Take Me Home

I promise, after today, I'm going to nail my feet to the floor and stay home.

But how could I pass up a quickie trip up 95 to my hometown?

Couldn't.

First, there was barbecue and a wine tasting featuring such delights as champagne (yes, made in Champagne) made from Spanish Tempranillo grapes, a suave Spanish wine rep from Miami who came across like Jeff Goldblum, plus meeting a third generation Spanish winemaker named Amelia.

Talking to another wine rep, I learned he had lived in Jackson Ward back in the '90s, "Back when you had to run to your car when you left your house." He asked if I remembered Bird in Hand (danced there many nights) and if Bamboo was still there.

Like cockroaches, Bamboo will outlast us all.

Then it was on to our nation's capital for a trip to the Corcoran, significant because at the end of the month, they close their doors to restructure as part of the National Gallery of Art.

In the meantime, admission is free and since it had been at least seven years since I'd been there, I wanted to see their collection before it gets redistributed or parts put in storage.

There was only enough time for a few galleries, so first was modern and contemporary - Cy Twombley, Ellsworth Kelly, Warhol - and then photography.

Besides classic photographers such as Ansel Adams, Walker Evans and Dorthea Lange, I saw a Linda Connor, an artist I'd very much enjoyed interviewing when she had a show at Candela Gallery last Fall.

You see art differently when you've met the artist.

Then it was downstairs to see "An Intimate View: European Art from the Collections," a dazzling array of paintings by Pissaro, Renoir, Gainsborough, Turner, even a Rembrandt nonchalantly hanging over a fireplace mantel.

My guess is every one of them will end up in the National Gallery, for better or for worse.

But the piece that I absolutely fell in love with today was Corot's "Le Repos," a reclining nude in a sylvan setting, so unlike anything I'd ever seen of Corot's before.

What a wonderful thing it must be to be painted and immortalized for generations to admire.

Promptly at 5:00, guards let it be known that visitors were unwelcome and I left the old Corcoran for the final time. Sigh.

But being up close with beauty continued at Dumbarton Oaks, a 53-acre property in Georgetown with elaborate gardens such as mere mortals could only dream of.

Flower gardens (cleome, dahlias, phlox), a cutting garden, a vegetable garden, herb garden, a low pool with a site-specific art and sound installation in it, a rose garden (heirloom varieties and I stopped to smell as many as I could) and an inviting swimming pool.

If I'd had my bathing suit with me, I'd have gone in the pool just so I could say I had.

Garden room after garden room were connected by wooden and stone steps as we made our way around the property, something truly spectacular around every turn.

It helped knowing someone who worked there so that we could enjoy wine at a handmade table near the pool and watch a hawk soar above us (at least until dusk when the bats arrived) and talk about everything and nothing on a beautiful evening.

I was asked how it was I'd lived in Washington all those years and never been to Dumbarton Oaks and I was ashamed to admit I had no answer for that.

Here's hoping I get another chance to go.

For dinner, I chose Roofers Union in Adams Morgan, eschewing the downstairs bar with a guitarist singing and the enormous second floor dining room for the rooftop deck and a table facing the rising yellow moon.

For a short person like me, it was just possible to see it over the railing by pushing myself up in my chair and craning.

With a view of other rooftop decks, Madame Organ's Blues Bar lording over the bustling street below and assorted aircraft, it was an ideal place for a voyeur an observer.

Wine was pink - Chateau de Montfaucon "Les Gardettes" Rose - and our server was a perky Britney.

About the time grilled asparagus with Romesco arrived, so did the clouds that proceeded to obscure that gorgeous almost-Supermoon, but we held out hope that they'd move through quickly.

For dinner, I chose veal heart sausage with slaw in a pretzel roll, an obscenely rich and huge offering from the "stuffed" section of the menu (as opposed to stacked, skewered, simple or smoked) and which I'm proud to say I finished most of.

May my arteries rest in peace.

By the time I ordered a sundae with pretzel brittle, chocolate and malt, the clouds were giving us intermittent glimpses of the now bright white moon, finally high enough in the sky that I didn't need to raise up to see it.

A lovely breeze, a tease of a moon and a day that had included art, gardens and stellar company.

