NEAR ARREST + DOUBLE FEATURES

EASY BREEZY BEAUTIFUL COVER GIRL KIND OF WEEK

Is there anything better than settling back into your own home after you’ve been away for an extended period of time? The answer you’re looking for is…. Ummmm… NO.

As you may remember, I moved to France about 3.5 years ago and, in the process of paving my very own yellow brick road fairytale life à Pareeee, I (sigh) let go of my beautiful Charleston pied-à-terre. (Which overlooked the historic Aiken Rhett House and had ceilings so high they practically deserved their own ZIP code.) Spoiler alert if you’re my new reader: after betting alllllll my chips on France... I folded… and came back. The only problem? I didn’t come home. I had let her go. I had to build a new one.

The whole adventure taught me many, many things. (Jump to Volumes 9–6700 of the En Route archives if you’re interested in allllllll the teachings.) But the one that stood out most? Always have a home to return to. A place that waits patiently while you disappear in pursuit of yet another grand adventure, then welcomes you back exactly as you left it… looking, smelling, and feeling unmistakably like yours.

I finally have one again. She may not be my forever home, but she’s mine for now. And boy, do I love returning to this pink lady.

Coming back from Montauk, sunsoaked and exhausted in the best way possible, I took this last week to nestled in my pink house and take it easy breezy beautiful CoverGirl all the livelong days. Moving slow… even in the moment of my… wait for it… near arrest!

Ok, ok. Calm down! It wasn’t an arrest at all. But when those lights started flashing behind me and the sirens were blaring, can you blame a girl for mentally dividing up her belongings, wondering what her booking number would be (a sequence I hope... a 222 or 333 would be nice!) and holding out her hands for the cuffs?! Right.

Let me set the stage. At exactly 1:37 p.m. last Tuesday, en route home from an appointment, my dear Fiona gave me a ring-a-ding-ding. I plugged my earbuds into my phone. Nothing. Then I attempted to connect her through my car’s fancy Bluetooth. Still nothing. So naturally, (I did what I learned the Commonwealth of Virginia frowns upon), I placed the phone up to my ear and carried on with our gabfest.

As I slow-poked down Floyd Avenue I spotted a police car. This was the moment I should have dropped Fiona into my lap like she was radioactive. Instead. I smiled. And waved... at the policewoman. If you’re reading this yelling, “WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?” rest assured, you’re not the only one. I too have asked myself that same question no less than 6,000 times! Within seconds, Officer So-Kind (who, I didn’t know it yet, but was about to become one of my favorite Richmonders) whipped around in a dramatic U-turn and came flying in behind me like she was chasing a hit and run. (For real, though... what’s up with them always making it soooo theatrical anyway?!)

I rolled down my window, shielded my eyes from the sun and blurted out, “Mama... I am so sorry.”

MAMA. I called a police officer “Mama,” the pet name I give all my girlfriends… and waitresses and shop girls and cousins and coworkers and evidently… ummm cops! (Insert hands over face emjoi right about HERE and add a high pitched eeeeeeek sound effect.) She smiled instead of thinking I was a total lunatic. Thank God.

My saving grace was the evidence sitting right in my lap. Earbuds tangled like Christmas lights and my planner wide open. I explained that I’d had a 1:30 call that I couldn’t miss (not totally the truth), couldn’t get anything to connect (totally true), apologized profusely (this too), and admitted that I genuinely had no idea holding the phone itself while driving was illegal (I really didn’t). Then she asked for my license. Handing it over she looked down at it and then at me … “Anne...” she started. I corrected her out of impulse. (Reader, you know I hate to be called just Anne. So,) I turned on my best Blanche Devereaux southern belle accent on volume high and said “We Southerners looooooove a good double name. It’s actually Anne Caroliiiiine.” She laughed again. Thank god!! (again!) Because hummmm I was talking back to a cop now? “WHAT WAS I THINKING?”

“How long have you lived here?” she asked, glaring at my DMV photo on the glossy South Carolina license. I didn’t want to lie so I said the truth proudly, “I moved her in September!” She looked so disappointed in her new bestie. “By law you have to change your license within 6 months of moving to a new state. What have you been doing all this time?!” I thought... isn’t it obvious? Everything else!!

She disappeared back to her office on wheels and then returned with devastating news. “I’m going to have to give you a ticket.” My heart sank. “You’ve been driving without a license...” I thought.. No, I haven’t. You just have it IN your hands, crazy!! But didn’t. Enough back-talk to authorities for one day. She went on, “Here’s what we’ll do. You go get your Virginia license, come to court, show it to the judge, and it’ll be like none of this ever happened.”

