I Pretty Much ♥ You

But after much Rather-like sleuthing, I solved the mystery. Rob Davis - if that is his real name - is our City Forester, and therefore the target of “I Pretty Much Love You Denver’s” effusive affection for today. Rob clearly has gathered together a crew of happy, friendly, efficient tree-huggers. Which is perfect given that we here at I Pretty Much Love You, you know ... love to hug.

When you grow up in Colorado, you are trained at an early age to fear the men (and women) in yellow working at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre. "Don't cross here," "Don't climb there," "Don't smoke that," blah, blah, bummer ... But the other night I met Vern, the friendly guard/greeter with the white hair streaked with pink, and I thought, well, the atmosphere surely feels different in 2013. Friendlier. The next night I met Dianne, and by my third Coors Light, I had fallen so hard for her, it felt like I was cheating on Vern. For most of my life, it's been people like Dianne's job to keep people like me out of the area next to the sound booth that's roped off for muckety-mucks and radio-contest winners and the like. But on this night, what do you know, I actually belonged on the sweet side of the yellow rope. This first thing I noticed was Dianne's smile. She welcomed us to Red Rocks. She lifted the rope every time I had to give some of my Coors Light back to this northern Garden of the Gods. She volunteered to take pictures of lovebird couples with iPhones and outstretched arms. Then I saw the unthinkable: Dianne's foot brushed against a woman's beer, knocking it over. Dianne apologized and disappeared, only to quickly return with an offered replacement. Unheard of. In our brief talk, I deduced that Dianne grew up attending shows at Red Rocks, too, and just started as an employee this season. Up and down my row, people were talking about how great both the band -- and Dianne M. -- were. She made the experience more enjoyable for everyone ... and I'm not sure I've ever said that about someone in yellow before.    

If it's June, the roses are starting to bloom at the War Memorial Rose Garden. Now, I don't know my "Scentimental" Floribunda from my Eurekas from my Sweet Surrender Hybrid Teas, but I do know an oasis when I drive aimlessly past you while lost in Littleton. I love your fountain, your gazebo, your Cranmer Park-style sundial. The Garden, now numbering more than 1,800 roses, was started in 1969 by B.B. Williamson, a veteran of two world wars and founder of the Arapahoe Rose Society. It opened with 850 roses bought for $1,100 from Pennsylvania and planted by area garden clubs. On my stop, a Hazmat-looking guy approached and asked kind of condescendingly if I realized he was, you know ... spraying. I told him no, I just assumed he was a ghost-buster. Totally worth the chemical buzz. This efflorescent wonder is located at 5804 S. Bemis St., just south of Main Street and next to Sterne Park.

The new Alamo Draft House is located at 7301 S. Santa Fe Drive in Littleton's Aspen Grove. It is the 12th location for the Austin, Texas-based theater chain. http://drafthouse.com/denver/littleton

You were born Daphne Scholinski, and when you were 15, you were locked up in a Chicago mental hospital because you preferred playing baseball to playing with dolls. You were diagnosed as "an inappropriate female," and spent the rest of your high-school years undergoing extreme femininity training. Now 45 years old and an accomplished artist who resides in Boulder, you are now participating in a unique performance installation at Denver's funky new RedLine called "72 Hour Hold." You occupy a cell in an art gallery for designated three-day periods as visitors observe you locked up as you draw on your walls, exercise, write and kill time. Your harrowing journals from your actual incarceration are posted for viewing. This exhibition was developed from a quote on your actual hospital chart: "This patient has no sense of home." At the center of your creative practice, you display autobiographically transparent, emotionally honest and living artwork. We hate what you have been through, Dylan, but we love how you have responded to it. Your remaining "72 Hour Holds" are June 18-21, July 9-12 and July 25-28 (with designated visiting hours and shared meals with the public) at RedLine, 2350 Arapahoe St. This project is part of a larger exhibit called "Not Exactly: Between Home and Where I Find Myself," running through July 28. It includes an original theater production developed by the LIDA Project and Source Theatre called "Cycles of Street to Jail/Jail to Street," first-hand testimonials that connect the dots between between homelessness and incarceration. (The remaining performances are at 8 p.m. June 15 and 27-29). The overall exhibit runs through July 28. Info: 303-296-4448 or www.redlineart.org.

