Love: because that's what friends discuss for hours whilst sitting on a screened porch on a 50-degree November night.
And it wasn't just that it was comfortable enough out there, what with heaters and wraps, it was the 99% humidity under a soft-focus moon that sealed the deal. In fact, it had been noted that the clouds were hanging at street level when we'd left Club Infusion and its disco ball for a porch party conversation.
Nothing deep, just acknowledging the nature of attraction and defining quality in a relationship, an impossible task because it varies so much from person to person, even within a relationship, much less among a trio of playgoers sprawled on a porch sipping Rose while listening to the steady drip of a nearby gutter.
Communication necessarily came up and Pru posited that, "Men don't want the banana all the way in," which is in no way a quixotic euphemism and instead refers to guys who are able to tune out what their partner is saying, sometimes even while appearing to listen.
We saw that when a man is paying attention, he may participate using laments, such as Beau vainly trying to convince us that before he met Pru, he was the funny one.
"No," she said firmly and with utter disdain, followed quickly by disbelief. "I don't know why you'd think that?" But what do we know? Pru's an only child and I have five sisters, so perhaps we just never learned that all men think they're funny whether their humor supports that or not.
Tonight's topic - and its tangents - had presented itself via 5th Wall's engaging production of "Murder Ballad," which had three big things going for it: major talent, a story that was entirely sung with no dialog, and that it unfolded in an actual bar. Since we went into the play knowing there'd be a murder, one of the most compelling aspects was the ever-building tension around who would die.
At issue in "Murder Ballad" was whether or not a person can live with a simply comfortable relationship after leaving one that involved true passion. If the love of Sara's life is Tom, could she ever be truly happy with Michael? Discuss.
Perhaps most importantly, if two people who truly love each other break up, do they ever stop loving each other or trying to get back together? This was Sara and Tom's problem.
Don't ask how long
We're built for longing
Don't ask how long
Cause every answer's wrong
You and me
Are made for wanting
According to Pru, it was all a moot point because, as she pointed out, not everyone is interested in love, herself included.
From there we tried to parse the elements of attraction, discussing whether love and passion are part of a whole or separate components of a relationship. Beau made a case for the passion of an early relationship being impossible to sustain and, thus, why bother attempting love at all?
On a porch or at a restaurant - we'd begun at Peter Chang's with dinner and a bottle of the divine Domaine Paul Cherrier Sancerre Rose - the three of us make good sparring partners on the topic of romance because of our composition: two who don't believe in love and one who does. It makes for lively discussion since at this stage of life, no one's opinion is going to be changed, no matter how compelling the argument.
Someone made a case for the sentiment seen expressed on a middle-aged woman's tramp stamp at a bar: "Ain't Nobody's Old Lady," naturally tattooed in Old English script for effect and raising an eternal question. Why in 2017 do women still want to be thought of as somebody's partner?
Don't look to me for answers. If I knew, I wouldn't wake up at 4 a.m. so often to mull it over.
We hadn't gone into the well-acted "Murder Ballad" expecting it to shape the post-play porch conversation, and yet there we were making our individual cases for what constitutes love and why people behave the way they do within and without the context of relationships. I could buy into "a kiss like a mouth tattoo" reference, while they couldn't. But we didn't have to understand each other's feelings, just accept them.
"I think I've been elevated to consort," Beau observed by the end of the long evening, seemingly pleased with his new status. "You still do the dishes," Pru reminded him, tarnishing his consort crown slightly. It's amazing it even stays on with that banana coming out of his ear.
Some people won't call it love, even when it is. And this from nobody's old lady...minus the tattoo.
Showing posts with label peter chang's scott's addition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label peter chang's scott's addition. Show all posts
Friday, November 10, 2017
Thursday, December 22, 2016
Then Came the Morning
On evenings that commence at 45 minutes past the Winter Solstice, the conversation stays intentionally vague.
Oh, they begin with the best laid plans - friends catching up after missing a much anticipated walk - encompassing nothing more than dinner and a good blather, although preceded, as always, by the standard reminder ("Wha, wah, wah, so I can't stay out late...") which I've learned to ignore.
When I throw out destination options - Metzger, Peter Chang, Rappahannock, Dinamo - he's quick to admit he had pizza for lunch, so more inclined to something lighter and more, but not totally, vegetable-focused. I hear, loud and clear.
Peter Chang, and not just for that reason.
On my double couple holiday date last Friday, the five of us bandied about dining possibilities and when I suggested Peter Chang, the male half of one couple copped to having been there already twice that week.
"But I'd go back again!" his better half called from the bathroom. There are so many reasons to love Peter's.
