I had such a good day yesterday, I don’t know why I don’t spend more time in Philadelphia. I grew up near NYC, Adam lived there when we met, then we lived in Hoboken for 3 years, I worked and went to grad school there. So I’ve always orbited around NYC. But since we moved to the shore I keep forgetting that Philly is almost as close. An hour to NYC now (1.5 by train), and 1.5 hours to Philadelphia.

So I’ve gotten involved with this new Philly Modern Quilt Guild, and through the founder of that group, Julie, I signed up for a silkscreening workshop yesterday at the Fabric Workshop & Museum. It was cool, but I think I mainly learned that silkscreening is very messy and labor-intensive. So I’m not sure if it’s for me since I don’t know how I would do it at home. Plus I’m not that patient, which I should remember from the one disastrous lithography class I took in college. But I had a great time, and I’m glad I did it. They had screens for us to use to print on stuff we brought from home.

Very cool.

What I really liked most was meeting all the women. It was organized by Handmade Philly, and I’ve signed up to join them. Great ladies, a nice mix of cool but also really nice. And I just had fun running around the city. I have no sense of geography for Philadelphia, so I learned a lot.

After the workshop we went to Reading Terminal Market.

I loved it there, and next time Adam’s mom and stepdad are in town I want to take them. Adam would like it, too. I had a really fantastic cookies and cream cupcake from The Flying Monkey, and I brought home Santa Fe brownies for Adam.

After everyone left the market, I went to Spool, which I’d heard about through the quilt guild. Very cute shop, super friendly staff, great classroom space in the back. Parking was tricky because of all the snow, though.

The crowning glory of the day, though, was my trip to Pat’s King of Steaks. Adam was extremely jealous, and I had to decide between Geno’s and Pat’s. I went with Pat’s since he’s apparently the original. This was the line, very cold.

And this was the traffic backed up around the two shops, which are across the street from each other.

The guy standing right behind me got a call from his wife asking what he wanted for dinner. She was picking something up, so he put in a dinner order. Then he told her he’d be right home, he was just at CVS! I gave him such a look, and we broke out laughing. He said, “Hey, I’m a good husband. I don’t cheat, and she doesn’t need to know everything.” I told him I’d take his secret to the grave.

So worth the wait! I ate until my fingers were numb from the cold.