Far more than a trendy community vegetable garden, Sustainability Park is a garden where ideas grow. Its nearly 3 acres are made up of exhibits that demonstrate clean, sustainable ways of life in an urban environment. It offers new ideas in renewable energy, urban agriculture, and thoughtful uses of land and water. Drive past 25th and Lawrence in RiNo, and you'll think community-minded nearby residents surely must be growing their own vegetables here. Good for them. But get out and take a look around, and you'll leave with new solutions on energy-efficient construction, transportation and water conservation. Demonstration Village shows how relief workers are developing new housing and shelter options for marginalized populations around the world. Sustainability Park is both an  urban garden ... and a stroll through an outdoor museum at once.  

You are made of stones painted with gallons of love. Apparently dedicated to a little girl who lived from April 22, 1992, through March 2, 1999, you and your florid cousins have transformed the front of the residence at 2550 Arapahoe St. in to a colorful, reverential work of art. Your main rock reads: "Your rocks and garden are dedicated to the lives of all children cut off from childhood at an early age. May you feel the love they had for life in every flower, and where every flower blooms no more, remember the bloom it once held, still beautiful to God." The garden is filled with dedications to children who have died.

Yes, like the fat-tailed Dwarf Lemur waking from seven months of slumber in a Madagascarian tree hole, we have been woken by the inimitable Denver springtime. Your urban trees ... just grow more prettily here. With your colorful kitted flowers and "Cat in the Hat"-like fitted scarves wrapping and protecting your precious trunks, you remind us of the classic Dr. Seuss witticism, "You miss the best things if you keep your eyes shut." ... (Oh, and we pretty much love "Sewn," too. That's the new purveyor of handmade clothing and vintage craft located in Baker at 18 S. Broadway. We pretty much suspect that one would not be without the other.)

And John Denver. There, I said it. Without apology. And I love that the first thing concertgoers at the 1st Bank Center in Broomfield see when they pass the Colorado Music Hall of Fame exhibit is a tribute to a man who sang from his heart and touched the world. Denver's legacy isn't his 20 gold records; it's the impact he had on his fans' lives. And the tragedy of his death is that he probably never knew how loved and respected he was. A mountain in Greenland was renamed John Denver Peak. A peace cloth with Denver panels was wrapped around the United Nations building. A park in Aspen holds boulders engraved with the lyrics to Denver’s songs. And he's the inaugural member of the now 100-strong Colorado Music Hall of Fame. Denver was the butt of many jokes. But now that Amendment 64 is the law, making "Rocky Mountain High" an official state song back in 2007 doesn't sound like like such a joke.

Denver has plenty of world-class art museums, but you can find art anywhere -- in an alley,  skywriting from a plane, or painted on someone's fingernails. Some of the most intriguing art we've fallen in love with of late hangs from the walls of Cactus Media, a funky two-story white building at 15th and Little Raven streets across from Confluence Park. It's a mod little building lined with red brick and made up of offices without walls. Well, there are a few walls -- one is entirely a two-dimensional waterfall. Much of the hanging artwork looks like something else from a distance, until you move close and notice, hey, that one's made up entirely of crocheted VHS videotape. Or copper wires. There's also a captivating painting of a woman they simply call Juno. That one's worth something on the order of $45K. We love all free days at the big places like the Denver Art Museum. But every day is free day when you visit the folks at Cactus Media.

I've often wished we could assign a monetary cost to the asking of stupid questions, and now, good old Tom's Diner has done just that. So if you want to ask, "Are you still serving breakfast?" at a 24/7 diner ... Or, "Is the hot chocolate hot?" ... Or, "Do you offer a meatless salad?" at Tom's, it's going to cost you ... exactly 38 cents each. By the way, my tab came out to $2.66. Hey, I had to know if I could order the portabella sandwich without the mushrooms ... and six other stupid things. You can find the cheeky Tom's Diner menu at 601 E. Colfax Ave. ... right across the street from the Cheeky Monk!

