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Luckily, fortunately, thankfully, I’ve had a string of pretty good days lately.

Liz had to work for most of Saturday, so I used the time to knock a bunch of things off my to-do list, including a trip to the library to refresh my influx of new music, and a half-day of being able to work in peace in the office. Saturday night, she took me to Grovewood Tavern for dinner, which was utterly fabulous (I had the “Quackitori”, seared duck breast yakitori style, and I highly recommend it, especially paired with the Parallel 45 Cotes du Rhone). After dinner, we hit the Velvet Tango Room for post-dinner cocktails, where I was introduced to the shimmering delight that is the French 75. I totally dig VTR’s vibe, and I got an especially geeky thrill from recognizing Winchester ‘73 playing on the TV by the bar. VTR is a bit pricey, but the experience–especially on the weekend, where your lady friend gets a perfect rose–is worth it.

On Sunday I managed to get more stuff on my list done, and then we hit the local movie theatre for a matinee of Thank You For Smoking, a cheerfully subversive little movie that anyone with two brain cells and a sense of humor should see as soon as possible. Seriously–run, don’t walk; it’s that good. My only issue was with the quality of the audience, as we seemed to be seated directly in front of, next to, and behind people who insisted on sharing their running commentary, explaining jokes to each other, and so forth. Sorry, folks, but if I wanted the commentary track, I’d buy the DVD, and you wouldn’t be part of it. Though it was almost worth it to hear the person next to me try to explain a joke and then, verbally, loudly, not get it… (Seriously, she didn’t understand why it might be funny that the firearms lobbyist set off the metal detector at a security checkpoint. “Must be something metal,” my next-door Ebert observed.)

Monday marked a return to workplace madness, but it ended early as Liz and I had picked up tickets to see K.T. Tunstall at the House of Blues. It was a pretty much spur-of-the-moment decision a couple of weeks ago when I realized that she was in town. I admit, I’m a total poseur, and it took her solo appearance on NBC’s “Today” show for her to arrive on my musical radar… I wasn’t sure what to expect from seeing her live, but I figured I wouldn’t be disappointed, and the ticket price was pretty fair, so I figured there were worse ways to spend a Monday night. We had a nice dinner at the HOB (assisted in part by a small parade of happy-hour mixed drinks), and then proceeded to be completely blown away by her live performance. She’s touring with a band to back her up, which helps fill out her sound nicely, and there were particularly nice bits featuring various band members soloing on drums, keyboards, trumpet, guitars, and cello. Mellower tracks had a nice dash of psychadelia that reminded me of early Pink Floyd, while the more raucus, upbeat numbers struck me as the perfect soundtrack for blasting down a desert highway, windows down and stereo cranked. In short, even if she’s getting mainstream radio (and worse, grocery store!) airplay, K.T. is the real deal, and you should check her out, especially live. Seriously good times.

Tags: concerts  dates  food  liz  movies  music  rants  weekends  wine1 CommentPrint This Post