Do you ever find yourself buying a lot of things in a particular color or motif, developing a palette or theme practically unbeknownst to you? Yeah. I do that. Check it. My Philly purchases:

And just so I’m not hogging it all to myself, here’s an MP3 for you.

From Girl Talk, here’s “Here’s the Thing” off of his album Feed the Animals. The DJ behind Girl Talk is from Pittsburgh, not Philly, but I’m just posting it because I like it.

There’s a moment (at 1:15) where he successfully mashes up Nine Inch Nails with Kelly Clarkson. I heart it. Because, otherwise, I can’t stomach anyone from American Idol. It’s full of other clever moments of mash-up delight. Later on, you will hear Rick Springfield’s “Jessie’s Girl” playing alongside the Prodigy’s “Firestarter.”

Ladies and gentlemen, it works.

If you enjoy this, go buy the album entire (it’s a pay-what-you-want set up, a la Radiohead).

was telling a friend at work about my weekend in Philly; she remarked (not at all unkindly), “you had quite the hipster weekend!”

I will recount the stories of my annoying travel at a later time; it’s over, I got there and back safely, with my head intact despite a voyage on a Greyhound bus. And a BoltBus. I did both and neither experience was particularly good. At all. ANYWAY.

After arriving in Philadelphia at 10pm on Friday night, that night was spent eating and talking with my friend Sara - and her cat Gus. Here is a small photo of Gus. He’s photo-worthy, despite his more than slightly cranky-whiny demeanor. He was also uncharacteristically friendly towards me this weekend; normally, he does a sort of bipolar thing where he’s all rubbing up on your leg, seeming to say, “PET ME!” - only to turn on you and hiss the moment you pet him. NOT SO, this weekend. I got to pet Fluffy McCrankyPants several times.

Saturday morning, Sara had a haircut at American Mortals. Their motto,”Mullets, not bullets” sort of says it all. Fun cool hipster hair styling. They’re a bumble & bumble salon, so extra points from me. While Sara got her hairs cut, I sat and observed two stylists figure out how to play rummy 500 or ‘Go Fish’, debate the finer points of cribbage (Ben Franklin’s favorite card game, FYI) and we also discussed knitting, childrens’ books (”Everyone Poops”, “The Gas We Pass”). It was good times.

Then, since we were in the area (that area being the Rittenhouse area of Philly, a well-known shopping area), we decided to do some shopping and get lunch somewhere along Walnut Street. A shop that caught my eye immediately was one called Ten Thousand Villages. They’ve a few locations, but we were at the Philly location. The idea behind this store is that it’s all fair trade goods made by village artisans. I’ll post photos tomorrow, but I found a lovely aqua shawl (to replace the sweatshirt I always put on at work when I’m feeling chilly - this is a far better choice professionally) and a chunky blue/turquoise necklace. Not real turquoise, but I’m OK with that.

We stopped at a few other shops including Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, and the farmer’s market at Rittenhouse Square. The Amish were out in full effect with beautiful flowers and produce and brown eggs. I wanted to take photos, but I was conflicted; I wasn’t going to buy any produce since we were going to be walking around for a few more hours and it would get gross and wilted. Knowing that I wouldn’t be buying anything, I felt that photographing their wares would be a bit like theft. Also, I’m just crazy.

After looking at tables and baskets and boxes of beautiful produce and flowers (white eggplant including one that looked like it had a nose, all manner of apples, daisies that looked as though they’d been splattered with red paint - but weren’t), we were pretty damn hungry. Sooo… we walked back down Walnut Street to a lunch spot that had captured our attention later - Maoz Vegetarian. Think of it as Chipotle or Qdoba, but instead of a burrito, it’s falafel on a pita. There’s a fixins’ bar where you can top off your falafel and pita with tasty veggie toppings like pickled baby eggplant, tabouli, cucumbers, tomatoes, cilantro sauce, hummus, tahini, etc. You get a side of Belgian fries (yes, served in the paper cone; yes, served with the large crunchy salt crystals; yes, covered over with foil). Delicious. I’m excited to see that they have locations in NYC.

We did some more walking and it was getting pretty hot. If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen - or get some GELATO. In this case, gelato from artisans. That’s what the sign says, anyway. The artisans part. Not the kitchen part. Capogiro Gelato. They also have a location or two in NYC. They’ve got lovely flavors like fig, thai coconut milk, peach, blackberry, chocolate with caramelized hazelnuts, dulce de leche… incredible. I had the bolded flavors. Not all on Saturday. Nope. We went back for more on Sunday.

With our tummies full, we took the train back to Sara’s region of Philly. Here’s a shot of the Market East station. I love the color. Shellac-alicious red bench against the green tiles. Mmmmm.

That night, we went to Chestnut Hill, a slightly more yuppie shopping area in Philly. We walked around, but most of the shops were closed since it was after five. So we had dinner. Delicious dinner at a Persian restaurant—Shundeez Persian Restaurant, where I ordered Addas Polo, half of a Cornish game hen served with basmati rice, flavored with lentils, onion, raisins, dates, cinnamon and saffron. It was delicious. Absolutely delicious. Amazingly delicious. I will be working to recreate this dish using couscous. Tomorrow.

We also went to the Borders store there. Sara and I met and became friends when we were both working at a Borders store here in NJ (sigh, in our younger days). When walking out of the Borders, we started singing “Memory.” As in, “from the musical Cats“. As in, “immortalized by Miss Barbra Streisand.” We did it.

Thankfully, the streets were pretty empty and we didn’t end up with a string of alley cats following us back to the car. We went back to her apartment and talked to Gus, had some tea, and started watching Vidor’s Gilda (one of my favorite noir films and one about which I wrote a couple of papers in college film courses). But we were tired and I think Sara nodded off, and I soon thereafter. The next thing I knew, it was Sunday morning.

Speaking of Sunday, I’ll write about that tomorrow. This is a long-ass post and Sunday held magical wonders like the Reading Terminal Market and Laurel Hill Cemetery. And Target, but Target is a sort of everyday magical wonder.

Below is a picture of what I made from Shrinky Dinks last night.

I am not entirely crazy about how the flower came out, but I love the leaves. I might make more since I think those would look awesome as earrings - strung two or three to a small chain? Or as a drop necklace. Yeah, the ideas are brewing.

I used my lovely German colored pencils for vibrancy. They really are the best colored pencils. I got my first set of Staedtler pencils when I was visiting Poland in 1990 or ‘91 (so, uh, when I was 11 or 12?). My grandmother took me to an art/stationery store where I got a set of those pencils and some blank notebooks so I could draw and write. It was just after the fall of communism in Poland and the stores were still running on the “everything is behind the counter -you must ask to see it” model. I remember that that was really weird to me - that I had to ask to see something, and that there was a sense of expectation of long consideration from me. I would just say, “Yeah - I want it” and hand over the money.

That was still something shop clerks and people in general weren’t used to - that sort of throwing around of money. But I was some little kid from America who just knew that her dollar was worth a lot more there and got all excited when she went to exchange money. And the whole time, I was figuring out how much things cost in American money because it was like everything was on sale. I recall that the exchange rate at that time was something like 8 złoty to a dollar, and a few years later it was up (down) to 4 złoty to a dollar.

I should confirm this with a family member since it seems kind of crazy.