On Friday night, while CPM was busy playing a punk rock show somewhere in Pennsylvania's hinterlands, I went to the mall with my sister and grandmother to get a pedicure. We shopped a bit, and grabbed a late dinner at a favorite local Mexican restaurant. I OD'd on melted cheese. Life was good.
On Saturday morning, CPM and I headed downtown for brunch. We've worn out the Sabrina's thing lately, don't really care for Honey's, have only done the Morning Glory thing once on a weekday, and have decided to search the city for other delicious brunchy goodness. Farmicia has been a favorite dinner spot, but apparently, they also have a weekend brunch! After perusing the online menu, we decided to give it a shot. What can I say? It easily replaces Sabrina's as a new favorite brunch spot because: a. the food was delicious and b. at 10:45 am on a Saturday morning, it was not crowded, and we were seated immediately. Score!
We started off with a cheese sampler. Who gets appetizers at breakfast? We do, apparently. We love this...the fruit chutney makes it amazing:
Since I've been craving the yolky dippyness lately, I had a simple breakfast, 2 fried eggs with whole wheat toast and roasted potatoes:
CPM had the eggs benedict, and he asked them to substitute vegan sausage for the bacon, which they did without any trouble:
Farmicia, we will be back, and I will be ordering that sour cream pecan waffle next time!
CPM soon left on a trip to somewhere in Brooklyn to play more punk rock. I decided that a bike ride through Pennypack was in order. After I completed getting sweaty and grungy, I was visited by an old neighbor. We walked to and I had my first Rita's of the season (small lemon with a pretzel, thank you). We chatted. We stoop sat. Then my phone rang and the night went insane.
My sister had a male friend visiting her from North Jersey. He has been training for a marathon. He needed to a do a run, and decided to head into Pennypack Park, since it's nearby and has a great trail. He left his cell phone with its helpful Google Maps/GPS feature and assorted necessary phone numbers at my sister's house. (Brilliant, since he was running in a strange city.) He left and said he'd be back in about an hour/hour and a half. 2.5 hours later he hadn't returned. It was dark. My sister was worried. He had to be lost.
My sister first drove herself to the place where he was supposed to exit the park. She then hit a few other park entrance openings. Another 45 minutes passed with no sign. She came to get me, my two flashlights and my mace. We were going to have to go into the park and look for him. Let me say this...the park is a creepy place at night. There are absolutely no lights. There are large trees. There is a creepy mist coming from the creek. The sound of a lone geese honking becomes the sound of some faceless monster. We again drove to the few local park entrances, and went into the park a little ways with our flashlights. We soon realized that there was no way he could be in the park...it was too dark for anyone (except perhaps teenagers) to be in there. Luckily, at our third stop, we happened upon some helpful park rangers who offered to drive the entire 8 mile trail and call us if they came upon my sister's friend. Brilliant! Thank you rangers!
We headed back to her place to see if he had exited the park at the wrong spot, found a payphone and perhaps called his own cell phone, since he didn't know my sister's digits by heart. (Note to all people...memorize important phone numbers, it will save you time in an emergency.) Eureka! We had a mysterious phone call from a Philadelphia number! But no voicemail. And no idea where it came from, except that it was probably a payphone. Minutes later, we got a mysterious text message. I kid you not, it said "Last known location..." followed by the location. I called this helpful person. They had seen my sister's friend and he had asked if they could send this message to his phone. Great! Except then he kept walking. Um, yeah. If I'm ever lost like this, I plan to find a retail establishment, and sit my ass down, call whomever I can and WAIT for help. I will not keep walking in a strange place. I swear.
My sister and I headed to the "last known location." We then scouted in many directions from the "last known location." We finally were figuring out that her friend was obviously directionally challenged, because the "last known location" was so far south of her house. We decided that we would think like a directionally challenged person and look for him even further away in the wrong direction. Except then his cell phone rang, which I was carrying with us to ensure we caught him on the next call. My sister's apartment number showed on the caller ID. He had made it home.
Where was he? He exited the park about 3 blocks from my house, hit a CVS for gatorade and bought a map. (At least he took his credit card with him.) Except, duh, the only street maps sold in CVS show the streets of Center City Philadelphia. This is not helpful when you are in the far NE. He then used the payphone to call his cell phone. No answer, because at that point we were out talking to park rangers. He then decided to keep walking. In the wrong direction. He found those helpful people at the "last known location." He kept walking. In the wrong direction. He ended up in a bowling alley at Oxford Circle where he finally decided to call a cab back to my sister's apartment. The end. I got home at 11:30 pm and finally had dinner. Lean Cuisine and wine. Yum...
On Sunday, I was still alone. CPM was out punk rocking somewhere in Jersey. I decided to sew something. Since I have thrifted so many shirts recently, I decided to refashion one using Simplicity 4077. I wanted to see if I could do a better job on the gathers than I did on my first version. I still reused the existing button holes, but found that I had to make 2 more using my automatic buttonhole feature. They came out great! So, if you look closely, you can see some wonkiness, but eh, this is totally wearable:
My weekend ended quietly, thank goodness. I had enough excitement on Saturday night. This week I will get to see CPM play some punk rock at a show with The Bronx. I will take the following day off from work just because. I will pray for the warm weather to return and stick around for a while...
