Pretty in Pink

He didn't, of course, but he might as well have planned it for me.

If I'd wanted to attend a wine tasting class as part of my birthday celebration, chances are I'd want it to be a pink class.

And as Mac just recently pointed out, that's exactly what Amour Wine Bistro was having tonight: Le Rose Wine Tasting: Rhone Valley and Provence.

Birthday schooling of the highest order. Reservation for two, please.

An attendee tonight could be forgiven for thinking that the class was really just a means for the owner to gather a group of interesting women to hang on his every word, because that's what it seemed to be. Not that a restaurant owner would do such a thing.

Every single attendee was female. And eager to learn. Overheard: "Oh, I love eggplant, but I don't know how to cook it."

Looking to start off with something unlikely, the owner poured a tannic 2007 E. Guigal Rose from the southern Rhone valley to prove that some Roses have wonderful aging potential. "It's 2007 again and we're all young!" he joked. "Who was President then?"

The man who never looked so good as he has in retrospect the past 120 days, that's who.

To set the scene for Domaine Pere Caboche Rose, he painted a picture. "For this wine, you should be sitting on a terrace overlooking the Mediterranean, with a barbecue grill over here for the fish you caught this morning - or got at the market - and drinking this," he said, conjuring up a great visual. "Then you have it all!"

I don't know, give me the terrace, the sea and the grilled fish and I'd probably be quite happy drinking anything. With the exception of the woman who called out, "Are you gonna come cook the fish for me because I just can't do fish on the grill," we got his point.

He admitted his favorite was Le Petit Rouviere Rose and that's one I've swooned over for years because of its lush peach notes and long finish.

Lest it sound like we were hunkered down sipping pinks, listening intently to terroir lessons and taking abundant notes, it should probably be acknowledged that we had a steady stream of food coming at us all the while.

White bean, beet and arugula salad segued in to salmon and tuna tartar with capers on thick, chewy crostini and then creamy Dijon mustard sauced chicken with rice kept our Rose-addled attention spans focused until chocolate tart covered in fresh strawberry slices arrived.

Meanwhile, Teacher had moved on to the finer points of Domaine Petit Coeur Rose, so we refocused on the wine's refined elegance instead of drooling over the bottle's sexy shape because Mac and I just aren't that shallow.

That bottle would make a great candle-holder, that's all I'm saying.

It was while we were sipping the summery aromas of blossoms in a glass courtesy of Domaine Mas de la Rouviere Rose from Bandol, that the owner dazzled one and all by bringing out the equivalent of four bottles of Rose in one hand.

You could just see some of the women's eyes go glassy at the prospect of an entire box of Chateau Montaud Cote de Provence Rose and it wasn't long before several of them requested a box of her own to take home. Just don't be too quick to judge.

For those dedicated to the art of Rose, that's what we call homework. For those of us celebrating our birthdays in long form, it's a marathon, not a sprint.

Microgrooving French Style

Record collectors like to show off.

So when - hypothetically, of course - they put on Dean Martin's 1960 gem, "This Time I'm Swingin'," they're inclined to say something cocky such as, "Only five or ten people in all of Richmond could play this for you."

Probably true.

Talk centers on the happy couple hosting me who have spent the afternoon trying to free up a vintage DeSoto from her long-ignored garage. Given the heat, I understood that it had been a sweaty and rather unpleasant undertaking. The manly one explained it best. "I don't do manual labor."

After swingin', we moved on to Sarah Vaughan's "After Hours at London House," an album recorded at 2 a.m. after she'd already done three shows that night. It's awe-inspiring: her energy, her ease and her improvisational skills while singing the final number, "Thanks for the Memories."

No doubt tired by that point, she improvises, singing the line, "Thanks for this night being over."

While we're listening to these albums, we're taking a stroll down record memory lane with the album sleeves touting the label's other offerings: Mort Sahl, Anita O'Day, Ethel Merman. But what's just as compelling are the dire warnings about equipment.

Play safe! Ask your dealer for the new Columbia needle. (Needles, the gateway drug...)

This monophonic microgroove recording is playable on monophonic and stereo phonographs. It cannot be obsolete. (Cannot is such a big word...)

The Vaughan sleeve had three distinct sections, all instructional: Taking care of your records, taking care of your needle and how to listen to high fidelity. A girl could learn a lot reading an album sleeve.

