Dinner with Sarah at the White Dog Cafe in University City

 Choo choo choo!

I'm on the SEPTA regional rail chugging toward downtown Philadelphia.

I like looking at houses as we pass them by.

This is a bird house I see from my living room window. Wonder how the little fellow is making out in the pouring rain this evening.

We needed rain terribly. As Scott said, the ground was as hard as concrete!

 Numerous signs along the railroad tracks besieging people not to take their own lives. My friend Tony Salvatore of MCES - Montgomery County Emergency Service - in Norristown, PA, just won an award for Suicide Prevention.


Tony Salvatore

But I digress, as always

 Elkins Park Train Station.

Temple University Train Station. I graduated from TU many years ago.

 A gold-domed church - there was loads of graffiti along the tracks, but the train was moving too fast for me to photograph it.

 I took a cab to White Dog Cafe. Most cabs I attempted to flag down were full. Finally someone stopped, a guy originally from Haiti.

Sarah was passing thru Philly on her way home from DC. She had attended a very unusual bar mitzvah of the son of her childhood friend Heather.

It was held in an old mansion. The rabbi and young Ben had a very contemplative adult discussion, reminiscent, she said, of her days at Brown University.

She had also recently attended her 20th year reunion from Brown. We discussed her late father, Mike, and I said he had absolutely no right dying. But die he did.  

At the White Dog we had a fab waiter named.... Joe.

Here's Joe and Sarah.

"How many kidneys dyou think Sarah has?" I asked Joe.

 Sarah ordered our appetizers:  fried oysters and

a salad.

Words cannot describe how good they were.

Altho I don't eat bread - too many carbs - the butter was so unusual - I ate a couple of bites so I could munch on the aoili, perhaps, and truffle oil. View menu here.

Scott and I had eaten here. It was also where Ada Fleisher's daughter/law had her wedding shower. On that day, the snow was really coming down.

I went around the corner to see where sculptor Robinson Fredenthal had lived. I wrote a portrait about him for Art Matters. 

Robin died in 2009. He was 69.

Sarah ordered salmon, which was perfectly prepared, just the right tenderness in the center. The fish and veggies were served on a bed of cous-cous.

Naturally she and I exchanged bites.

 The scallops were magnificent... served with greens, asparagus, crunch-delightful pearl onions, and prosciutto, that was too tough to eat.

Mmmmmm.

Ah, thank you Joe for our cheese platter. He made suggestions. We had blue cheese, brie and goat cheese.

Afterward, we walked off the food on the beautiful streets of Philadelphia, heading toward 30th Street Station, a 20-minute walk.

A magnificent many-columned building was lit up far ahead on our left.

  Sarah, I said, what's that building? The post office?

That's 30th Street Station, Mom, she said.
She got ready to take the AMTRAK back to Brooklyn, while I waited for the 10:30, via the Warminster Line, to Willow Grove.

My wait was about an hour and a half.

I sat reading

    It's hard to read this riveting book b/c you get into the mind of a very disturbed young character, the narrator's son, who is on a killing rampage.

Dan used to love Boyle, which is why I checked it out.

It was so hot waiting in the train station perspiration was dripping from my head.

I could not wait to get home!

On the platform, people were reading their phones and drinking plastic containers of iced tea or water.

Scott always mentions "the cleaners" to me who work at SEPTA. There they were, across the track, sweeping the concrete and emptying the many trash receptacles. They make very good money as they're all unionized.

Me and one other guy got off at Willow Grove. The two of us strode up a steep hill. I'd parked my car across the street by Mandarin Garden, while he just kept on walking.

We both wore back packs. Mine was stuffed with: an umbrella, fat book, i Phone, which is heavy, but I used it to call Sarah b/c she wasn't there to meet me.

Why? I had gotten off at the wrong station.

As a gift for Sarah, I bought her a

        in memory of our Mediterranean Cruise.

She told me about her very busy week.

The Bad Plus will be playing in Philly this summer. Let's check and see when.



Great new photo of The Bad Plus. BUT only two people show up on my blog. Sarah's husband Ethan, the pianist, is in the middle. See their website here.

Holy cow! They're coming to The World Cafe, that's WXPN, on June 13.

Was that lightning? I'd better get my flashlight ready just in case. Visited my friend Helene this morning at Rydal Park and she gave me an issue of The New Yorker I wanna start reading.

There's a story in there by

  He may be a rock star, he may be an astrophysicist, or he may be Stephen King.