'd both been making adjustments at home.

I've switched from flannel sheets to cotton and he's begun leaving a couple windows open in his Union Hill house when he leaves for work. We agreed that the terribly cold weather is probably behind us, but neither of us is completely convinced we won't still have a cold snap for a night or two.

As insurance for just such an occurrence, I told him I haven't yet thrown away the slippers that have gotten me through the last few winters. Oh, they need to go for sure this year, but I'll wait until there's zero chance I'll need them one last time. Because bohemians are cautious that way.

Chuckling, he looked down at me and said, "Yep, mine are so bad, all the leather part on the bottom is worn off, but I'm not throwing 'em away 'till I'm sure warm weather is here to stay." It's probably the epitome of middle age mortification to be discussing your worn out slippers with a friend, yet we both jumped right in.

Bohemians don't care about appearances.

All the time, I've felt like life is a wager and that I probably was getting more out of leading a bohemian existence as a writer than I would have if I didn't. ~ Christopher Hitchens

Absorbing the Post's obituary of William McPherson, the paper's Pulitzer Prize-winning book critic and editor in the '70s, I was struck while reading about his descent into the self-proclaimed "upper edge of poverty," a state he described as, "Not quite destitute, but where a roof over your head and a wardrobe that doesn't look as if it came from the Salvation Army is as good as it gets."

He blamed it on acting like a lottery winner and squandering money made from his books on houses, cars and Caribbean cruises, all choices that sound awfully un-bohemian to me. To my mind, we bohemian types would never blow funds on such bourgeoisie constructs.

Truth be told, I not only have a roof over my head and a wardrobe straight out of a thrift store, but a pretty fabulous cultural life, too. My guess is the upper edge of poverty looks wildly different to a Baby Boomer than it did to a member of the Greatest Generation.

My mother was a bohemian, in the good sense of the word. A searcher. ~ Madeline Kahn

As is my way, I search for something interesting and low or no cost to experience every night, but after a last-minute phone call from my companion for the evening who was sick, I knew I'd be doing it alone.

"It" was a donation-based screening of "Sustainable: A Documentary" presented by Tricycle Gardens at Ellwood Thompson's Beet Cafe, convenient because I could also pick up tilapia with lemon and capers, black beans and broccoli for dinner while I fed my mind.

Like all the excellent documentaries I'v seen on the subject of organic farming, sustainable methods and a shift away from the agri-industrial model that took hold at mid-century (so modern! so efficient! so terrible for the environment and humans!), "Sustainable" made its points using trailblazing farmers ("It's a noble cause to provide food for your fellow human beings"), chefs and advocates, all of whom are trying to shift agriculture away from the massively profitable but inhumane and ultimately deadly practice that it is now.

The film was shown with subtitles which provided an unexpected running thread of humor every time background music was played and the subtitle labeled it: captivating music, somber music, jubilant music, solemn music, enchanting music, pleasant music, grave music, playful music.

Not once did the adjective reflect the way the music sounded to me. Jubilant, for example, sounded wistful. Solemn sounded ominous. Someone was sleeping on the labeling job, that's all I'm saying.

Bohemian: (noun) a person with artistic or literary interests who lives and acts free of regard for conventional rules or standards of behavior. Without bohemians, life would be a complete bore.

Without my fluid and unscripted lifestyle, I would be completely bored. The upper edge of poverty is what you make it.

Cue blithe music.

Painting the Town

I excel at being the extra woman.

When friends need an extra body (whether warm or hot) or some estrogen to balance out a dinner party's numbers, I'm that person who gets invited to fill the role and it's one I dispatch with great enthusiasm.

Get to know strangers? Entertain visitors? I got this. Years ago, when I was trying to right the capsizing ship that was my life, a friend (seriously) suggested that I offer just such a service to visitors, showing them places to eat, hear music and do fun things they might not otherwise uncover.

Because selling my time sounded just short of selling my body, I didn't pursue it, although I saw the wisdom of her idea. Now I happily accept invitations to share me.

This time, it was Pru and Beau doing the inviting and the occasion was two male house guests, a seasoned one from Phoenix and a young one one from Fredericksburg, and the destination was Can Can.

I got assigned to the male car, meaning three men called for me (complete with a glass of Miraval Rose - a stellar "car wine," I have to say - awaiting me in the back seat) while the other two womenfolk took another car. My kind of odds.

