Just to be contrary, go East, young woman.

[angledge]

Man, all I wanted this morning was a nice quiet shift on the EPA spill phone. But noooo, it has to be a morning full of train wrecks, truck accidents, emergency evacuations, & wackos calling to report their neighbors for environmental crimes a-plenty. I hate it when I have to work at work!

ANYWAY, the trip back East was super-fun, & super-busy.

Holy crap, this is a long summary!

• Friday: took the red-eye flight from San Francisco to Philadelphia. I slept the whole way.
  
• Saturday: arrived in Philly at 6:15 AM. Took the R1 to 30th Street Station, where mjrowswim picked me up. I spent the morning dozing on the riverfront deck of the University Barge Club on Boathouse Row, while mjrowswim (true to her LJ-handle) went for her morning row on the Schuylkill River. Some of the other rowers came in early, & generously shared their breakfast of bagels & coffee with me. When mjrowswim finished, we went over to her house to see her partner C* & meet their new dogs. Then they drove me out to hollyinpa & bertgos's house, where Stacy was waiting to see me. I had lunch with Stacy, buglife5, & Mrs. buglife5. We came back to the house just in time for vulgarbarbarian & la chica to arrive from New York City. The three of us made a quick grocery & liquor run, then met up with kikimoose & chrysoberyl for dinner.
  
• Sunday: My virtuous intentions of attending church & FINS practice were obliterated by 1) jet lag; 2) snuggle time with la chica; & 3) the lure of IHOP. After breakfast, vulgarbarbarian dropped us off at the Jenkintown train station & we headed into Philadelphia. It was SO RIDICULOUSLY HOT & STICKY. We walked Independence Mall, visited Elfreth's Alley, met a cute Miniature Schnauzer in Washington Square. La chica wasn't feeling too good, & was dying from the heat, so we took the train up to Lansdale & called a cab to take us back to the house. Then we waited. And waited. And WAITED SOME MORE. An hour later, the town's one taxi finally showed up .... & drove us about a half-mile to the house. If only we'd known!! We drowned our sorrows with alcoholic drinks in the hot tub & called it a night.
  
• Monday: Memorial Day! We started the day with a shopping expedition to Kohl's, because I had inexplicably packed sweaters & fleeces for my trip East in late May/early June. WTF?!? I bought a couple of short-sleeve shirts & a pair of capris. Suitably attired, we went to a BBQ at the West Philly home of Neil & Naomi. We gorged ourselves on delicious food & chocolate, planted ourselves in front of the A/C, & met up with effrontery, calamityshane, ask10304, buglife5 & her girlfriend, & lots of other sweaty yet happy people. A decision was made to go to the Phillies game, so 7:05 PM found us at the new stadium. The Phillies obliged us with a 10-2 pounding of the Washington Senators, & Philadelphia fans did not disappoint - they booed when the stadium cam showed cute kids on the Jumbo-Tron screen. Booing the children. Gotta love Philly sports fans. Afterwards, I took la chica to South Philly, where Pat's & Geno's - legendary purveyors of Philadelphia cheese steaks - face each other across the intersection of 9th & Passyunk. She got a cheese steak from Pat's. I will point out that she asked me to get her a cheese steak, despite my warnings! Anyway, she choked it down, declared it disgusting, & had a bellyache for the rest of the night.
  
• Tuesday: We were supposed to go to the beach, but the unrelenting hot weather weakened our spirits. We spent the day lounging at the house, watching movies & moving as little as possible. This was good because it gave us a chance to spend some time with hollyinpa & bertgos. Early night.
  
• Wednesday: Six Flags Great Adventure! hollyinpa drove us to meet up with fizrep, & the four of us spent several enjoyable hours zooming around on roller coasters. Then hollyinpa dropped us off at a NJ Transit station, & made our way in New York City. We dropped our bags at katieledge's office, & went with her & chaosvizier to Little Italy for dinner. We went to Rice to Riches for dessert, but alas! I had eaten too much gnocchi & did not have the appetite to do aught but sample. Still, the place was pretty damn cool. After a long day, we made our way via subway to la chica's place in Brooklyn.
  