Personally, one of mine is getting to introduce a friend to scallion bubble pancakes, which I did in the slyest possible manner, suggesting we order them to share despite his unfamiliarity with them and then watching the pleasure on his face when they arrive a table away.
"What's that?" he wonders, wide-eyed and pointing. It gives me great satisfaction to tell him that it is exactly what he already ordered.
I could rhapsodize about the exquisite torture of using all available stores of self-restraint to prevent burning your fingers on the freshly baked bread balloons when they show up, but instead I'll say that I'm older and wiser enough just to cool my jets until it's still good and warm, but won't blister my fingers (happened).
After that, all bets are off.
Sure, I can start by ripping off a piece of the puffy pancake and immersing it in its curry dipping sauce, but that isn't nearly as much a party in my mouth as using it to sop up the puddle of soy and chili sauces left on my plate after an earlier round of pork dumplings.
But a chorus of angels sing when I use my scallion pancake as a blanket for dry fried green beans swimming in a sea of fat scallions, peppercorns and chili, all mounded inside, the kind of combination that could make a vegetable-hater see the light.
The guiltiest pleasure is a bamboo pagoda loaded with a stack of log-like cilantro flounder fish rolls which delivered the audible crunch that assure me they're probably not part of a low cholesterol diet. Not as good as the green beans, despite being fried, but plenty tasty.
It's meals as flavor-forward and yet simple as these that underscore why friends chow down here three times a week. The question is, why don't I more often given its proximity?
As a side benefit, apparently people I know hang out there. I'd arrived earlier than my friend tonight and waited patiently at the bar, barely looking up when a guy walked in and glanced at me, or even when he sat down a stool away from me and our eyes met.
Finally, he says, "Karen?"
A soon as I look at him for the third time, I realize who he is - a photographer/server I've known for 5 or 6 years - and say a proper hello. He's incredulous that we'd made eye contact twice and I hadn't recognized him.
And while I hated to state the obvious, I had no choice: he's a middle-aged man with a beard and glasses.
Do you know how many middle-aged men with a beard and glasses we have in this town, nay, in this country? Granted, he's attractive and in shape, so he's not just another shambling middle-aged man with a beard and glasses, but still. No one has time to fully engage with every middle-aged man with a beard and glasses who meets your eyes, am I right?
We compared notes on the state of our lives and came up with the same report: both doing what we love and making it work for us as a life, albeit a simple one. "Congratulations to us!" he toasted just as my friend arrived.
So what better topic to take up with him than that very subject? What's the point of all this if you don't figure out who you are and what you want before any more time is wasted? Not all of us are going to live to be 99 like Zsa Zsa ('though people who know me well seem to be convinced I will), you know.
So while intentional gifts were exchanged and shared music was listened to, the shortest day was mainly notable for being the thoroughly enjoyable latest installment of an ongoing conversation that still persists in coming in and out of range sometimes, like a radio station when you're driving the highway all day.
And who doesn't like a good road trip?
Oh, they begin with the best laid plans - friends catching up after missing a much anticipated walk - encompassing nothing more than dinner and a good blather, although preceded, as always, by the standard reminder ("Wha, wah, wah, so I can't stay out late...") which I've learned to ignore.
When I throw out destination options - Metzger, Peter Chang, Rappahannock, Dinamo - he's quick to admit he had pizza for lunch, so more inclined to something lighter and more, but not totally, vegetable-focused. I hear, loud and clear.
Peter Chang, and not just for that reason.
On my double couple holiday date last Friday, the five of us bandied about dining possibilities and when I suggested Peter Chang, the male half of one couple copped to having been there already twice that week.
"But I'd go back again!" his better half called from the bathroom. There are so many reasons to love Peter's.
Personally, one of mine is getting to introduce a friend to scallion bubble pancakes, which I did in the slyest possible manner, suggesting we order them to share despite his unfamiliarity with them and then watching the pleasure on his face when they arrive a table away.
"What's that?" he wonders, wide-eyed and pointing. It gives me great satisfaction to tell him that it is exactly what he already ordered.
I could rhapsodize about the exquisite torture of using all available stores of self-restraint to prevent burning your fingers on the freshly baked bread balloons when they show up, but instead I'll say that I'm older and wiser enough just to cool my jets until it's still good and warm, but won't blister my fingers (happened).
After that, all bets are off.
Sure, I can start by ripping off a piece of the puffy pancake and immersing it in its curry dipping sauce, but that isn't nearly as much a party in my mouth as using it to sop up the puddle of soy and chili sauces left on my plate after an earlier round of pork dumplings.