Our next selection for the turntable was ideal given our earlier meal at Amour. There, we'd come upon a chalkboard on the sidewalk with a weather report warning of a flooding of Rose at the bar. Time to get wet.

We'd begun with my friends ordering vichyssoise (the owner provided a cultural history lesson about the genesis of the soup that tied into Waldorf Astor, a major figure in the book I'm currently reading) while I'd made a bee line for the octopus salad with olives and frisee in lemon juice, olive oil, red peppers, shallots and parsley. Perfection.

"To me, this is what summer tastes like," the owner said, echoing what I was thinking about the salad. Ditto Le Petit Rouviere Rose and a tomato and Dijon mustard tart that rewarded me up front with the sweetest of tomatoes before finishing with a hit of sinus-clearing mustard to put your taste buds on alert. Just beautiful.

We'd finished with desserts of sorbets (decadent cocoa, lychee, cantaloupe pastis, raspberry) and a dessert special of an espresso chocolate tort with blueberries and cream, naturally. Summer fruit was in every bite.

Post dinner, fat and satisfied, we were now listening to Dean's "French Style," a 1962 record that showed him wearing a beret and with a cigarette holder in his mouth. Tres continental, if a bit condescending.

But, oh, how it sounded! With the smuggest of looks (and completely correct), my host observed, "There are only two other places in Richmond where you might hear this."

The record was as much a cultural artifact as a collection of French-inspired songs, ranging from "C'est si Bon" (with chorus) to "April in Paris" to "La Vie en Rose." We danced in place and swooned to all the accordion.

When "The Poor People of Paris" (also with chorus) came on, my gregarious and only slightly loopy host observed, "This was my first favorite song when I was four. But it was an instrumental version." (Note to self: how come you don't have a favorite song from when you were four?)

Frankly, I credit his music-loving parents for having exposed the four-year old to such a song. Well done.

Returning to our swingin' roots (and after a discussion of how the connotation of swingin' has morphed since the early '60s), we closed out the night with the obscure album, "Ella Sings Sweet Songs for Swingers."

Ah, for the days of such alluring album alliteration.

"Let's Fall in Love" was fine but her version of "Makin' Whoopee was sublime, her voice crystal clear, the take definitely swingin' but also hugely atmospheric.

Not to give anybody a big head, but I'm willing to wager that there's nowhere else in Richmond I could have heard that tonight. Especially after a charming French meal that tasted completely of summer.

Such evenings can never become obsolete.

Wine for a Small Party

You can make fun of my passion for all things summer all you want.

"Oh, my dear, you must be getting the vapors this afternoon, as steamy as it is," the soft male voice drawls in a thick southern accent when the phone unexpectedly rings mid-afternoon.

Ignoring his condescension, I explain that when an afternoon gets to be too much, I simply tilt the blinds and lay down for a bit, a time-honored southern way to deal with the summer heat. But today it's a temperate 83 degrees - admittedly inside and outside the apartment - and I hadn't the slightest need for a mid-day lie down.

What he's really calling for is to make plans for the later part of the night.

When he asks, "What time is the first seating?" I understand that he's asking when my first plans of the evening begin. Hearing that they begin at 5, he immediately puts me on notice to join him and friends post-plans.

My first seating is with my fellow Gemini to belatedly celebrate our birthdays at Amour. We're the first ones in - despite what passes for "heavy" traffic getting to Carytown from Church Hill - and begin with Le Petit Rouvier Rose and three small plates (mussels, steak and fried eggplant) over talk of John Currance's restaurants, three of which we've been to.

When people begin arriving around us, we realize the Alsatian wine tasting is about to begin and promptly put on our wine goggles. Gemini makes an aside that she may not be able to keep up, an amusing comment given that she practically taught me to drink six years ago.

"But I'm tasting to taste now," she says, making a distinction and putting herself at the mercy of my bad jokes.

No surprise, from the very first wine we taste, Cave de Belbenheim Heimberger Pinot Blanc with a nose of honeysuckle that makes me want to dive into it, we are led through a series of interesting wines that demonstrate the terroir, styles and flavor profiles of Alsace. Having an Alsatian teacher only makes it better.

