France Tales

Well we did finally get an offer. It was too low but we were willing to negotiate. The offer(ers) were not willing so they said they’d keep looking. Back to the drawing board. I guess we will have another open house next Sunday.

On a positive note, our good friend Alix was visiting her mother in NJ. Alix came from Berkeley, CA. We met her in New York City on Tuesday and went to the Metropolitan Museum. We had lunch at the staff cafeteria with our friend Kurt who is a curator there. We saw the Poiret, King of Fashion show. What an interesting show, Coco Chanel comments including.

Alix came back to Philadelphia with us for a few days. On Wednesday first we walked Kika in Fairmount Park. Then we had lunch at the Reading Terminal Market. Next we stopped in some galleries in Old City. Of course there had to be a trip to Daffy’s. I think the Daffy’s in Philadelphia is as good as any of the NYC ones. We waited in line at Bump
for a $3 martini special for their happy hour. The (jerk)bartender refused to give us the happy hour price because it was 5 past 7, even though he knows we were in line since 15 before 7. Naturally Jean-Jacques complained to the manager and free drinks were offered. The things you can do when you are French. Just for show we took our drink coupons and left in a huff. We weren’t really in a huff mind you. Alix had been wanting to go back to Dmitri’s(can it be that they don’t have a site?) since her first visit. She savored the Smelts, I looked forward to the Octopus. We had both, or rather they ate the smelts and I shared the Octopus. I prefer my fish without the eyes. Finally we went home after walking many miles and overloading our brains.

Thursday we walked in the park again. Then we went to Material Culture. It really is a splendid place that I enjoy going to over and over but the heat was unbearable this time. The enormity of the space makes heating and cooling it impossible. I’d advise against a trip there on the hottest of days. Or the coldest for that matter. McMenamins(I can’t find a site for them either) for lunch left us satisfied. It’s hard for some people to understand why we don’t like Philadelphia because you can really have nice times. I think that living here long term is what terrifies us. There are simply not enough like minded people for us to establish the network of friends like we had in the Bay Area. The ones we like don’t plan to stay and the ones we detest are here for life. Hopefully we’ll be going soon too.

After all this Alix caught the R7

at the end of our block to Trenton, then NJT to Penn Station, a walk to the Port Authority and she caught her bus to her mother’s home in Teaneck. The East Coast does really have much better public transportation though.

It almost made us forget about our worries, except that we kept talking about them. Funny how that works. Off to University City dining days, $25 for 3 courses at Zocolo. I can’t wait. Maybe we won’t talk about our troubles and just enjoy the food and evening. One can always dream.