Philly Trip recap

I had such a great time in Philly with Shannon. She has tivo.

Of course there were about a million other things that were great, but you know me and tv. That extreme house makeover show, gawd I cry every time. We didn't actually watch that much tv, maybe because since you can fast forward through commercials, it doesn't seem like as much.

One of the days I was there, Shannon had to go into work for an hour, put folks' pay info in, I assume they appreciated her effort. During that time I got to help Miss Julie with her first grade art class. The lesson was geometric shapes and freeform shapes. There's nothing more fun than colourful construction paper, little scissors and glue sticks. One little girl was making a house out of a red triangle and a couple of red rectangles. I asked her if she could see another shape, other than a house. "No, it's a house." "Can you see an arrow shape as well?" "It's a house!" Ok kid, way to 'think outside the box'. Not so sure I have a career with kids...

I can't remember the order of all the events, but I ate quite a bit of meat while away. We had wings at this great bar/restaurant in Philly while watching the Eagles/49ers game. The only thing I wasn't entirely comfortable with was the enormous painting of a woman's naked chest (no head, just neck to elbow) right behind Shannon. It was a bit distracting, thankfully we had football and beer.

Shannon has a horse named Austin. He's quite lovely once you get over the size of his head. I was very proud of myself, feeding him a treat right out of my hand. And one time, Shannon had to go get something and I offered to hold onto his "leash-thing". She boards him at this barn in Fairmount Park, biggest (?) park in Philly. Apparently I left a day too soon, because the next day there was a body found behind the barn off one of the trails! To think we'd been having mojitos and ribs with folks, while some poor soul was being devoured by worms. I met some great folks at the barn and look forward to going back. They took me up to the hay loft, where Shannon has plans to turn it into a lounge - the "barn & lounge". Up there was a metal "horse", used to train kids to play polo. Well I'd had a few mojitos and was encouraged to step up. I'm not so sure I'd be a great polo player, but Art did try his best to show me how to LEAN. You gotta LEAN!! Dude, as if, do you realize how high off the ground this is?! Obviously we had a good time at the barn.

Shannon has a few other animals as well. All of them lovely. Cat slept with me most nights - though she snores. Winney-woo (winslow) a 1yr old golden retriever puppy is so so cute and very well behaved (as they all are). Carter and Shelby, are 8yr black labs, so sweetie faced and cuddly. And then there's Kitty, a black cat, that Cat bosses around, but likes a good rub if she can get passed the others. Speaking of pets, we saw Giggles (Shiaheem, 18) and he and his girlfriend Jasmine have a cute lil puppy. It's kinda funny cause Giggles (I named him against his will when he was ~9 or so) is so big and kinda tough lookin' (in a sweetie-swoo way), anyhoo their puppy's name is Snuggles. AHAHahaha!! It's a pit bull and saint bernard cross. Incredibly cute and fluffy. Was good to see the kid again, Shannon tried to take some photos, so if any turned out I'll post em here.

The day I left, Tuesday, I had a meeting with the Creative Director at Ripple. They have a Philly office as well as the Pittsburgh one. We sat and had coffee - well he had tea... we chatted for an hour and a half. It was good. They are looking for a designer, but preferably someone based in Philly. He set me up to meet with the Pittsburgh designers on Friday and they were great, though I was fighting my sore throat. I'll follow up with them next week. Lotsa good vibes and good people. Been keeping busy.

Those are the highlights, I'm sure I'm missing some stuff... but the trip was great. And as always Shannon was so generous and fun to be around. Until next time!