That small plates arrive with each set of pairings is an unexpected surprise, especially after we'd just polished off a meat and cheese plate (the Morbier so deliciously barnyard funky we paused for cow poop humor) not long before. We are nothing if not hearty eaters.

Our group, which includes a recent new friend and her wine pro boyfriend, moves through Rieslings such as the Cave de Belbenheim Heimberger Riesling with its nose of petrol and citrus, to Pinot Gris (learning that the grape was brought to Alsace from Hungary in the 16th century) and finally to Gewurztraminer, described as "wine for a big party" and heavenly with the accompanying lychee and rose petal sorbet.

Much of our conversation revolved around oral history projects, something that interests us both. Who's collecting the good stories and recipes before the people with them are gone? Why doesn't someone ask us to do it? Where's FDR when you need him?

Five hours and nine wines later, we called it a night, considering our birthdays well celebrated, at least for the moment. Officially, it's my last birthday celebration of the 2015 season, although I'm always open to invitations. Hint, hint.

Once home, I found not one but two messages from the friend who'd called earlier, necessitating one last social gathering for the night. Our foursome took flutes of La Marca Prosecco outside to the deck to enjoy the languid evening heat and banter back and forth. Twice I was shushed for laughing too loud.

In my summer world, I like to think that all the humidity absorbs the sounds of night time laughter, bothering no one. That and everyone else in the first world besides me uses air conditioning, so their windows are sealed shut.

My dear, it's simply wrong to stop a summer lover from laughing on a warm night with friends. Especially when she's on her evening's second seating.

Blown It All Sky High

Can you believe it took this long for me to see my first Ozploitation film?

To warm up for the momentous occasion, I began the evening at Amour for dinner.

There were people eating in the dining room, including a couple who appeared to be on a date night, but I was the sole occupant of the bar.

Edith Piaf was on the stereo, I had a flight of Roses in front of me and I had no idea what was in store. Already it was my kind of evening.

I chatted with one of the servers, a native of Louisiana (with the accent to prove it) who'd moved to Texas (and chortled over the differences in how the same words were pronounced differently in each state) and spent summers in D.C.

There was even a compliment on my joie de vivre and it's common knowledge how I appreciate a good compliment.

But the kitchen deserved more compliments than me.

Beginning with a sublime chilled vichyssoise, I moved on to vol au vent filled with creamed corn, pork belly and crawfish, a French take on southern ingredients so good I intend to go back and have it again.

And while I should have stopped there, I didn't, enjoying first an escargot and leek tart and then the tomato tart, as brilliantly colored as it was flavored. All hail tomato and corn season. I know I do.

When my server asked if I wanted dessert, I laughed. As if.

On this balmy evening, I did manage to find room for a perfectly lovely summer red, the luxurious and full-bodied 2012 Domaine Brusset, savoring every sip of my half glass and reveling in its depth of flavor.

While I usually eschew reds during the summer, this one was too beautiful to resist (yea, that's what he said).

Stuffed and happy, I said my farewells to go to the River City Not So Classic Movie Night, no doubt leaving behind a trail of envy at my plans.

Or derisive laughter.

Moments after arriving at River City Classic Bar & Grill, two sisters I'd met before asked if they could join me at my booth and I welcomed the company.

As usual, we got to see some pretty hilarious shorts before the main feature.

The first was about explaining sexuality to "the retarded" (yes, they used that word) and had a scene where a woman sits down on the bed where a teen is under the covers and asks him, "Do you know what a wet dream is?" and goes on to warn him that he'll have many more.

In another, Mom opens Johnny's bedroom door to discover him masturbating, so she a) explains the concept of responsibility for his behavior to him and b) promises never to open his door without knocking again.

Thanks, Mom!

It wasn't long after that a woman sitting at the bar moaned, "This just goes on way too long!" just as the scene where one guy at a urinal starts rubbing the back of the guy at the next urinal and we heard about inappropriate touching.

It was hard to top the hilarity and shock value of that gem, but the animated "Cautious Twins" about bad strangers preying on children had its moments, as did "Shake Hands with Danger," a film about workplace safety.

"Be careless for a moment, spend a lifetime with the blues," was the stated theme as machine parts went flying, body parts were bloodied and tractor treads rolled over innocent bystanders.

Finally, the room was darkened and "Gang Wars" began, starring, I kid you not, War Hawk Tanzania.

