Thus Do All Women

This post is going to make a good friend very happy and more than a little amazed. But I'll get to that shortly.

As much as I wanted to make the Three Stooges Festival at Movieland this morning, I didn't wake up until 11:20 (it started at 11), so that wasn't happening.

Good thing the friend I'd invited to join me had told me at 1:56 last night that he couldn't go ("I'm not the Stoogey type"), so I didn't have to feel guilty about standing him up.

Out on my walk, one of my VCU regulars saw me, looked at his watch (12:35) and noted, "A little late for you today, isn't it?"

Good thing he's not keeping track.

"Late night," I explained.

"Ohhhh, out partying were we?" Or you could just call it a Saturday night, friend.

Besides, I had no time to discuss my schedule because I had to be back in time to get cleaned up and to Center Stage for Virginia Opera's production of Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte (and, no, we don't all do thus, Wolfie).

I had the pleasure of sitting next to a former Virginia first lady and president of Virginia Opera's Central Virginia Board of Governors.

We compared notes on the acoustic improvements at the Carpenter Theater and she filled me in on the upcoming renovations at the Landmark Theater.

It was a beautiful production, the young actors strong of voice and with loads of charisma and the story of women having their fidelity tested by their men naturally full of saucy dialogue and disguised identities.

A reference to "making love like ferrets" got a big laugh as did a scene where the "doctor" pulled out a giant pair of scissors to treat the males laying on the floor, pretending to be poisoned.

She snapped the scissors open and closed and their legs snapped shut a split second later.

During intermission, I discovered that James, he of the nerdy pastimes that so closely mirror mine, was sitting directly behind me.

He'd been running late and didn't have time to change clothes, so when buying a ticket at the last minute he'd been offered a student discount based solely on his appearance.

Nice trick if you can pull it off.

My seatmate had gone off to see about raising the theater's temperature during the break; both of us had about frozen during the first act (I used my coat as a blanket).

Not surprisingly, she'd succeeded in having the temperature raised five degrees so the second act was a much more temperate one.

It pays to know people...and sit by people who know people.

The charm of Cosi Fan Tutte is the dated and yet timeless look at the roles of the sexes.

When the women are trying to decide whether or not to betray their men with the impostors, the more convinced one pleads, "A woman's chance for happiness is so rare, we must grab it where we can."

Luckily, it's not quite so rare these days, if sometimes more delayed than some of us would like.

But James cracked me up after the finale, leaning down to say, "See you at the next misogynist opera here."

You can count on it, James.

Here's the problem with an opera matinee, though.

You arrive in sunny mid-afternoon and by the time the three-hour-plus production has come to a satisfactory conclusion, it's nighttime.

It was dark, I was cold and my stomach was growling.

So I drove to 8 1/2 for a white pizza with onions, waited for half an hour for it, brought it home and poured a glass of Domaine Bila-Haut Cotes du Roussillon Viallges 2008, a tannic blend of Grenache, Syrah and Craignane perfect for thickening my blood.

It was 7:00.

I had writing assignments due, laundry to fold, e-mails to answer and the Sunday Washington Post to read, so I did not go out tonight.

So to you, Andrew, I dedicate this evening.

You said you were waiting for the day when I just stayed in and, at long last, it has arrived.

And now the necessaries are finished, so I will spend the rest of the evening with the Post, repeated listenings of some new Violens music and perhaps more of that lovely Bila-Haut.

But just so you know Andrew, it's all in your honor.

Thus do all women...when they feel like it.

Opera> Fan House> Rollins

A gorgeous sunny day like today calls for being outside...except when all your plans are for indoor activities. Not that I'm complaining considering what thoroughly enjoyable activities these were. I'm counting on there being other sunny days, but how often can you start with Mozart, move on to a new restaurant and finish with spoken word? Not enough, I'm afraid. Not enough.

A friend had suggested we see Don Giovanni at Center Stage and it sounded like a great idea to me. There were four of us, not a one who'd seen it, and with the vastly improved acoustics of the Carpenter stage, we were expecting great sound, which we got. Don Giovanni, the consummate player, had a theory about women based on their hair; with blonds you get gentleness, with brunettes, fidelity. Choose your priority, gentlemen. But my favorite line came from the besotted Masetto who, after allowing himself to be won over by his fiancee's physical entreaties, says, "We men are so pathetic." As long as you know.

The opera was long (over three hours) and for dinner my hungry friend and I wanted to check out the new Fan House in the old Verbena space. We couldn't have made a better Sunday night selection. As it happened, the guy sitting next to me at the bar eating was Sonny, the mastermind behind the menu. He saw us perusing the menu and offered to assist in any way he could. We braved it ourselves but got a major nod of approval based on our choices.

The grilled calamari salad was beautifully seasoned with perfectly cooked calamari. The beef kabobs had a savory sauce that he told us came from a region on the China/Russia border; it made the dish. The tuna tartare trio was tartare three ways, all outstanding in their own way. The tofu was probably the biggest surprise in that it was absolutely sublime: scallions, sesame oil and salt and a flavor to die for. The Surprise dumplings are billed as a family recipe and a secret and for good reason. The portion was generous and the flavor unlike any dumplings either of us have had.

Music was courtesy of Pandora, with Phoenix as the starting point, so I liked everything I heard. It would have been much better to discover it was somebody's iPod and thus chosen specifically, but at least it was all current, worth hearing and loud enough to enjoy.

And last, but certainly not least, was Henry Rollins at the National doing his particular brand of spoken word. It hasn't even been two years since I saw him at the Canal Club, but he's so topical, informed and well spoken that you can never really see the man too often. He described the Internet as "allowing people to hurl invective with impunity," in his opening discussion of the First Amendment. But then he also covered his child-like role-modeling, telling kids that"the nasal cavity can hold a lot more than you think." Segueing from children to teens, he observed, "I know how teenagers are. That's why there's Joy Division records."

Discussing his extensive travels, Rollins said he takes a huge hard drive of music to introduce foreigners to and that his mission was to be "like Johnny Appleseed, there to spread the funk." One kid was so awed by the music Rollins shared that he could only get out two words: The Stooges. I find it oddly reassuring to think of Henry Rollins as our musical ambassador overseas.

But mainly Rollins advocated overcoming cynicism, which he called "intellectual sloth." His solution? Engagement in the world. "Make as much trouble as you can and support the Strummer-Jeffersonian belief."

I'd like to think I'm already doing that.