Gnocchi Parfaits, Invisible Renovations, and White-winged Doves (OO! OO! OOOO!!)

The weekend started in a bit of a whirlwind for me - straight from work to a Friday-night event,  leaving little more than a pile of dresses in my wake.

My office offers a nice perk that we weasled out of our publisher a few years ago -- 4:30 Fridays. Because I write for a business magazine, the idea is that we need to be accessible to the general business population during peak hours, so we have a nine-hour work day starting at 8:30 and clunking to a stop at 5:30 or thereabouts. There's a lunch provision in there somewhere that I rarely get to pay much attention to -- but at any rate, when 4:30 Fridays went into effect, you would have thought we'd been given Super Calzone Tuesday and Wear-your-pajamas-to-work Thursday as well, we were so damn appreciative.

Usually, 430F gives me a chance to go home early and watch more than the last 10-minutes of Oprah. Last week, though, it gave me only the chance to race home and change for an event hosted by one of my publicity clients, Robert Charles Photography.

I was supposed to have company, but at 5 pm when I heard the front door open and a pallid, sniffling ArcherVision came through, I knew I was on my own. He had no sooner dropped his keys on the table than he'd crashed on the couch with a blanket and the remote - victim of the dreaded season-changing cold.

On to the Log Cabin I went, and although solo, the event was very nice and I quickly forgot about feeling awkwardly alone. It was a combination retirement party for RCP's founder, Robert Charles Zemba, and fundraiser for the Children's Miracle Network, and stations of food had been set out around the room signifying different aspects of Zemba's life. An avid fisherman, a seafood station offered salmon steaks. A lover of the Caribbean, a tropical salad table was devised. And to honor his career as a wedding photographer, there was a carving station adorned with a giant wedding cake and flowers.

The best part of the evening had to be this, though:

The gnocchi - sirloin parfaits finally served carbs and beef the way I think they should be - dessert-style. The gnocchi was covered in creamy cheese, spooned into the cups, and then topped off with a layer or sirloin strips straight from a steaming wok.

I think I inhaled some of it through my nose.

Some emotional speeches from the Zemba family and dancing to the Dyn-O-mite Disco Review (Beep Beep!! Whooooaaa... Cheep Cheep!!) followed - I snuck out around 10 to see how Kleenex Boy was doing.

Saturday offered one of the first nice days of the year here in New England, so I did a little yard work and later had dinner with Justine at the newly renovated Cafe Manhattan. It's long been a favorite place of mine, but Teeny had never been, and I wanted to see how different it looked after eight months of being closed for construction.

Here's the weird thing though ... nothing looked different. I didn't mind much, as I never had an issue with it before it closed, but still, it was distracting to keep searching for a change. Thankfully, the food was as good as ever. I had the Capellini Aglio Olio, Teen had the Penne Gorgonzola.

On Sunday, ArcherVision was still recovering, but enjoying some of the 4/20 programming on Comedy Central. I puttered and cleaned and gardened until about 5, when it was time to set out again, this time for the Stevie Nicks concert at Mohegan Sun.

I've always liked Stevie, but never sought out tickets to a show before - these landed in my lap through work, somewhat unexpectedly. So, my faithful partner in crime Justine joined me again, and we made the surprisingly easy trek to Connecticut to see the Crystal Vision herself.

Can I say, I am SO glad we went. Stevie Nicks is awesome! She sounds great, she looks great ( she's almost 60, hello) and our seats were fantastic. The whole show had a theatrical aspect to it that we don't often see from newer performers -  not over the top, just added a nice wrinkle. Stevie changed outfits five or six times, had the trademark scarves and boots, and yes, she twirled. She also told stories about many of her songs, apologizing for not being 'very showbiz like, but what do I care?' Turns out Dreams was written in Sly and the Family Stone's studio and when Sorceror was penned, she was living with Lindsey and cleaning houses.

She did the standards - Gold Dust Woman, Landslide, Rhiannon, Stand Back - but also covered 'Crash' by DMB, to my glee, and encored with Led Zeppelin's Rock n Roll and her tune, Beauty and the Beast, for which she wore a long velvet gown and had scenes from the 1930s version of Beauty and the Beast playing behind her. Edge of Seventeen was about 11 minutes long with a percussion intro ... we could have OO!! OO!! OOOed!! for another 20 easily, though.

I was home before 11 on a 'school night,' just enough time to upload my blurry cameraphone Stevie pics:

Admin notes:
- I've cancelled my travel blog TravelJax, so all of my travel posts will now be here on this blog.

- 167 members and climbing at TSB!

 

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit