Live and Let's Give

So this weekend, we mixed some business in with our pleasure on date night, attending the "Live and Let's Give" charity event at the Lichtenstien Center for the Arts (quickly becoming our favorite haunt). It was a charity art sale for Charley's Fund (which supports research for curing Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy), and wall overstuffed with art and crafts. It was also, we're not ashamed to say, a great networking opportunity.

We hunted down all the artists whose work we enjoyed, and chatted them up something fierce. I'll tell you, there's a drastic difference between the artists here and the Cape Cod artists. They actually were keen to discuss their art with strangers, and seemed genuinely interested in a stranger's critiques. I turned for a moment, and Becca started a conversation with a man who edits Rural Intelligence, a Berkshire-based arts and news website. He took our picture for the site, and we felt special. Although, having seen it, I must ask if anybody has any tips on how not to look like a crazy person.

I bought Becca a necklace from Good Charma (www.goodcharma.com), and on our way out, a woman at the desk- we later discovered her to be the aforementioned Charley's mother)- gave us a DVD documentary about a kid with Duchenne's. She was very nice, too bad this was all past Charley's bedtime.

Having shown remarkable restraint at the complimentary snack table, I coerced Becca into dinner at Brix. Those of you from the area should go if you haven't. It's a unassuming but excellent french restaurant that we'd been hearing we simply had to try, so try we did. Our waitress was sarcastic and funny; the owner came over to talk to us (I'm assuming that he tries to visit every table, it seemed like that sort of place). Becca had... some french word I don't remember (it had a Monsier at the end), which equates to the best ham and cheese sandwich in the world. I had the mussels, and I learned (note: collective failure on the part of Cape Cod for not telling me this) that you're supposed use a mussel shell to scoop all the other mussels.

We had a nice conversation with the couple at the next table about secondhand clothing, formerly living in Falmouth (small world, eh?) and the reception we were just at, when we discovered that our waitress had made some of the croched objects that were in the show.

Of course, the dogs were far less amused by our date night, and let us know as much when we returned home. They were strangely unmoved to the fact that I might have the opportunity to collaborate with a jewelry maker and that we're starting to insinuate ourselves into the culture of the Berkshires. But the most upsetting part to them is that the french secret to eating rich foods whilst staying rail thin is portion control. Ergo, no doggie bags.