Only problem was that wasn't tonight's feature. Seems the planned film had been forgotten and belatedly collected, so five minutes into the gang wars, that movie was stopped and the real one put in.

"The Man from Hong Kong," billed as a co-production between Australia and Hong Kong, was a classic '70s martial arts film modeled on a James Bond flick.

It began with two bad guys exchanging briefcases (drugs and cash, no doubt) before the Hong Kong hood is captured and says to the Aussie cop, "Stick your head up your arse and close it around you."

I ask you, do we even have insults that good in this country? I think not.

The movie's theme song was instantly familiar, Jigsaw's "Sky High," a catchy Top 40 ditty that made me wonder how (why?) an Australian/Hong Kong production had chosen a British band to introduce the action.

Sadly, some things will forever remain a mystery.

One of the sisters sitting with me, the one with whom I'd shared my onion rings a few weeks back, offered me some of her chicken wings, so I had one before eating my hot fudge sundae, better than it had to be with real whipped cream courtesy of the kitchen and Ghiradelli hot fudge.

As you might guess with a cheesy 1975 "B" movie, cliches were rampant, such as when the woman who lands via hang glider asks the Chinese cop hero, "What's so special about the Special Branch?" and they cut to the two of them having sex.

"You're my first Chinese!" she squeals and the crowd let out a politically incorrect groan.

And because it was 1975, everyone -cops, drug dealers, old ladies on the street - had on bellbottoms and all the men had long hair and porn 'staches.

There was an inordinate amount of fight scenes, the kind where the added sound effects never quite match up with who was being hit at any given moment.

In car chase sequences, cars rolled and somehow immediately burst into flames. After the third time it happened, a guy near me said, "Never saw that coming!"

With a movie like this, nothing much happens that you don't see coming from a mile away.

When we finally see the big crime boss, Wilton, the same guy commented, "Oooh, pinky ring, bad sign." True that. Good guys don't wear pinky rings.

Mr. Big was played by George Lazenby, he of one James Bond movie fame and here sporting a Tom Selleck-worthy mustache.

He was the kind of evil man who entertains party guests by shooting an apple off his blond girlfriend's head with a crossbow.

The political incorrectness extended to the dialog with lines like "Never met a Chinese yet who didn't have a yellow streak." Ouch.

And don't even get me started on the special effects. As a guy in the booth beside me put it, "Is that blood on his track suit?  Cause it looks like strawberry jelly."

After our Hong Kong hero gets injured, he is rescued and whisked away to the country by a nubile young student whose father happens to be a vet and can sew him back up, good as new.

Once he's up and able, they go horseback riding and next thing we know, some singer who sounds suspiciously like Olivia Newton-John is singing, "Baby, baby, I think I love you," followed by sunny, dappled scenes of fields and lakes and the two of them looking intently at each other.

"On golden pond?" a guy joked. "Where's the barf bag?" asked a woman near me.

But while our hero may allow a temporary frolic, he needs to get back to business hunting down the bad guy. When the girl asks why, he says it's because he's Chinese.

She's already in love, so now she wants to be Chinese too, so she stretches her eyes sideways with her fingers and asks, "Will plastic surgery do?"

Wrong on so many levels.

"Do you think you've recovered enough for me to make love to you?" she asks our hero. "I think I can stand the pain," he deadpans.

Score!

As we're given a sunlit, lingering shot of her pre-orgasmic face, a girl at the bar called out, "I think he went down under!"

That, my friends, is what Ozploitation films are all about.

Of course there was a prolonged car chase that devolved into demolition derby style antics - hood flying off, doors snapped off, spontaneous combustion - but that was probably true of all '70s movies, not just martial arts films.

Or maybe that was the Australian contribution to the film (besides accents so thick they almost needed subtitles).

The whole movie was one unfortunate memory of bad fashion choices, best put by one of the sisters who said, "A lot of bad '70s brown outfits." Head to toe brown in many cases.

During the big climax scene, our hero stuffed a grenade in the bad guy's mouth and began wrapping tape around his head to hold it in.

"Oh, getting kinky now, huh?" someone teased from the bar.

Once the grenade went off, the secret cache of explosives detonated and the top of bad guy's penthouse was blown off, the cheesy familiar strains of "Sky High" came up as one of the truly epic Australian/Hong Kong, James Bond rip-off, martial arts movies ever made ended.

