An Ordinary Evening in Greenwich

There's always something to do in this Town, it seems. On the evening of Friday, September 10, here is what your scribe found as a sampling:

First came the opening reception for the new art show at the Bendheim Gallery. Initially there were more artists than viewers on hand, but that quickly changed as the evening wore on. Very few of the crowd seemed to be locals; your scribe recognized only a handful of people. The usual mediocre wine was on offer, along with minimalist catering by Plum, which seems to have fallen away from the high standards maintained by Jeff and Cai Pandolfino, who recently sold the business to new owners. Fortunately, an old friend of your scribe's, a local realtor, showed up to rescue the evening from total boredom.

Then the friend took us up the street, where TD Bank was having an open house. Here we were upgraded from peanuts to cashews, and from sporadic passing waiters to a stationary platterful of tasty roast beef sandwiches. As we left, one of the waitresses mentioned that other stores on the Avenue were also staying open late.

The next stop was Saks, where a raucous band was holding forth. The decibel level was ear-splitting, but the rather good wine and designer chocolates were a nice way to top off the evening. Once again, there were few recognizable locals to be seen, although there was a memorable cameo appearance by Tina Pray, on the prowl and looking very cougar-y in a microskirt and leather boots showing off to advantage her still-fabulous mid-forties legs and thighs. Her second husband was nowhere to be seen.

Tina, as you may recall, was recently arrested for switching paintings in her late mother's dining room, selling the more valuable one in New York, and then trying to persuade her father-in-law to file an insurance claim on it. When confronted by the cops she claimed to have no memory of the incident, and the charges were eventually dropped when the prosecutors decided they would have difficulty proving mens rea in light of Tina's continuing wide-eyed protestations of amnesia. Someone once described Tina as looking like a Christmas tree angel, and so she does, albeit a somewhat fallen one. Her deposition given in the divorce proceedings from her first husband was rumored to be the hottest legal document ever filed in the Stamford courthouse, and her father is said to have stopped speaking to her as a result. What is it they say about judging a book by its cover?

And so the evening drew to its close. It seems that there is always entertainment to be found in this Town of ours, if one merely goes out in search of it. Even an ordinary evening in Greenwich can offer glimpses of the extraordinary, if one but keeps one's eyes open. The economy may still be tanking, and financial distress may be the order of the day elsewhere in the world, but it's still party time in Greenwich, even on the eve of September 11.