Beau scored heavily in the parking lot when he complimented my ensemble as "adorable," precisely the vibe I'd been going for with the Berlin tights and a more subdued palette than usual.

Brasseries are noisy places and Can Can is no exception, making for a lot of leaning in and repeated remarks while sipping Cotes de Provence Rose "Terra Amatta" and nibbling zucchini fritters and a cheese/charcuterie plate. A Languedoc Rose showed up with dinner - mine a demi plateau of oysters, clams, shrimp and mussels and a forest of greens mounded into a salad - along with an opportunity for the Phoenix visitor to be more vocal.

When Pru, presuming naturally, asked what I'd planned to do after dinner wound down, I copped to plans to go to Balliceaux to hear K-Pop and the visitor immediately let it be known that he loves to dance. I couldn't ask the young visitor to join because he was a month shy of being legal, so my contribution to his RVA experience was introducing him to some new cheeses during our first course.

So the male car dropped Phoenix and I off at my house so I could swap cute shoes for dancing shoes before heading to Balliceaux. I tried but failed to convince my guest that we should walk, but despite being a native Philly boy, a biking enthusiast and in shape, he resisted.

Next time.

The back room was pretty crowded on arrival and only grew more so with each new wave of K-Pop devotees who wandered in throughout the night. He was struck by their solitary dancing habits, their group movements rather than couple movements, but I'd seen it too many times for it to even register.

Last time I'd gone to a K-Pop night, I'd fallen hard for the Asian take on pop music from the '60s and '70s, but tonight's selections drew from the '90s and hip-hop, filtered through a Korean sensibility, sure, but less compelling to ears that remember music before Auto-Tune.

I was barely a couple sips into my Espolon before he was nodding toward the dance floor and why would I say no? Unlike some of the crowd, we couldn't sing along to any of the songs, but we found enough we could dance to to join the throngs in a room that continued to feel hotter, more crowded, more like Friday night.

On the way out, he admitted that he couldn't remember the last time he'd been dancing, never mind that it was his first exposure to K-Pop. See, this is why some people need to meet me.

Dropping him back at his hostess' house an hour after I'd promised to get him home, we solidified morning plans. He'd seen some night life, he'd claimed to be a fan of walking, so the plan was to show him some of my daytime Richmond.

This is where I get good. I wowed him with notable architecture, historic locations, and river views. I led him along the Pipeline Trail, over to Southern States for the Street Art RVA Festival, up to Tricycle Gardens' urban farm and back across the Lee bridge to admire Belle Isle and the river from a bird's eye view.

Lagging slightly behind me coming up Belvidere, he informed me that this was the longest walk he'd been on in ages. Someone needs to get out of the house more or maybe just out of Phoenix more.

As a thank you for the outstanding walkabout and tour, he offered to take me to lunch, so we detoured to 821 Cafe, found two stools at the bar ("You can't sit there!" a male voice growled at me, but it was only the handsome bass player/server razzing me) and let a soundtrack of '80s music (Hall and Oates-based) wash over us while sharing life stories.

"Are you the marrying kind?" he asked me. "Why did you get married?" I asked him. How hard is it to find your passion and follow it? It's fascinating what you can discuss with someone you didn't know 24 hours ago.

The extra woman tells all, but never judges. Also, she has a ball doing it.

National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day

Love is dead. Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy announced their conscious uncoupling today.

Even an optimist like me has to have her faith in happily ever after shaken a bit by that. Who's next, Mom and Dad?

Setting aside personal concerns for the greater good,  I walked over to 1708 Gallery for tonight's talk and dinner on BridgePark. Although it hadn't been all that long since I'd attended a community conversation on BridgePark, tonight's was less a meeting and more of a social.

In other words, there was a cash bar.

More importantly to me, there was also a week-long exhibit devoted to a model, sketches, a film and enlarged photographs of the proposed BridgePark connecting the green spaces of the state capital to the river and Manchester.

The challenge was being able to see these ideas brought to the gallery's walls and floor space given the crush of warm bodies filling 1708. It wasn't the same crowd that had attended the last meeting in Manchester. No, this was a far artsier crowd and with drinks in hand, the feeling was more of one big cocktail party.

Not that there's anything wrong with an art meet and greet.

Gallerists and arty types abounded, along with young families, river devotees and BridgePark's growing following.

