Date night dilemma - a cry for help

Jocelyn and I need to go out. Alone.

She and I need to unwind. Alone.

But I'm not sure what to do. While we both like movies, we don't want that to be our date night.

And we're not dancers, despite the image (the one on the left, not my personal image.)

She asked Lori, the woman who styles our hair, who is also very knowledgeable about restaurants, night life, and happenings in the area. She recommended a jazz bar in the Shockoe Bottom area of town. We'll see.

I checked a couple of websites. These tips made sense, especially the one about entertainment that requires facing in the same direction.

The plethora of suggestions at Redbook were definitely geared to the female. I'm not doing Numbers 8 or 15, though 7 looked good if the night was warm. The suggestions are not all that wonderful for the most part, but they are really meant to get your own creativity flowing.

Over at lovingyou.com they have a large collection of articles divided into 'staying home' and 'going out'. We want the going out choices. Staying home, in a house with our floor plan means no privacy at all.

Our best "dates" are when I stay home during a school day. We can talk about any topic, we can go have lunch at a decent restaurant and we can behave like honeymooners (people that just married each other, not Ralph and Alice Kramden.)

But we need an evening out. A break from the monotony of returning from work, dinner, homework help, prepping the kids for bed, idle chit chat, a little reading and falling asleep.

Suggestions? The problem with a jazz bar for me is that it will be smoky and it violates the entertainment rule of not facing each other when out on a date.