"That was amazing," a stranger said to me as I paid for my hot fudge sundae.

Never saw that coming.

The Beat of Dancing Feet

It's not summer in Richmond without a trip to the Dell.

The combination of perfect weather and opening night for "42nd Street" was cause enough for a picnic at Dogwood Dell with a friend.

Claiming it had been 20 years since she'd last been to the city's annual summer Festival of the Arts, she nonetheless knew to pack a picnic cloth, chair and corkscrew.

It's like riding a bike. You never really forget how it's done.

Of course, there's also the little matter of house rules such as no glass and no alcoholic beverages, so we just thought of our Le Petit Rouviere Rose as pink grape juice and drank it out of plastic cups while munching on sandwiches and salads.

The evening's emcee greeted us with, "Let's talk about this weather. This doesn't happen very often in July." It was nice enough that I'd brought a sweater and beach towel to keep me warm once it got dark (and needed both).

Unfortunately, beautiful weather and absence of humidity did not eliminate the bugs, though, so we slathered on bug spray and gave props to those around us who'd been clever enough to bring big citronella candles to burn (note to self).

Once again, I was at a play as a first-timer. I'd neither seen the original 1933 film or the 1980 play of "42nd Street." Hell, I hadn't even known that movie musicals ever got made into plays. Idiot.

So you can imagine how dazzling the opening number was to this newbie, with 30-some tap dancers creating a Busby Berkley-like spectacle right there on the Dell stage.

I'll put it this way: it was everything I thought "42nd Street" would be in one number. Not to mention how gratifying it is to see a play with that many female roles in it.

And speaking of my people, most of the costumes were on point, evoking both 1933 and the way chorus girls dressed in rehearsal. All except one anyway.

For some reason, one actress wore her blouse outside of her skirt instead of tucked in, something no woman in the '30s would have done unless she was cleaning house or working on a farm. It looked totally out of place next to all the other women and their cinched waisted ensembles.

So much of the dialogue was funny, such as an exchange between members of the chorus about men.

What is it about tenors that makes them wolves?
Must be all that tight underwear they wear.
No, that's what makes them tenors.

Despite my "42nd Street" virgin status, I soon discovered I knew many of the songs from it - "We're in the Money," "Lullaby of Broadway," "Shuffle Off to Buffalo" and, of course, the title song.

But you could have knocked me over with a feather when the prima donna character, Dorothy, began singing "I Only Have Eyes for You," one of my all-time favorite songs.

Turns out that's a song written by Warren and Dubin, the talent behind all the songs in "42nd Street," although not part of the 1933 film version.

So there I was, lucky enough to be at Dogwood Dell sipping Rose, listening to one of my all-time favorite romantic songs with stars twinkling above me. My smile was as wide as our picnic blanket.

While that may have been the musical high point for me, make no mistake, I enjoyed every minute of the colorful spectacle that was "We're in the Money."

I don't think I was the only one, either, because at intermission (at almost 10:00) almost no one in the capacity crowd left. Even the pre-teen boys in the chairs next to me seemed enthralled.

Given all the hoofing and high kicking, it could have been that they were leg men. Maybe they were first timers at Dogwood Dell.

Or maybe they were just as enthralled with getting to see a free production under the stars of a big, glitzy musical, complete with chorus girls, set at the height of the Depression.

Goodness knows I was.

Jungle Love and Liquor

Today, I was a headline: Karen Closes in on Land.

My landing got noticed first thing on my walk when a man in a suit leaving his house said, "That's a nice pair of legs you have there."

I was grateful he didn't compliment just one of them.

Further along on Hancock Street, one of a trio of guys talking on the sidewalk smiled and asked, "How you doing, long legs?"

Pretty good for a named storm, I'd say.

Back in Jackson Ward, I could already hear the music of the 2 Street Festival a few blocks down.

Traffic and parking headaches aside, it's one of my favorite weekends in the Ward with sharp-dressed men, fried fish and, inevitably, plenty of people I know.

And this year, it was finally time to right the great "Purple Rain" wrong.

I've seen Prince twice but never seen Morris Day live. Time to "Oak Tree."

On the way, I caught the second half of All 4 One's set and stopped to use a Porta-Potty, where I appropriately found an empty flask of Wild Irish Rose (still in the brown paper bag) resting in the urinal.

