Well, here we are in Philadelphia!

And I find that I am unable to upload. There is a phone in the room, but it does not like the modem one little bit, not recognizing it when it dials. Phooey.

Ah well, it won't kill me to be off-line for a day or two...will it?

So, this morning, on the first day of my vacation, I got up an hour earlier than I usually get up for work. How does that work? This is going to be one of those really exhausting vacations, I know it already.

I hadn't packed yet, even though I had gone to sleep at 3.30a the night before. How did I manage to get to bed so very late and yet not actually pack? I'm not entirely certain. But I did have a bath at 1.30a that I think might have had something to do with it.

Anyway I had already made a list of what I wanted to bring, so that went quickly, and I had already bathed (see above) so I though I could just about manage to get out of the house in an hour and meet Nik at 10a.

Ha! Time got away from me, as it always does, and I didn't leave the house until 9.56a and since I traveled by van rather than by tesseract, I was not a shining example of promptness.

It was Bonnie's fault, though! I rang Cynthia (yes I know she's upstairs, but I knew that she would be in the attic and I was in the basement and that's three flights of stairs, so get off my back! Don't judge me, man) and reminded her that I was leaving and to feed them bad kitties, and she agreed, hung up, and immediately called me back.

"What?"
"I told Bonnie that it was you on the phone, and she got very angry with me! I said 'That was Kymmie!' and she started yelling 'Gigat! Gigat!' (her word for kitty cat, and thus for me, her one year old vocabulary not yet including the words Crazy Cat Lady in the Basement) and would not rest until I called you back. Let me put her on."

So she did, and Bonnie and I had a very satisfactory conversation! Much more so than I ever had with Molly at her age, who would just hold the phone silently. Bonnie said "hi" and "Gigat" and "Mwah" which means that she blew me a kiss, and then "Bye bye". And Cynthia said that she waved at me, too.

I don't know but that it was worth being half an hour late to meet Nik in the city!

We didn't miss the train, though, as we had given ourselves over an hour, and even with my being late we still had time to grab some breakfast.

The train ride was uneventful, and we managed to change to the SEPTA in Trenton without any trouble, and our B&B Guy (I have no idea what his name is) picked us up at Overbrook Station.

The B&B is gorgeous! It's this giant rambling house and it's really only a five minute walk from the station, but with the bags and the rain (did I mention the rain?) it was nice to ride. There are stone lions in the front and the back of the house, and a Christmas tree decorated with Easter Eggs in the living room. When I exclaimed about it, he said that on Easter it's and Easter tree and on the 4th of July it's a 4th of July tree, and I piped up "And on Arbor Day it's just a tree?" and he agreed.

Our room is at the top of the house, and it's simply lovely and huge and the bathroom is carpeted and everything is great.

So of course we left it immediately to go into town.

It was raining a little, but almost right away it stopped and did not start again for hours and hours.

We were both very hungry indeed, and decided that the first order of business would be to stuff some food down our necks. Easier said than done, we found.

Did you know that there are no restaurants in Philadelphia? No really, it's true! I have no idea how these people manage to stay alive, because we walked for over two hours before finding a place to eat! Of course, we passed up McDonald's and Burger Fling and stuff like that, but it's not as though there were tons of those, either!

Finally, fainting and famished, we found a nice little joint on Market St. called The Griffin Cafe that I recommend highly, because it served me what I can say with no reservations was the finest grilled cheese sandwich it has ever been my pleasure to choke down in seconds flat.

No really, it was perfect. This was because they toasted the bread first, then layered it bread, cheese, bacon, tomato, more cheese and bread, so it never got soggy because the tomato was miles away from the bread! And neither did they grill it too long so the cheese wasn't all melted into goo.

It was so good that I ate the crusts. Nik says that his reuben was pretty spectacular, too, so it was worth the long tromp.

Personally, I was exhausted, but the day was young, so there was more tromping ahead.

Before we found The Griffin, we managed to run into Joseph Fox Books, the oldest bookstore in Philadelphia (or possibly the country), which was a wonderful place. I bought The Man Who Ate Everything for me and Time and Again for Nik, because I have bought it for everyone else alive, so why not him?

Anyway, that reminded me of my quest to find the Second Greatest Second-Hand Bookstore in the World, that I deduced was on South St., but had forgotten the name of.

So, by way of Independence Hall, we went to South St., sort of the West Village of Philadelphia. Every time we passed a tattoo and piercing parlor (about every ten feet) I would urge Nik to go get a tattoo on the back of his neck like Henry Rollins, but he demurred.

Nik is an unsatisfying person to go shopping with, since he never wants to stop anywhere and seem to think that because we were heading for the bookstore that meant that we should ignore all other store, no matter how cool they may appear.

He's not much of a browser.

Found the store at last, and it was just as great as I remembered it! I got all kinds of swell stuff, including replacement copies of Heartburn by Nora Ephron and Confessions of a Pregnant Father by Dan Greenberg (immortalized in Heartburn as "Charlie", the first husband) one of which I lent out and never got back, and one of which I just plain lost.

By then, I was reeling with exhaustion, but not having learned our lessons several hours before, we decided to attempt to find food again before going home.

It was a bust. I swear, we walked and walked (probably a good four miles altogether) and went to the touristiest areas we could think of, Old Town and Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, because where there are tourists there are places to eat, right?

Wrong wronger wrongest. Not a sausage. Literally. We have decided to move here and open up a diner right in the middle of everything, which we expect to make us millionaires in a matter of weeks, as the starving tourists and natives fling themselves upon us and shower us with coins.

What with there being nowhere to eat in this town and all.

While we were standing by the Liberty Bell looking at Independence Hall (so beautiful all lit up at night) it at last started to rain again. And it didn't do it by halves either, it was pouring.

It was very surreal, though, standing under the eaves of the Liberty Bell building, rain pouring down, with a recorded voice telling us all about the cradle of Liberty in Polish (we thought, though it may have been Greek) and then in German.

Then, after more searching, we just gave up and came home.

Or rather, gave up and went to the 30th St. Station and had a Dunkin' Donut. There are plenty of places to eat at the station. So that's where they keep them all.

Then, after just missing a train and having to wait for an hour for the next one, we came home, limping. My feet were worn away to bloody stumps.

I had a bath and came back to life. It hope so, because there will be even more walking today! God help me.

Today's horoscope:
Pleasure from language is emphasized. Pick up a good book, read poetry aloud (or write it!). Attend to compliments you receive.

One year ago today:
Next time, I'll be somebody else.

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Last Updated Sun 11 April 20:54:09 1999