“Mama...” I replied for a second time and immediately regretted after locking eyes with her chest camera and realizing that I was being recorded speaking to a queen of authority like she used to pacify me in the cradle. “I travel constantly for work. I’m afraid I’ll miss a court date. Could I just... pay the ticket… now?” Again immediate regret. What in the wild heck was I thinking trying to pay off a police officer?!

“I really am gone a lot. I’m not here at all the whole month of August.” “Ok, then. How about July 23rd?” she asked hopeful and trying to compromise with bozo the clown. “I fly to Los Angeles that morning.” She sighed sympathetically. “Let me see what I can do.” My sweet Officer So-Kind tucked her thumbs into her vest like it was part of her uniform and walked wide-legged back to her black car that flashed blue to sort it out.

When she returned for the third time, she handed me two … warnings. “These aren’t tickets. But if you’re pulled over again before getting that Virginia license, they instantly turn into them, you understand?” “Yes, ma’am.” My SHEro! I thanked her profusely before ending with what I thought was a touching sentiment but now not sure what it was. A mess mostly. “One of my girl cousins is a police officer in Orlando. I’m so proud of her. You lady queens are the bravest… never knowing if there’s a looney-tune inside the car you happen to pull over. It takes real courage!” She thanked me politely, but I could practically see the wheels turning in her head and sounding something like ‘Maybe this woman actually IS a lunatic.’

I haven’t cranked my car since. In fact, I walked to the DMV on Thursday to get my Virginia license. (Take a breath, it’s only 10 blocks from my home.) It should arrive in two weeks.

So, in two weeks, when license is in hand, I’ll officially be locked into Virginia state taxes. Yep! Along with taking it easy breezy beautiful... you know the rest... this week, I also had a completely random surge of productivity and finally (nothing like waiting until the VERY last minute) finished my taxes. Good gawd!

Word to the wise: if you’re going to move... be sure. Because untangling taxes after living in multiple states (and countries), taking on contract work (and now full time) is a special kind of punishment. And sadly, the joke’s mainly on my sweet CPA, Elmo. Because I’m still not entirely convinced Richmond is my forever home, this means we (excuse me, he) may get to do this little tax tango all over again next year. Bless him.

I’d like to say I celebrated completing my taxes with something sophisticated, like a glass of wine or a scholarly museum visit. Instead, I disappeared into a dark movie theater to rot my brain. For the next 90 minutes, W-2s and 1099s be damned! And as if on cue, The Byrd Cinema delivered my all time favorite… a double feature!

I used to pull this off all the time when I lived in New York City. It requires equal parts commitment and strategy. Commitment because you’re agreeing to spend the better part of a day surviving on buttered popcorn, Milk Duds, and whatever fluorescent concoction bubbles out of a machine labeled Slurpee. And strategy because...

A.) You have to figure out exactly where the theaters are located within the cinema. You’ll need to do this immediately once you check into your first movie. Scout it out. Pretend to be lost if you have to! Just clock where your second film is playing so you have a direct path without getting… CAUGHT!

B.) Timing. This should 100% be planned out ahead of time so you can link strategy C (coming next). And thanks to the almighty world wide web, it can be. The first movie needs to end roughly 15 mins before the next one begins. Don’t worry. Think credits and trailers. Those will eat up those buffer minutes. That gives you just enough time to hustle from one auditorium to the next without lingering long enough for the 16-year-old stoner employee with a nametag to suddenly remember he has authority… to kick you out!

C.) Genres. Consider this KEY. This is a mandatory mix and match situation. Trust me. Under no circumstance should you ever marry two mysteries, two comedies or... Lord help us... two thrillers together. You need balance. Something light followed by something heavy. Or heavy followed by light. The emotional seesaw is entirely up to you. What? I didn’t make up the rules! Well... in this case, I absolutely did. But you would’ve too if you’d seen Revolutionary Road followed immediately by Doubt circa 2008. Scarring. I practically stumbled out of the theater looking for a grief counselor and a prescription for... anything.

Now, I was having my first double feature here in Richmond. Well, sort of. Since this theater only shows one adult movie per day (a concept I’m still processing), I had to spread it out over back-to-back nights.

First up. Jaws. While I was in Montauk I developed an undeniable craving to rewatch Jaws. So on the first extra cozy night back home, I hopped onto the Byrd Theatre website. And lo and behold...There she was. No joke. I had absolutely no idea it was the film’s 50th anniversary and so it was being streamed again in a cinema near you.

Watching Jaws with a crowd is a completely different experience. The screams at the first glimpse of Bruce (that’s the mechanical shark’s name. Spielberg himself shared that little nugget during the anniversary interview before the film) spread through the theater like a wave (pun alert). And when Roy Scheider delivered, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat,” the audience erupted. It was the kind of collective joyful applause that left you with a permanent grin... at least until the next time Bruce appeared.

Aside from squirming in my seat and peering through the slits between my fingers from my hands cemented to my face (most of the film), I also spent the entire movie mentally cataloging every single thing the characters wore. Matt Hopper, in particular. Marking them officially my male summa-time muses. Don’t be alarmed when I show up the next time we visit with one of these exact outfits on and possibly a cigarette dangling from my lips (just to get the look)…

When my mother, Harriette, and step father, Joe, came in for a visit this past week, en route to upstate New York for a holiday with Joe’s family, my mama told me that she went to Jaws the first night it opened in Myrtle Beach, 1975. The same day she was allowed to get her ears pierced … for her …18th birthday. BIG DAY! Oh! And she said it was also the first movie ever produced with surround sound. (I’m still scratching my head at this one. Wouldn’t the cinema have to be the thing that offers surround sound? Since they’d have to install the… sound …to surround us? Still stumped. We don’t care! We love that she went on opening day and that I got to go again 50 years later.) How cool!

Second film you’re wondering? That was the clever Hunt for the Wilderpeople. One of my all time favorites. A movie that I watched in 2016 when it first came out at the Angelika Theater in SoHo with Steven, the only other member of our Exclusive Movie (made up) Club. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to see it again some ten years later in my new hometown Angelika esque Theater… The Byrd.

Sadly, as this En Route was going to press I read that Sir Nigel John Dermot “Sam” Neill, the star of the film, died the morning after I watched his dare I say… final performance. RIP, “Uncle.”

Both films were served with a mini bag of popcorn and possibly a Montauk IPA that somehow found its way into my purse. Ooops. And perhaps my favorite part of both features was The Byrd’s organist who majestically rose from beneath the stage to play tunes before queuing up the film. If you’ve never been here, this probably sounds completely made up. I assure you, it isn’t. The man is Richmond royalty. And the tradition has carried on since the doors first opened in 1928.

I also got to see several of my favorites this week: Christina, Faith, Mariah, and Trisha (the newest recruit) for dinner at Christina’s; my main squeeze, Jim, for coffee at Idle Hands. (PSA: It is not pronounced Ideel hunds!! Evidently one of his pals says it this way which to us sounds more like a dog salon in Amsterdam. We laughed so hard we nearly spewed our cold brew onto the table next to us. I’m still laughing.); Lucy, my cousin Jen’s precious daughter; Felicia, my French American queen; and of course my baby boodle godson who lit up like a firecracker when he saw me surprising him and his mama at the pool… Jimmy!

Then, as I mentioned above, I hosted my sweet mama and stepfather overnight en route to New York. We strolled through the grounds at the VMFA and dined at The Stables (don’t walk… RUN there. It’s so so so good!), and the next morning we gabbed over coffee and peaches from another bushel (that they arrived with) of South Carolina’s finest stone fruit. The next day they hit the road and before long traffic too. They had confidently predicted a 6 hr drive the night before. Yet somehow that timing ballooned into nearly eleven. Eleven hours!!!!! They’re there now and being cute bopping around NY visiting precious folks like… one of my besties, Erica! At her farm close to Chatham.

If you’re wondering what I did with those few other easy breezy beautiful nights.. I continued the rot. I spent those ummmm glued to my tele. Something I rarely ever do. Like never. But I couldn’t stop. Wouldn’t stop. I inhaled the Should I Marry a Murderer? docuseries and slurped down in one gulp the Trust Me: The False Prophet. Both disturbing and un-turn-away-able (don’t think this is a thing. But you get it). I felt like a total reborn American after these shows. Like I could finally add to the conversation (that I’ve usually have to sit out of) when inevitably someone says to the group … “what is everyone watching?” FILTH! I’ll have to reply… but still… I’ll get to finally.

And on the horizon? I’ll be attending a game night this Friday. I’ve never been to one, but I’m feeling wildly confident that I’ll be the ace in the hole, the poker face, the dark horse... okay, that’s all I’ve got. These new friends who invited me over to take the crown (can’t stop, won’t stop) for their game night, William and Liz, live on my block. I’m sooooo excited to hang with them.

And this is precious. But the day before I left for Montauk, William called to ask me if I needed any vegetables. He and his wife were heading to New Hampshire and had more than they could eat before leaving. I meannnnnn... is that not the sweetest thing you’ve ever heard? Neighbors offering to feed neighbors? What are we even doing here?! Presh!

As always, just when I think I’ve got one foot out the door, Richmond cranks the Mayberry dial up another notch and makes me question this whole “maybe I’ll move” business.

Until the next En Route… xx ac