At the Crawley stage, i found a front position only four people back behind the rows of seated Morris fans who'd probably been there an hour already to score their front row seats.

A guy walked by in an "I love Hawaii t-shirt" and the guy next to me asked of him if he'd been there. T-shirt guy nodded and the man says, "Why are you back?"

"I gotta play it out," Mr. Hawaii said, which says it all as far as I'm concerned.

After a tedious speech by the mayor, who got his fair share of boos, the Time came onstage, dressed to the nines.

Drummer Jellybean was wearing a black and white striped suit with a gray top hat. Jerome's suit was cream and green striped. Everyone wore hats except Morris.

He wore a thigh-length dove gray suit jacket with rhinestone-encrusted cuffs, lapels and pockets, came out and combed his hair and tossed the comb to the adoring crowd to sing "Get It Up."

From there, it was all song and dance and fortunately, by the third song, the sun that had been beating down on the eager crowd slid behind a cloud and then the treeline.

Considering all the layers of clothing the band had on, I know they were as glad as we were to see the sun go.

All the synchronized dance steps the Time were known for were still there, all the more impressive for the heat. And their age.

Morris frequently pulled his pocket square out either to flourish during his smooth dance moves or to sop the sweat off his face.

Although he doesn't have the thick head of curls he did in the '80s, he still looks remarkably the same considering it's been 30 years.

They did all the hits - "777-9311," "Fishnet," "The Bird," "Oak Tree," "Chocolate."

"Do we sound good?" Morris called out to the crowd singing along to every word. Screams.

"Do we look good?" he teased and the crowd went even crazier.

Morris left the stage and the band proceeded to play some slow songs until Morris' vocal appeared from backstage.

"Sorry for singing off stage, Richmond" Morris apologized, "but I'm currently half naked getting ready for the next song."

It was worth it when he came back out with a fine-looking belted white coat draped across his shoulders and sang the classic, "Gigolos Get Lonely, Too."

Ain't it the truth?

In a nod to the heat, Morris explained that the water running off his face was not sweat and likened himself to a chilled bottle of champagne that when taken from the refrigerator, begins to bead up.

"When you are cool inside and get put outside, you condensate," he explained, delicately wiping his face. "I am condensating."

He asked for sexy women to volunteer to come onstage and Jerome went out and rounded them up for a couple of songs with the women directed to get "sexy and nasty" for "Ice Cream Castles."

An old guy near me was dancing in place, waving his cane in the air rhythmically, a testament to the power of the Time's grooves.

Of course they closed with "Jungle Love" and the crowd about lost it, knowing we were seeing the last of Morris Day and the Time for the foreseeable future.

It was the festival's 25th anniversary this year and they really couldn't have nailed a better band to celebrate a quarter of a century of music on 2 Street.

Since they were the last act of the day, food vendors were closing down, so I took my appetite across the river to Manchester to Camden's Dogtown Market for dinner.

I was the only person at the bar with my back to the tables of diners and a view of "Libeled Lady," a 1936 Myrna Loy-William Powell movie I'd never seen before.

My position on screens in restaurants is well-known, although if there's going to be one, better it shows old black and white movies (or old Julia Child cooking shows like at Blue Talon Bistro) than anything else.

My server was schooled in film so was great company for discussing movies old and new as she poured me a glass of Le Petit Rouviere Rose, a dry and aromatic pink perfect after a couple of long, hot hours dancing to the Time.

Starting with fried oysters with remoulade and micro-greens, I watched the screwball comedy unfold with the female characters wearing fabulously inappropriate gowns during the height of the Depression.

I followed with one of tonight's specials, a crab-stuffed flounder that was as artful-looking as it was delicious, over greens and rice with more Rose.

Since the sound wasn't on for the movie, it was like watching a foreign film reading subtitles, not as satisfying as hearing the rapid-fire dialogue between two pros like Loy and Powell, but good enough to make me laugh frequently.

My favorite line came when the couple went to a justice of the peace to get married and he calls his wife down as a witness.

She asks if the intended couple are sober and the Justice says, "Well, I, I think so."

Bride-to-be Loy quips, "This is love, not liquor."

And even if some liquor was involved, say some Wild Irish Rose, you gotta play it out.

It's the only sure way to find out what happens when Karen touches down.