• Thursday: The morning was spent acquiring things for la chica's place - groceries, fan, etc. We had lunch at Jive Turkey, although we had sandwiches & not their signature dish (deep-fat friend whole stuffed turkeys). Then we took the subway up to Midtown to check out the Lincoln Center & buy some maps. Another shopping trip was also ordered up, so that I could be properly attired for the evening event. Which was, we met up with katieledge & T* for ridiculously expensive cocktails at a bar on the 35th floor of the Imperial Mandarin Hotel. From the windows, we were overlooking Central Park. It was very Sex in the Cityesque. To counterbalance this tasteful setting, we adjourned for dinner to a hole-in-the-wall burger joint where the signs were written on pieces of cardboard, & the menu was: hamburger, cheeseburger, fries, beer, coke. Served in waxed paper. DELICIOUS burgers. The conversation focused on the possibility of hosting a mixed happy hour between T*'s co-workers (construction engineers) & katieledge's (fashion designers).
  
• Friday: We spent the morning with chaosvizier at the United Nations, which was hosting an international conference on AIDS. chaosvizier had gotten us some special passes, so we actually wandered down onto the floor of the General Assembly, & he also took us on our own private tour of the building. After this, la chica & katieledge met up & went shopping, but I declined to shop three times in one week & instead popped over to the Manhattan URS office to say hello to some co-workers & talk shop for a little bit. We met back up, grabbed vulgarbarbarian, & went to this crazy Indian restaurant somewhere on the Lower East Side. The decoration scheme was guided by the principle that if one string of chili lights is good, fifty is spectacular! Not recommended for claustrophobes or epileptics, but the food was awfully good. The weather was NOT - torrential downpours actually caused some interruption in the subway service, but la chica y yo managed to make it back to Brooklyn & crash.
  
• Saturday: La chica needed to do some research to prepare for the opening of her workshop on Monday, so she went off to the Lincoln Center performing arts library. I met up with vulgarbarbarian & we basically just hung out together for, oh, six hours - chatting about everything under the sun. Then la chica y yo saw X-Men 3 (argh, so stupid it hurts!) & caught the bus out to Jersey to stay with katieledge & chaosvizier. A couple drinks, a lot of laughs, then sleepytime.
  
• Sunday: The gang dropped me off at the Presbyterian Church in Westfield, where my former pastor Ray is now the preacher. I surprised the heck out of him, stayed for Pentecost services, & then re-grouped with the others (who opted for diner breakfast over church). Then ... sadly, it was time for me to depart. We drove to Metropark, & la chica cried in my arms until the train arrived. I was sad, sad, sad the whole way across New Jersey. Sad on the R7 to Center City. Sad on the R1 to the airport. I caught my plane & flew back to San Francisco. And then I started to perk up, as the AirTrain, then BART, then MUNI, brought me back to le Chateau & my boys. But I miss my girl something fierce.

So that's the way it was. La chica was a real trooper, meeting so many of my friends in such a rush. But everyone liked her & she liked everyone, & I was so happy to get to see all my friends & spend time with her at the same time. Now I'm back home, & focusing in on the triathlon. 95 days 'til the race.

Comments

[thepikey.livejournal.com]

Bah! Bah, I say! It's all grilled, not fried. And if you start off with good meat, you don't need spices or condiments. Who needs Charm when you have Juicy? Meat 'n' cheese 'n' veggies 'n' bread = one rockin' sandwich.

CV will agree with me. Isn't that the best thing you've ever shoved in your curry-hole?

[angledge.livejournal.com]

Grilled, my ass. They squirt a bunch of oil on it & sizzle it on a flat metal FRYER. There's no open flame or anything else that would qualify it as grilling.

Also, Philly has a lot more to offer than Ben Franklin & a nasty sandwich!

[thepikey.livejournal.com]

Liiike... championship sports teams?

[angledge.livejournal.com]

Man, I hate you.