But a chorus of angels sing when I use my scallion pancake as a blanket for dry fried green beans swimming in a sea of fat scallions, peppercorns and chili, all mounded inside, the kind of combination that could make a vegetable-hater see the light.
The guiltiest pleasure is a bamboo pagoda loaded with a stack of log-like cilantro flounder fish rolls which delivered the audible crunch that assure me they're probably not part of a low cholesterol diet. Not as good as the green beans, despite being fried, but plenty tasty.
It's meals as flavor-forward and yet simple as these that underscore why friends chow down here three times a week. The question is, why don't I more often given its proximity?
As a side benefit, apparently people I know hang out there. I'd arrived earlier than my friend tonight and waited patiently at the bar, barely looking up when a guy walked in and glanced at me, or even when he sat down a stool away from me and our eyes met.
Finally, he says, "Karen?"
A soon as I look at him for the third time, I realize who he is - a photographer/server I've known for 5 or 6 years - and say a proper hello. He's incredulous that we'd made eye contact twice and I hadn't recognized him.
And while I hated to state the obvious, I had no choice: he's a middle-aged man with a beard and glasses.
Do you know how many middle-aged men with a beard and glasses we have in this town, nay, in this country? Granted, he's attractive and in shape, so he's not just another shambling middle-aged man with a beard and glasses, but still. No one has time to fully engage with every middle-aged man with a beard and glasses who meets your eyes, am I right?
We compared notes on the state of our lives and came up with the same report: both doing what we love and making it work for us as a life, albeit a simple one. "Congratulations to us!" he toasted just as my friend arrived.
So what better topic to take up with him than that very subject? What's the point of all this if you don't figure out who you are and what you want before any more time is wasted? Not all of us are going to live to be 99 like Zsa Zsa ('though people who know me well seem to be convinced I will), you know.
So while intentional gifts were exchanged and shared music was listened to, the shortest day was mainly notable for being the thoroughly enjoyable latest installment of an ongoing conversation that still persists in coming in and out of range sometimes, like a radio station when you're driving the highway all day.
And who doesn't like a good road trip?
Monday, June 6, 2016
Mysteries of Love
Remember that day in 2010 when I went to see "Blue Velvet" at Capital Ale House and they'd canceled it in favor of National Beer Day?
Yea, neither do I, but it happened. My blog says so and it never lies.
So with Movie Club Richmond's screening of David Lynch's masterpiece in my sights again as the kickoff to the Great Southern (Richmond's second annual Twin Peaks Festival), I made a date that would eventually include the movie that inspired the oddball TV series.
So let's call it a teachable moment, shall we?
Contemplating dinner choices first, I suggested the new Peter Chang's in Scott's Addition (the space a huge improvement over that strip mall monstrosity in the West End) and to my date's surprise, it was not only open but barely occupied when we slid into bar stools at the empty bar and said hello to a familiar face behind it.
Score one for me.
Of course everything was stellar and most was Szechuan-hot - the deep-fried pork belly, the salmon-stuffed cucumber "boats," the duck rolls with barbecue sauce - with the exception being the shrimp dumplings, which my date appropriately described as "bland and delicious" and I categorized as the ideal palate cleanser between courses for our increasingly fiery mouths.
By the time we finished all that and our Vinho Verde, the place had filled up nicely and we could fully appreciate what an opportune moment it had been that we arrived before the rush.
Stop #2 was a farewell of sorts because Secco closes in two weeks and since I'd made the drapes (and love the variety of by-the-glass wine options), I have a decided affinity for the place. In a lovely example of stranger kindness, five people at the bar immediately slid down a stool so that we could have two seats together to enjoy a glass of Austrian Rose and a cheese plate.
Seeing "Blue Velvet" at Strange Matter (who didn't let me down, unlike Capital Ale House had) couldn't have been any stranger than the film itself, none of which I remembered from having seen it 30 years ago. I mean none of it.
But it wasn't just me because my date had seen it multiple times and he didn't recall much more, so I didn't feel too bad.
What I did notice was how leisurely the film's pacing was (whether or not that was entirely intentional or a function of it being 1988, I'm not entirely certain), which had to be grueling for some of the younger members of the audience with their reduced attention spans, but also how completely strange it must have seemed for the time (not that everything about the Reagan years wasn't weird as all get out).
Post-film research yielded the fact that the movie's setting, Lumberton, USA (where it's always a sunny, woodsy day), is a real place in North Carolina.
