While I'm photoshopping and writing this stuff up I'm listening to the public television's morning program...all about trains, model trains, railroad stuff, you know it's like The Station Agent except none of them are little people or so obviously damaged.
Sunday was not the best day for me. I felt very wonky and pretty much stayed in bed and slept the day away. The next day, Monday, I regained my health (I think it was a case of the 24 hour hour consumption) and thought that it was time to eat something. I made a spinach salad and topped it with a bit of Mom's left over potato salad.
Cheese and salami.
And fresh picked daisies. Okay, the daisies weren't for eating. Note where my foot is in relation to the flower heads...these suckers are tall, growing out of rock and sturdy even in rainstorms.
My mother made a lovely spinach and mixed greens salad.
And some of her highly addictive potato salad.
And a coriander black bean salad with corn and cilantro.
And she warmed up a pre-cooked Paula Deen ham.
The poet's brother wearing the poet's honorary laurel crown (this was not a gift from the university) and his soon to be wife.
There was a whole heck of a lot more singing of songs I didn't know. I think those who knew the songs loved it. I went in and out of loving it and being rather bored. I have video of this singing but it would take two years to upload. So. Yeah.
After dinner my parents and I returned home. My mother needed to do some prep work for the shin dig we would be holding the next day. After about half an hour we were called and told to report to another friend's house for more festivities. This mainly included sitting for about half an hour and listening to people sing songs I didn't know. Interesting songs, but unfamiliar nonetheless. This is what Zul would look like if he was skinnier and his eyes weren't so pretty. Speaking of Zul, I took him to the vet the other day to get him up to date on his shots before heading on up to Philadelphia. Many people have commented on Zul's general big-ness. I always assume they mean fat and they always insist they mean big, as in tall and long...not so much girth. The vet also had that way of framing it...that, yes, Zul is a little overweight but he's a big cat anyways. So, yeah, I think he's fat but maybe he's the only thing in the world that's truly 'big boned'.
This was a rather fancy shin dig, generally speaking. Many wore black ties and the food aspired to being upscale. Unfortunately the food failed. The booze, on the other hand, seemed pretty decent...at least in as much as it flowed freely. I found it funny, a predominantly white crowd all in their finest while the bartenders, black men mostly over 50 wore appropriately catering-like clothes but with a variety of sports baseball caps. I had white wine and restrained myself. These appetizers were bad.
I was a late addition to this event which meant that I did not get to sit with my parents. Instead I was in the wilderness of Table 8. Actually, I had a better spot than most to see those speaking at the podium. This table placement probably had something to do with the fact that one of the other honorees (James G. Calloway) was sitting at this table. The starter for the meal was a tomato and cornbread thing with ranch dressing. The tomatoes were okay. That's all I can really say for it.
The main course was a jerk seasoned grouper with sad kebab of shrimp and a fruit salsa. I didn't mind the fish, it was spicier than one might expect from, basically, a Sysco-like food service system...but my mother seemed to despise it and I found the shrimp to be pathetic.
For dessert there was a mocha "creme brulee". The flavor of the pudding was decent enough but to call it creme brulee was grasping at straws.
After the meal we got to hear each honoree give a little speech about how they thought they came to be on the mountain for this event. Also there, having received his degree about twenty years ago, was Bishop Desmond Tutu. That was kind of cool.
Not a gardener, myself, I do appreciate those who have a knack/desire for putting their hands in the ground and making the landscape a wee bit prettier. The parents' friend is one such person. She took us on a walk around her property showing off the peonies, rhodedendron etc. Her house, by the by, is kind of my dream house...it has this wonderful homey feeling complete with sleeping porch, fire place and amazing mountain view. Sigh.
Lettuce!
Before I got on the road I thought I would have breakfast. I was still hankering for properly poached eggs and thought that Cracker Barrel might do right by me. They did right by me in terms of sweet tea...but that's all they did right.
I ordered one of their obscenely large combo breakfasts, planning on eating a little of everything without complete gorging. This, it turns out, was not even something I had to worry about. My eggs, which I requested soft, came rock hard...I made a polite fuss and they returned so runny that some of the white was still clear (yuck)...and, also, they were not properly poached. The sausage tasted like botulism. The hashbrown casserole was tepid. The gravy too thick and the grits too thin. The biscuits were okay.
I left with a desire to vomit. Not literally. Well yes and no to literally. What I felt like was this: I had just put a lot of things into my body without enjoying any of them. It seemed a waste of all things. I did not vomit.
