The Salon

Today was one of the most interesting days of my summer so far.  After finally getting myself to leave the house, I headed down to South Philly to meet up with Jon.  After he finished cleaning out his hookah, we headed over to Wonderland, a store on 20th and Walnut.  Unfortunately, we walked all of the way there for it to be closed.  Jon suggested we get some food, so we went next door to the The Irish Pub. 

It turns out that there are 2 Irish Pubs on Walnut Street.  There is one on 20th, the one we went to, and another on 12th.  Jon had a pretty generous looking burger with a side of fries and 2 sodas for less than ten dollars.  I had a salad, but it wasn't wonderful.  I did, however, enjoy the chicken they cooked for it.  I was pretty amazed at the prices for the food which were extremely reasonable especially for this area of Philadelphia.

After our stint at the pub, we walked around a little while longer and met up with my friend, Amanda.  Amanda took us to The Salon.  The Salon is an extremely interesting experience.  It was such a new and interesting experience that I was at a loss for words for a while.  I'm not exactly sure even how to continue with this blog.  You should first know that The Salon is modeled off of 18th century European musical culture.  During this time, a great deal of music was performed in very intimate settings in the home.  This was made to emulate that idea.

Jon, Amanda, and I walked into a door leading into a house in an alley, and there was a pile of shoes at the bottom of the staircase.  We removed our shoes, and that's when it sort of hit Jon and me that this would be interesting.  We headed up a few flights of stairs where a woman took our ten dollar "donation" to The Salon.  After heading up more stairs to the 3rd or 4th floor, we entered a room with a very high ceiling full of people.  These people were mostly in their sixties.  Jon described them as looking both like hippies and intelligent university professors.  These people were mostly sitting on the floor as there was little furniture for all of the people in the room to share.  This day was by far the most humid day of the year so far.  There were at least 100 people in this room with one air conditioner which was shut off and turned on repeatedly during the concert.  Hopefully you've got an idea of the ambiance at this point.

Andrea Clearwater, the renter of The Salon space, piano player, composer, and graduate of Temple University introduced each of the performers.  There were ten acts in all, five, then an intermission, then another five.  The first three were upbeat jazz artists, but the next few performed 20th century 12 tone pieces.  There was a small intermission during which I managed to acquire myself a cup of wine and a handful of pretzels.  It was a nice atmosphere, albeit hot and muggy.  There were many professionals from the east coast, indigenous to many different countries who were experienced performers and composers.  And...I got to see it all for ten dollars.

After we left The Salon (it lasted for the better part of four hours), we headed over to the Midtown Restaurant.  The Midtown Restaurant is a very simple diner.  It has a counter and some booths, and it's definitely a step back into time.  It definitely hasn't been updated since at least the seventies.  The menu prices were also very affordable, and they should be, for diner food.  

Today was another pretty lazy day.  I hung around my house in New Jersey until 5 and then headed back to Philadelphia.  On my way back, I stopped at Wegman's for some groceries so I could cook up a nice dinner of stuffed peppers.  Remember those peppers I bought for so cheap at the market near my house?  Those are the ones I stuffed.  After Wegman's, I headed to the wrong CVS to pick up my photos, but was then redirected to the CVS farther uptown where my pictures were.  Oops!  

I got my photos, but I was a little disappointed with some of them.  I hate that you can't develop 4x6 pictures in the right proportion, but many of them came out nicely.  I went back to Chris' apartment with my groceries to a very warm welcome, and then we had some dinner.  After dinner and vanilla coke zero floats, I read some more Barbara Walters and Chris studied.  After a while, I realized his brain was fried, so we just hung out and listened to some music while we both skimmed our respective books.  It was a nice and relaxing night.  I love cooking for Christopher, and he even seemed to like what I made this time!  

There's not too much to report today.  I didn't go anywhere new since I was at home in New Jersey, but I did get to watch a new movie, 27 Dresses with Katherine Heigl which I really enjoyed.  

Today was kind of a strange day.  I headed home to Allentown, New Jersey in the afternnon and waited around for my mother to take my sister and I to the beach.  We hung out on the beach for about 20 minutes, but it was really cold so we decided to get some dinner over at Pete and Elda's.  

My sister had always wanted to go to Pete and Elda's because I talk about it so much and have been there so many times with my friends.  I have never had a bad morsel of food from that place, and it serves the thinnest crust pizza ever.  Unfortunately, there is usually an enormous wait time to be seated, but since we walked in around 4:30 on a Thursday, we were seated immediately.  I had a couple of slices of pizza and one of their delicious house salads.  