Because you line the walls, where they can't do the same kind of damage that your brethren on the floor exist to do: Actually and accurately weigh the flesh of a person and crush their self-esteem ... at brunch. Really, who needs to know that they've put on an extra few party pounds over the weekend right as they are about to chow down on a yummy breakfast burrito with scrambled eggs, smoked mozzarella, home fries, pico de gallo, dark mole and sour cream, with smoked chorizo added in for good measure? Most of my relationships are based on lies, Root Down bathroom scales. And by forever hanging harmlessly from the wall, you'll never have the urge or the ability to tell me the truth. ... This could be love.

They don't call The Highlands The Highlands for nothing. The intersection of 32nd Avenue and Tennyson Street, about six blocks south from one of the city's trendiest retail corners, is the highest elevation point in the city of Denver. Not exactly Leadville (10,152 feet), but still, this is where Denver earns its rep as the Mile High City. Talk about a Rocky Mountain High.  

You had me years ago with your gooey-green spirulina, long before spirulina was cool. Now look how you've grown. You've turned green into (your) green, and you are using your economic powers for good. Your Local Producer Loan Program has provided up to $10 million in low-interest loans to help independent local farmers and organic businesses proliferate and prosper ($1 million in the Rocky Mountain region alone). In Colorado, that list of beneficiaries includes Canyon Bakehouse, Third Street Chai, Boulder Ice Cream, Full Circle Farm, Haystack Mountain Goat Dairy, White Girl Salsa, Hope Hummus and many more. Click here for details on the loan program. Whole Foods, I wish my yummy Alive breakfast-shake powder didn't cost me a half day's work, but in these contentious political times, I'll sign your Declaration of Interdependence any day.

Thanks for taking us all "On the Road" throughout our hometown.

I mean, road trip? ... Movies in bed? ... Licking licorice bits off my lover's navel without worry of a knock on our steamy car window? ... Let's drive! Denver has just one remaining drive-in, but Monte Vista may have the world's only drive-INN. Even though it's been bought up by the Best Western chain, the historic Movie Manor remains a quintessentially Colorado entertainment experience. Located 215 miles southwest of Denver along picturesque Highway 285, you simply rent a room, open the curtains, shed your clothes, fluff your pillows and get ready for "The Amazing Spider-Man" and two other flicks. (Yes, sound and everything!) I miss the days of stuffing 14 miscreants into my trunk. In this case ... one will do. In the morning, we're off to the nearby Great Sand Dunes National Park. Movies run from mid-May to mid-September. Call 800-771-9468 for reservations.

It's enough that you're the first straight whiskey ever made in Colorado (legally, anyway.) But now we come to find out your distillers are rocking out to their favorite tunes while making your lusty, 94 proof moonshine - and 'fessing up to it, right on each individual label. "Oh, he was listening to 1920s blues great Texas Alexander" (perfect) ... or, "She was listening to Jay-Z" (no, no, no ...  my life, and drinking, are violent enough as it is, thank you). Now, purchasing your saporous elixer is an even more enjoyable - if time-consuming - experience. What I thought would be a quick pit-stop at Argonaut Liquors the other day became the equivalent of leisurely aisle-trolling at Twist and Shout. This is now a party game. Our tastes, both hooch and harmony - must align. I couldn't merely grab the first bottle I saw, not with the label telling me it's veritably gurgling with "Moves Like Jagger."  I rummaged through 50 bottles in search of the perfect match of dulcet tones and liquid heartache before I settled for  Mazzy Star. It still makes us sad that you ever got mixed up with Jose Cuervo, but seeing a Stranahan's bottle that was made while your distiller was listening to, say, the Ian Cooke Band, goes a long way toward restoring our unconditional local love for you.