I requested a room on the backside of the motel so I wouldn't be looking out on the aforementioned Shoneys, gas stations etc. There was a little garden...not yet planted for this year, I don't think...a rather abandoned looking car and through the the trees you could see a mountain/large, large hill looming. I liked it.
My server was a teenage boy who kept calling me m'aam and telling me it was all no problem (this was in response to my thank yous). It was a funny thing, I think, the women at the front of the restaurant were Chinese but all the waitstaff were 16-18 year old white kids. I ordered a Tsingtao and had the Kung Pao Chicken combo.
The egg roll was nice and hot. And, actually, better than many I've tried (I have no true affinity for them). Their menu was funny in a lack of appetizers...rangoons, egg rolls, ribs and that's about it...no wontons, dumplings etc.
The egg roll was encouraging. I was excited to eat my entree, which is too bad since it wasn't all that great. It wasn't terrible with a capital T but it wasn't at all memorable. The fried rice (another thing I have never really cared for) remained mostly untouched after the first bite. The chicken, which had been classified as 'spicy', was not very spicy and vegetables far outnumbered chicken chunks. Though the chicken chunks present were moist, not rubbery, and I can appreciate that. I liberally used their spicy mustard to give the dish some kind of kick but, overall, I felt let down.
One of their specials was a beef short rib with black truffle risotto. I agonized over spending more money for something that sounded so tasty or spending less money to order an equally appealing dish (shredded lamb tacos) but, in the end, I rationalized the larger expenditure by the fact that a) I will soon have a job and regular paychecks and b) it was a special so if I came back I could always try the tacos but the beef/risotto combo would be long gone. I made a good decision, I think. I'm not really an expert on short ribs. I can't, actually, think of another time I've had them...so I can't really be sure of what an ideal short rib would be versus a less ideal one...but I can say what I can say about what I had in front of me. The meat was served on top of its bone but no longer attached to it. This was fine with me. It was super duper tender but had more fat than I expected. It was, however, the melty kind of fat as opposed to the gristly kind of fat. The risotto's texture was a bit funny, it almost seemed like they actually added cream to it (I learned from an episode of Rachael Ray that risotto is not in need of cream, it supplies its own creaminess from the slow cooking and release of starch)...that being said the actual flavor of the dish was great. Very truffley but simultaneously subtle. I added no salt nor pepper to any aspect of the dish. The asparagus that accompanied the dish were forgettable, so were the chopped tomatoes with very little color or flavor. Good, overall. L. ordered the turkey burrito with shoe string french fries. She seemed very happy with it...I didn't really care for the fries I tried but she did, just goes to show you: one woman's french fry is another woman's um, yeah I don't know.
After dinner L. stopped for ice cream. I had already had my ice cream quotient for the day but L. was very happy with her chocolate ice cream topped with peanut butter cup chunks.
This ends my Philadelphia week. On Tuesday I drove to Virginia and yesterday I arrived back safely in Tennessee. It was great to see the friends I have in Philadelphia and, of course, to get a job. You know what else was great? No? I'll tell you. C. and L. live in the same building but for reasons I won't get into C. needs a subletter for her apartment. After the jobby people called me and said I was hired I got a little overwhelmed by trying to find an acceptable place to live. This was partially because my work place is not really near any train stations, so I needed to consider bus lines or a very short walk to the office. The other difficulty was that all the places I was finding to sublet (since all my stuff is in Chicago, it seems like a wise move to get acclimated to the city and figure out exactly where I want to live before spending all sorts of crazy money to fly out to Chicago and somehow transport all my belongings back to Philly) included roommates. Ugh. I'm so over roommates. I've been over roommates since my senior year of high school. Then I had more of them...and it didn't always go so well. So when C. suggested that I could sublet her 'penthouse' apartment for a few months for less than its full retail value...like, considerably less, I was happy as a clam in sand. No strangers to deal with, pretty awesome location, balcony and Zul can come too! I am not a person who would ever live in a high rise setting on a permanent basis but for temporary setting, well, I will not be complaining. In fact I'm pretty psyched. It has been a pretty, shall we say, rough year for me. I haven't had that many great things happen...or great things would seem to be happening but were, in fact, going to become really awful things. So this turn of events is lifting my spirits a bunchy bunch.
After my river sitting time I drove into Center City...or maybe not...I think so though. Here's what I did. I drove in on Kelly Drive, I drove past my soon to be office, I drove south from Fairmount and 19th Streets all the way to 19th and Christian. Then I drove back north to where my friend L. and C. live. I met up with L, we took a walk to the local Starbucks then sat and chatted in this here rock garden type place.