I've also discovered that Blue Moon with a slice of orange is a wonderful thing.  Yuengling Lager used to be my favorite stand-by beer from the tap, but I'm slowly loving toward making Blue Moon my standard.  I love how sweet it is. 

Later that evening, I went out with Tom.  He came to pick me up and we headed out to Hightstown, New Jersey to see if we could find a place for Tom to have some dinner outside.  We went to Theo's Tavern on the Lake which has a huge deck overlooking both the Highstown lake and a parking lot.  Tom got a pretty big bacon cheeseburger with homemade potato chips which I got to sample, and they were delicious.  The waitstaff was pretty friendly.  While it's nothing like some of the places in the city I enjoy going, it was still a pretty enjoyable evening.

After hanging out at Theo's we headed to Walmart in Hamilton.  After Tom found what he needed we headed over to Dairy Queen.  I'd never had a blizzard from there, and it was really delicious.  I have a new appreciation for Diary Queen.   Tom and I had some ice cream in the parking lot while we listened to Tom on the radio.  Yes, I listened to him on the radio while being in the car with him.  He had pre-recorded a show at 100.1 WJRZ, so we got to listen to him in the car.  

I love my laid back nights with Tom so much.  He's wonderful company and the best friend I could ever ask for.

Today's weather was really nice.  I got up late after a great night's sleep and hung out around Chris' porch.  I went home for a few hours and he called me around 6 to ask if I wanted to have dinner with him.  He cooked up some burgers (on which I passed) and I asked him if he wanted to go to Johnny Manana's with me in East Falls.  I called earlier to ask if they had live music and it turned out that one of my classmates, Rich Cox, was playing there from 8-11.  

I texted Monica and asked if she and Russ wanted to come, too.  She invited us over for homemade guacamole and pico de gallo which was really incredible.  It was by far the best version of each of those dips I had ever had.  After hanging around for an hour or so, we headed down to East Falls and got to Johnny Manana's around 8:30.  

Johnny Manana's is a really neat little place.  There is a bar, outdoor seating, and amazing margaritas.  I had a watermelon margarita which Monica, Chris, and I thought was really pretty delicious.  Monica also had a mojito which she thought was delicious.  During one of Rich's breaks in between sets, he asked me to sing with him, but I'd unfortunately requested the one song I knew all of the words to.  I eventually sang "Fly Me to the Moon" with him which the old men in the establishment loved.  It was such a great time and I'm really looking forward to going back to hear Rich on Wednesday.  

You should check out his website!  www.richcox.net  

Work and Lesson

Today, I woke up pretty early.  I didn't have to be at "work" until 11:45, but I got a phone call from the boss lady around 9 and she asked me to come as soon as I could.  I did just that.  I got to the house around 10:30, but my old man didn't come down stairs until after 12.  Oh well.  He was very tired and upset, I think, so working with him wasn't as fun as it usually is.  That's okay.  We all have bad days, and I assured him things would get better in his life and that I thought he was improving.  I really do believe he is.  

I left and went to my voice lesson with Julie.  She seems to think I got a little bit better since last week and that my breath coordination was a lot better.  I'm glad.  We worked on my French piece and I got to sing a piece from Guys and Dolls before we got started.  I really enjoyed it, but it wasn't as fun as singing Julie Andrews last week.

Afterwards, I headed home and made some veggie tacos for myself.  I stopped at the produce market before I got home, so I had some fresh tomatoes for them which was pretty nice.  The best part of the trip was that red peppers were only $1.25 a pound which I thought was incredible. 

After dinner and watching American Idol (GO ADAM LAMBERT!), I headed over to Christopher's house.  I hadn't seen him since early Friday morning, so I was happy to be able to see him.  I only really got to spend an hour with him before he went to bed, but that's okay.   I'll take what I can get!

Chris' Jazz Cafe

Today was a pretty lazy day. My hip didn't feel all that well, so I just hung out, did some blogging, and waited to go to Chris' Jazz Cafe with Shaynen and his girlfriend, Jocelyn. Shaynen just graduated from Virginia Tech and this was the first time I'd seen him in a while.

Shaynen and Jocelyn came into the city and we drove down to Chris' Jazz Cafe on Samson between Broad and 15th.  For a five dollar cover charge, you can stay and hang out for four hours to listen to a show.  Dana Ellis, a Temple student, and her quintet played.  I really enjoyed seeing a lot familiar faces from school both in the ensemble and in the audience.  Dana and the quintet really put on a good show filled with some standards and originals.  I'm looking forward to hearing them again.  Jeff Torchon, the piano player (and one of the coolest kids in my music history class) told me he plays down at Penn's Landing on the weekends at the Chart House, so I'm looking forward to going there, too.