I'd have been a fool to pass that up...not that my Mama raised a fool.

Feeling It

If you pour, they will come.

And they were pouring at Bistro 27 for a holiday wine tasting, so I went.

You know it's going to be a fun time when you walk in and the hostess drops her jaw, saying, "Your tights are hawt!"

I wasn't sure I'd know anyone at the tasting besides the two wine reps pouring, but I ran into a wine-loving couple I've known for years and a bartender/gardener and his beloved, so there were a few familiar faces on hand.

But the wine was the thing so I tasted a few of them, although never got close to tasting the entire dozen.

Judging by the increasing decibel level and ever-widening smiles, though, plenty of people did the full twelve.

A man came up to me and said he recognized me from an art and poetry event at VMFA and asked why I'd been there.

It seemed like an odd line but it turned out he was a poet, so he was thrilled to hear I was a poetry lover.

By the time I woke up this morning, he'd already e-mailed me, promising to send along some of his poetry.

Chef Carlos and I were particularly taken with the 2009 Vega Tinto Douro, a plummy and complex wine for fans of Portuguese style.

When I was poured the 2009 Gaspirini Venegazzu Cabernet, I was reminded of what I like about Italian wines.

The guy next to me took a sip of the same and observed, "It's just beautiful and not overly tannic. I hate those."

The kind that smack you in the head the next morning, I asked, guessing why he felt that way.

"Exactly!" he said. "Although I'm a man, so sometimes I need a smack upside the head."

I told him he was one of the evolved ones if he realized that he occasionally needs a smack upside the head, whether literally or figuratively speaking.

"I am one of the evolved ones," he said, his red face smiling broadly.

I ran into my favorite multiple beagle owner and heard tales of her dog leaning his paws on her shoulders as she sat on the couch working on her computer.

The mental image was adorable.

A short, older man walked up to me at one point and shyly said, "I love your nylons."

What is this, 1945?

It should give you some idea of his age that he even used the term "nylons."

"Not many women could pull them off," he said, winking.

I took my taste of Coltibuono "Cetamura" Chianti and eased over to the other side of the room.

Wine sips makes for loose lips, I guess.

For me, it turned out to be a wine tasting with far more conversation than tasting, but sometimes that's exactly what I want.

From there, I went to pick up a fellow balletomane to go see "The Nutcracker" at Center Stage.

So there we were, surrounded by little girls in party dresses and giant hair bows, amongst what appeared to be a sold out crowd watching Richmond Ballet's perennial cash cow.

I've been a ballet-goer for so long that I remember some of the company members when they were apprentices or trainees.

But as we know, youth is a gift of nature and age is a work of art.

Witness the wonder of Susan Massey, a long-time teacher at Richmond Ballet, and still limber, expressve and impressive as Dr. Silberhaus' mother, despite being no spring chicken.

And it is a beautiful production of the holiday chestnut with jewel-colored costumes, monumental sets and dancing of all levels and kinds.

Perhaps most surprisingly, the cast was by far the most diverse I've ever seen in Richmond,

At the party that starts the ballet, families were mixes of black and white, with even little Clara played by an African American, something I never thought I'd see in Richmond.

Bravo, Richmond Ballet, for finally stepping into the 21st century where everyone is not white.

During intermission, I ran into my favorite dulcitar player in the lobby and my favorite bass clarinet player in the orchestra pit.

As intermissions go, seeing the two of them made it way better than a mere bathroom break.

The second act is such fun, with its snake charmer, dancing bear with his incredibly sharp dancing moves despite the bulky costume and the elaborate Chinese dragon, eye candy all.

By the time that act ended, the little girl next to us was sound asleep in her mother's lap and the tween-age boy on the other side was busily drawing robotic monsters in his sketchbook.

So maybe they were a little young for ballet, even one that had us out on the street by 9:10.

As a wine tasting, polka-dancing friend had told me earlier at 27, "It doesn't feel like Christmas to me until I see "The Nutcracker."

I may not have drunk much wine and I certainly can't polka, but walking out afterwards under the twinkling CenterStage marquee, I had to agree with her.

And, who knows, maybe I'll get some hawt nylons from Santa.