One large photo of the James at sunset made comparisons:
The Seine
The Arno
The James

Another showed two eagles facing off in mid-air. It read:
Food, Music. Fun.
And eagle battles.

After the crowd was nicely lubricated, organizer Ted got the crowd's attention - no easy task amid all the kvetching - and did a shorter presentation than the one I'd seen last.

He admitted to our collective love affair with the old train bridge piers in the river (we can't deny it). He spoke of making better use of an under-utilized bridge. To really grab the crowd, he showed a photo of the July 4th fireworks taken from the bridge.

When all of a sudden technology failed him and the images wouldn't move forward, a guy near me shouted out, "Kill the DJ!" I thought it was funny. Device again working, we finished the presentation with no further good-natured heckling.

Then and only then were people allowed to go through the food line, enjoying a repast curated by the Underground Kitchen, cooked by Chef Carly Herring with food supplied from Belmont Butchery, Renew Richmond, Shalom Farms and VSU with a charming row of vases holding mostly pink zinnias courtesy of Tricycle Gardens lining the center of the table.

Conveniently, I'd stationed myself near the food table for the presentation, so it wasn't far to be the second person in line (behind the tiny woman with the sleeping child in her arms). Beef vegetable soup, beautifully balanced kale salad with Feta and craisins in a honey dressing, a simply dressed tomato and onion salad that tasted like the tomatoes had been in the ground  this morning and the heel a loaf of Sub Rosa's brown bread filled up my plate.

We'd been told that the reason for the large communal table was so that we might sit next to a stranger (something I do on a fairly frequent basis, btw) and build community by discussing our impressions and hopes for BridgePark with others also interested in the project.

I sat down with empty chairs on either side of me.

Her backside had barely hit the chair when the woman next to me introduced herself and I recognized her as a rock climber who'd expressed concerns about losing the southside climbing wall in the plans for the park. She confirmed her love of climbing, informing me that we were one of the rare cities who had natural climbing places downtown.

We'd already heard from Ted that we were one of two state capitals with eagle habitats downtown. And don't get us started on our Class IV rapids downtown or we might go on for days.

Another woman sat down next to her, explaining that she was a lawyer who'd known Ted before he stopped lawyering to run the BridgePark non-profit. Next came a familiar face - a WRIR DJ who also plays around town as a DJ - across from me, but I couldn't very well send him on his way just because I knew him, could I? I spotted the Man About Town standing in the food line holding lemonade for a young damsel.

Carly's soup with Belmont Butchery's beef in the starring role was ridiculously appealing given that it was still 90+ degrees outside. Sub Rosa's bread soaked up every bit of broth. I chatted with my new friends about BridgePark's possibilities.

To accompany our meal, Rodney the Soul Singer crooned at the front of the room as the film showing the majesty of the James played behind us. Everywhere around me, people were busy eating and talking about the concept of a bridge park in Richmond.

They were putting on a good show, but I'm willing to bet that under those lively facades, their hearts were aching with the depressing news of Kermit and Piggy's breakup. What hope is there for the rest of us?

As far as moi is concerned, sometimes you just have to eat a chocolate chip/macadamia/coconut cookie and call it a day.

Extending My Southern Hospitality

In the interest of being a good representative of my adopted city, I played tour guide tonight to an out-of-town visitor.

At issue was how much I could show a non-local on a dark, rainy night, hardly prime sightseeing time. Luckily I didn't have to work at it too hard because he'd already gotten a few recommendations from a local bartender about must-sees. I just had to fill in the cracks.

With that in mind, I figured the least I could do was start with our most scenic boulevard, Monument Avenue and try to wow him that way. He was impressed, more with the houses than the lesson in Civil War history, but that may have been owing to my less-than-detailed history lesson.

The first place he'd been told to experience was Mekong, no doubt due to his home-brewing habits. Or maybe just his love of good beer. An was behind the bar, so they discussed what he likes and An made his recommendations. Fortunately for a non-beer drinker like me, they had one decent tequila.

A beer and wine geek friend was also in attendance, which worked out well because I was able to provide the visitor with a kindred soul with whom to discuss such things. The funny part was when my friend suggested Capital Ale House at Innsbrook to the visitor as the place to go for the largest beer offerings.

Obviously the visitor didn't know me well enough to realize that I was already at the outer limits of the city as far as I'm concerned, making my friend laugh at even the thought that I might venture further west. Not happening.

