Bad blogger

I realize I have been neglecting my blog lately.  Other than the haiku's on Wednesdays and the occasional post of a quiz, I haven't had many actual posts.
I'm not promising that I'm going to post more, at least not for the next month.  I've got a lot of balls in the air and this blog seems to be what gets dropped.

I'm going to tell you about last weekend.  My friend, Min, lives in Philadelphia, and invited me down for a board game party she was having.  Since I live about 2 hours away, I drove down on Friday night after work.  Of course, since I had travel plans my carpet truck was late- just over an hour late grrr.  I passed Angie's exit in north Philly at 4:45pm.  I got to where I was to get off the highway at 5pm.  I made the 500 feet of the exit at 5:50!!  I got to Min's house (the stoopid navigator kept telling me 11 minutes as I was literally parked) just after 6pm.

I was starving so soon after we got all my stuff (seriously I do not travel light and I usually have my sherpa, I mean husband with me to lug everything) settled in her apartment and I said my hellos to Fe- I'm not sure he doesn't think that I drive down to visit HIM, we went to The Vietnam Cafe .  I had never had Vietnamese food before, so was looking forward to it.  They have a seriously flirty waiter - who is kind of Asian eye candy, and I would never guess that Min frequents the place a lot... sarcasm.  At his suggestion, I think I had Bun Dac Biet.  Basically a sampling of various meats over vermicelli with a dipping sauce.  Min's flirty Asian boy toy suggested it.  Min had some kind of  Lime chicken, I sampled a bite, really crispy and quite yummy.  After the meal we split a black eyed pea rice pudding with coconut milk.  Sounds weird , tasted yummy.

The next morning we ran out to do some shopping, having breakfast at IKEAs cafe while we were there.  Sad thing, we were people watching (yeah needed mocking fodder)  There was a couple that came in (this was before the store part opened mind you, we were waiting to shop) had breakfast, and then left. We watched them through the window, get in their car and leave.  Ok, IKEAs breakfast isn't bad, especially for the $4 I spent, but not "honey lets get in the car and drive to IKEA for breakfast" good.  Speaking of my $4 breakfast.  I wanted Swedish pancakes with bacon and eggs on the side.  How hard is that?  Apparently no one has ever wanted this, and definitely no one has ever asked the woman behind the counter for this.  As I am trying to get this, I look behind AND A LINE HAS FORMED!!  Like 12 or 13 people long!! SO it turns out, I could order Swedish pancakes for like 1.99, and an order of bacon for 1.69 and an order of eggs for 1.69.  Or I could order bacon and eggs which had potatoes and french toast sticks for 1.99 and get a half order of Swedish pancakes for 1.69.  But I mostly wanted the pancakes!! So I ordered a bacon and egg breakfast and a swedish pancake breakfast (figuring I just wouldn't eat the potatoes or french toast  sticks) but she didn't give me the ligonberries!!  Seriously!! Why would I go through all that trouble if I didn't want the ligonberries!! 

After we got back to Min's her friend Naomi came over and while they sorted through Min's WIPs (knitting works in progress) and her stash - trying to match yarn up with patterns, I sorted through a bunch of orphan afghan squares and donated yarn to create "starter packs" for afghans for Victory Junction Camp.  Then another friend(see if I had written this blog post earlier in the week I would remember her name) came over bringing the yummiest lemon poppy seed muffins.  We played a bunch of games I had never played before.  Nodwick?  i think? is cool it's a seriously chaotic card game where you must build a minion.  And a tile game where you build roads and towns and have farmland and abby's.  I was pretty confused though 85% of the game.   And Scattergories.  I think we even have that, but I personally never played it.  

As we were hanging out, I was kinda trying to figure out how Min and I are friends.  I mean put Min's friends (the ones I have met anyway) in a lineup and I would seriously stick out like a sore thumb.  Her friends are NICE.  They are GREEN, they are co-op grocery, organic, trader joe's.  I bring chocolate dipped peanut butter pretzel sandwiches, they bring carrots and seaweed crispy things.  I'm a loud, obnoxious, beer drinking red neck Republican.  They are not.  And lest you think NASCAR is our common ground.  We pretty much can't stand each other's  drivers.  I guess there is the mocking of Jr, there is always that.  But sometimes he just makes it TOO easy.  I mean today's race.. first NNS race of the year - Jr misses is pit stall. Just too easy!  Maybe it is Fe who keeps getting me invited after all :P

We had discussed earlier, how we were going to gently ease everyone out so we could watch the race.  They took care of it by having to leave early.  We ordered pizza and watched the race.

Sunday Morning we went to The White Dog Cafe for brunch.  I had crab and spinach benedict.  Min had quiche, I believe it was crab also, but I'm not 100% sure.  My breakfast was amazingly good.  We had also split the bread basket.  That was ok. not up to the par of the other food we had.

On my way back home, I stopped in north Philly (only took about 10 minutes this time of day) and met the Angie.  I had brought down 3 cases of water and a few other things.  And yes - her room was clean!! we talked a while, she wanted lunch (groan)  so we took the subway to center city, and wandered around for a while.  Angie told me a lot about what was going on in her life and about her classes and friends.  She really didn't know where she wanted to eat, and eventually we wandered into Marathon Grill.  I had a salmon nicoise salad, and she had a grilled veggie salad with lemon grilled chicken.  Way too much eating (it had been about 3 1/2 hours since i sat down for brunch - and let's face it crab and hollandaise doesn't go away quickly) but also very good.  We took the subway back to her dorm and I drove home.

If you made it all the way down here to the bottom of this post, all I can say is "thank You"  and " slow Saturday night?"