Movie Club had even arranged for a show after the screening, so while the bands got set up, we headed up the block to Ipanema for snackage, scoring the timeless grilled Gouda sandwich and a slice of Mexican chocolate pie to fill in the cracks left by eating Chinese food earlier.
Or at least, that was my date's rationale. I just wanted dessert.
Ipanema, too, was getting set up for live music but we relocated to Strange Matter before it began, unable to be in two places at one time. The problem was, we'd dithered so long at Ipanema, we'd missed the first band, Christi, a shame because I really enjoy their sound.
We did catch Lady God's set - admiring bassist Chrissie's gorgeous instrument - delivered to a particularly small crowd, which was hardly a surprise given that it's been a deader than usual weekend. Is everyone on vacation or at the river or does it just seem that way?
One of the few familiar faces was a fellow music-lover and his date Karen, just back from a weekend away and looking for some last minute Sunday entertainment. Chatting revealed that, unlike us, they'd caught Christi but had missed the 1986 film.
"Wow, that must have been something to see after all these years," my friend mused. "Was it still really weird?"
Well, sure, but that was the whole appeal. More importantly, it didn't get pre-empted for beer, and after six years of waiting that's enough right there.
Strange? "That's a human ear, all right." Yes, yes it was.
Yea, neither do I, but it happened. My blog says so and it never lies.
So with Movie Club Richmond's screening of David Lynch's masterpiece in my sights again as the kickoff to the Great Southern (Richmond's second annual Twin Peaks Festival), I made a date that would eventually include the movie that inspired the oddball TV series.
So let's call it a teachable moment, shall we?
Contemplating dinner choices first, I suggested the new Peter Chang's in Scott's Addition (the space a huge improvement over that strip mall monstrosity in the West End) and to my date's surprise, it was not only open but barely occupied when we slid into bar stools at the empty bar and said hello to a familiar face behind it.
Score one for me.
Of course everything was stellar and most was Szechuan-hot - the deep-fried pork belly, the salmon-stuffed cucumber "boats," the duck rolls with barbecue sauce - with the exception being the shrimp dumplings, which my date appropriately described as "bland and delicious" and I categorized as the ideal palate cleanser between courses for our increasingly fiery mouths.
By the time we finished all that and our Vinho Verde, the place had filled up nicely and we could fully appreciate what an opportune moment it had been that we arrived before the rush.
Stop #2 was a farewell of sorts because Secco closes in two weeks and since I'd made the drapes (and love the variety of by-the-glass wine options), I have a decided affinity for the place. In a lovely example of stranger kindness, five people at the bar immediately slid down a stool so that we could have two seats together to enjoy a glass of Austrian Rose and a cheese plate.
Seeing "Blue Velvet" at Strange Matter (who didn't let me down, unlike Capital Ale House had) couldn't have been any stranger than the film itself, none of which I remembered from having seen it 30 years ago. I mean none of it.
But it wasn't just me because my date had seen it multiple times and he didn't recall much more, so I didn't feel too bad.
What I did notice was how leisurely the film's pacing was (whether or not that was entirely intentional or a function of it being 1988, I'm not entirely certain), which had to be grueling for some of the younger members of the audience with their reduced attention spans, but also how completely strange it must have seemed for the time (not that everything about the Reagan years wasn't weird as all get out).
Post-film research yielded the fact that the movie's setting, Lumberton, USA (where it's always a sunny, woodsy day), is a real place in North Carolina.
Movie Club had even arranged for a show after the screening, so while the bands got set up, we headed up the block to Ipanema for snackage, scoring the timeless grilled Gouda sandwich and a slice of Mexican chocolate pie to fill in the cracks left by eating Chinese food earlier.
Or at least, that was my date's rationale. I just wanted dessert.
Ipanema, too, was getting set up for live music but we relocated to Strange Matter before it began, unable to be in two places at one time. The problem was, we'd dithered so long at Ipanema, we'd missed the first band, Christi, a shame because I really enjoy their sound.
We did catch Lady God's set - admiring bassist Chrissie's gorgeous instrument - delivered to a particularly small crowd, which was hardly a surprise given that it's been a deader than usual weekend. Is everyone on vacation or at the river or does it just seem that way?
One of the few familiar faces was a fellow music-lover and his date Karen, just back from a weekend away and looking for some last minute Sunday entertainment. Chatting revealed that, unlike us, they'd caught Christi but had missed the 1986 film.
"Wow, that must have been something to see after all these years," my friend mused. "Was it still really weird?"
Well, sure, but that was the whole appeal. More importantly, it didn't get pre-empted for beer, and after six years of waiting that's enough right there.
Strange? "That's a human ear, all right." Yes, yes it was.
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