feather2pixels

This week I returned from a trip home–or whatever Blue Bell is to me. Do I have a home? What does that even mean? Is home just one of the many fictions I have invented to deal with myself? Argh! I have been desperately trying to claw out of my imaginary worlds; you would think a trip back East would provide some much needed clarity.

But at least it was an efficient trip. In four days and five nights I was able to do everything I wanted to do without down time. Time is sanity at home. More importantly, I was able to eat (almost) everything I was hoping to eat. Plus, I got to fulfill my lifelong dream of experiencing live reggae in Blue Bell. It did not disappoint.

That particular excursion happened to be the first time I have drank (Yuengling, none the less) legally with Danny, as he reached the end of his twenty-first year last January. From now on, the powers that be will have to think of a better reason to kick us out of Slim’s. The entire family, which, more and more is starting to resemble a bona fide clan, also made it down to Philly Chinatown, where I sampled the worst carrot juice and the best wonton soup of my life in the same meal.

OK, so there was a little clarity.

On Saturday, the clan traveled to a barbecue near the nuclear power plant, where tomatoes apparently grow to the size of dodge balls. Those were enjoyed with burgers and bottled water on the lovely little ranch of my dad’s longtime lab manager, Marella. Danny, Michelle & Andy (Mandy?), and I got a casual game of whiffle ball/frisbee/tennis/football (fiffle ball?) going and that was really the main event.

That nigt, Joe was cast into the final weeks of his bachelorhood with a party designed to, um, be like, the opposite of a wedding? Or something. I guess I don’t really understand bachelor parties. Maybe this mental block is linked to why I will be the last of my friends to get married. But, as with the family, everyone was together for the first time in a while, and that was good. I’ve got good friends. Plus, Shal and I got scrapple–that’s good too. Especially in a crowded diner at 2AM.

The next day I had probably the best pastrami half sandwich of my life. I use the term sandwich loosely to describe what was more of a small mountain of freshly carved, hot meat, dripping with pastrami goodness between slices of bread. The Rascal, sitting across from me in a busy corner of the Reading Terminal Market, ate the other half, which was slathered with an ill-advised layer of mustard. Not only did she decline my mustard advice, but that girl still insists I love mustard, which is like saying that Donkey Kong loves short Italian plumbers. Just because I once ate half a jar of it rather than risking certain starvation strikes me as irrelevant. Irrelevant!
Speaking of advice, some of the too hip for their own good SF coffee shops could learn something from the quiet dignity of La Colombe at Rittenhouse Square.

Finally: cheesesteaks and baby cows. It was a surprisingly good combination, the cheesesteaks in question coming from Palermo’s in Blue Bell (because at the time it was not one of Pudge’s four hours of operation) and the baby cows from Merrymead Farms, where one can watch really cute feedings in the early evening, complete with oversized baby bottles.

Christmas Eve. The most boring night of the year. I couldn’t even find an open grocery store, so instead of running an errand for my family I listened to Joanna Newsom’s new album the way it was meant to be heard: in a dark corner of the Super Fresh parking lot locked in my mom’s brand new SUV.

Joe and Anna announced their engagement at Rich’s Other Place on Friday, which is as good a place to tell your friends you are getting married as it is a place to cut high school. She wore black gloves until the unveiling and I am glad to report that Rich’s grilled corn muffins are back to the excellent standards of ten years ago. It was actually the first time I met Anna. Even if I didn’t like her, I would obviously never trash talk her on the internet, but she was friendly and I took to her right away. A smart woman makes her fiance’s best friends feel welcome. I can see what Joe sees in her.

After breakfast, Joe and I bowled a three game series and played six games of air hockey. He bowls with his dad’s old eighteen pound ball, heaving it in to the air as high as possible so that it lands with a left hook. When hit just right, it detonates the pins with a furious explosion to hell. Any other time it splits them. On Friday, though, he was rusty and I beat him with a reliable 13 pound house ball that apparently used to belong to a Chun C. Chung. Back at my house, we realized that Joe never signed my senior yearbook and so I handed him a pen and he got his big chance. I had almost forgot what it felt like to have friends who know the way to your house without directions. (Not to downplay the significance of Ben, who probably still needs a map for his own special reasons).

That night, Shal and Ammora joined us for drinks at the nation’s second largest mall, where she works (and had just personally completed $33,000 in home theater sales). Our server has a thick, juicy Philadelphia accent but there was an unsettling lack of smoke in the bar. Side note: apparently in Philadelphia proper, there is now an official smoking ban. I went down there last night with my cousin Rebecca to investigate and I am happy to report that at the Locust Bar–on tenth at Locust, where The Rascal and I used to get loaded when she was still nineteen–there is not only smoking, but an ashtray at each table.