But I'd already promised that I'd take him to Commercial Taphouse, which delivered on several levels. First and most importantly, they had cask ale, a fact which apparently couldn't delight a home brewer (or true beer geek) more.

He happily ordered some and I told him of my recent curiosity about experiencing it, here, and what guy can resist giving a girl a first experience? So I had my first cask ale and I'd have to say it was way more interesting than any beers I've tasted in the past. I should have known I could trust an art-lover for beer advice,

We were several hours in to our evening at this point and both hungry, so we decided to eat and here's the funny part. The visitor looked at the menu, looked at me and asked, "Do you eat ribs?" It was to laugh. Of course I eat ribs, but according to him, "Most girls don't." How's that for a blanket generalization?

So we got a half rack and the Ploughman's platter (which inexplicably now comes with leaves of romaine lettuce in addition to toast, which the visitor used to make ploughman wraps, giving him points for creativity, at least in my book). "Eat this," he directed so I did.

Earlier in the car we had furthered our music talk and one band he had specifically mentioned was the English post-punk band Killing Joke, with whom I was not familiar. In a truly odd coincidence, while in Commercial, they played a Killing Joke song off their 1980 debut album.

He was thrilled and I got a frame of reference for his description. Now what were the chances of such a thing happening?

Our final stop was my choice and what I had planned to do before getting a call from the help-a-visitor foundation. Julep was hosting a benefit for Tricycle Gardens and I wanted to do my part to support community gardening.

We arrived around 10:30 for the 8:30 event and it was packed with other do-gooders (okay, drinkers). I ran into a girlfriend I hadn't seen in a year and we caught up; she's still not dating, either.

Probably not your typical list of must-sees, but he sure seemed to enjoy them all. Or maybe it was the sparkling local company.

And that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

An Odd Night; An Early Morning

There is no good excuse to wake up at 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning. In my case, it was a dream about someone I haven't seen in 15 years that woke me up in a cold sweat. Whatever. So I got up and took the dog out for a walk, where I was surprised to see a neighbor already sitting on his front porch. I teased him about being up so early and he said he wasn't happy about it, either. Once we got to talking, we realized we've got no idea what to do with a day that starts unnecessarily this ungodly early. It was nice to have someone to commiserate with for the first 15 minutes of my day, I have to admit. I didn't ask him what had awakened him so early, but not because I wasn't curious.

Wine Geek friend came over last night so we could attend the Tricycle Gardens Harvest Dinner together. Poor thing, she came straight from work, so we began here with a Tenuta di Pietra Porzia 2008 Frascati Superiore to ease her transition to Saturday night. It was light and delicious, kind of a pears and almond thing going on. We caught up on the blogging world and what's been going on in our lives since we last got together, then it was time to head to the Robinson Theater in Church Hill.

We had no idea what to expect from the Harvest Dinner, since it was the first one, and that was probably a good thing. The place was packed (the event sold out) with a lot of recognizable local faces as well as plenty of unknowns just looking for a giant feast made by local restaurants (The Fat Goat, Balliceaux, Rowland's, Helen's and more) and supporting a good cause (community gardens). It was impossible not to run into people we knew, but the din was so loud, conversation was challenging. Which worked for me, given a few of the people from my past I ran into it (Fly Guy, for instance).

When we left there, WGF suggested we check out the Boathouse, since neither of us had been. How can I politely put this...the place was like one of those generic seafood places you find in Norfolk or Baltimore full of tourists and frat boys. It didn't help that we had to walk past a bachelorette party (giant penises, an identifying white lace bow, bridesmaids french kissing each other) just to get in and see the madness. One quick sweep through and we'd both determined it was not the place for us. I know people who have been (although not on a Saturday night and perhaps that was the problem) and didn't hate it, but we were hugely underwhelmed.

So we ended up at Julep's for after-dinner drinks and to further the conversation that had been impossible at our last two stops. Unfortunately for me (WGF was way more tolerant), we became the recipients of a rather drunk redneck truck driver's attention as he smoked and drank and clumsily tried to engage us in conversation...until WGF told him flat out that we hadn't seen each other in a month and wanted to talk. Alone. He huffed a bit then turned his back on us. Sorry, sir, but you're just not proving yourself conversationally.

All in all, it was sort of a strange night. And now there's this ridiculously early morning thing going on. Maybe it's the full moon working against me?