Come for the Crack

We've been hosting company!

First, Megan and Anand came in on Thursday. Poor Anand, we had made plans to meet up at the White Dog Cafe for some tasty locally grown fare (the place has seriously good food, and we thought they could whip up something for the freaky vegan visitor) but he missed his flight. And then he couldn't get on standby. And then he couldn't get on standby again. Then he made it to Atlanta, but couldn't get on standby to PHL for another couple flights, so he missed the whole food part and showed up in the wee hours. I knew he made it in, but I haven't even seen him yet since I had to go to work on Friday morning, and they left for DC during the day. (T.J. tells me I had some kind of interaction with Anand in the middle of the night when I got up to go to the bathroom, but I must have been asleep cause I sure don't remember that.) Before they left, T.J. played tour guide a bit. He took them to Fitler Square and the Schuylkill River Dog Park and to Capogiro for gelato (more locally grown crap for Megan's benefit, but this stuff is unbelievably good, I mean really, you have no idea, I'll have to write a separate blog entry about it later).

I'm glad he got to take them around a little before they left town, because I am proud of this town and always want to show people all the good stuff and none of the bad stuff and all the charming bits and none of the stupid tourist crap. The best part of living here is just the daily atmosphere - I like living where we do, even though one of you dicks connected my house to a bunch of other buildings.

Then, after those guys left, Tara and Jason showed up after work, on the first leg of a cross-country trip in a big moving truck. Friday was a bad day to leave my cell phone at home because they arrived in Philadelphia a couple hours earlier than I was able to get home. By the time I could phone them, they were sitting in Chaucers drinking beer because the cats were overheating and needed to get some AC. Blue and Kafka got along well enough with Nani and Carmen in that no one bled, but somehow I don't think they'll keep in touch (now that they're all packed up in their sophisticated cat carriers on the way to Ohio).

T.J. and I took T & J to Ten Stone and then came back home because T.J. wanted to show Jason "Oblivion" and Jason wanted to show us "World of Warcraft." So for the next hour, we went back and forth comparing the two games while Tara moaned in agony and then passed out. It was highly dorky. I don't think we convinced Jason that ours was better than his, nor did he convince us, but I do now have a greater resolve never to get involved with any of you massively-multiplayer types because if I became you, I'd never forgive you. Jason has the ability to balance his world-in-the-box to some degree because he's so used to it by now, but it's something that could potentially eat me alive if I went there. I hereby vow not to go there. T.J. won't either.

So that's the news from here - we took our guests around and managed to give them a little slice of Philadelphia without offering cheesesteaks and pretzels. I have grown to like this town a lot, and I'm happy to stick around here for awhile...