Chinese Kosher Vegetarian Restaurant. In that order.

Best kept secret in Philly? Philly Cheesesteak...wait for it...eggrolls. I have eschewed the obligatory "Philly cheesesteak sub" in favor of the more obscure and surprisingly delightful deep-fried and flaky version. Who's shocked? Didn't think so. This discovery was made on my birthday while out on the town and I have since found an acceptable (but not quite as good) version in Chinatown. The only reason I have deigned to make do with a version less than perfect is the considerably lower price and the addition of drink specials too cheap to ignore. Although now it has been more than a week since we have been patrons of this establishment, I am determined to return to once more enjoy this unique Philly-style cultural fusion.

Since it has taken me a month to post this update I know I had several witty anecdotes but can only remember a few of them. But I assure you my life has been, as always, rife with one-liners and ridiculous situations though my short posts may be lacking as of late. Our access to wireless was abruptly taken away when our team leader realized our WiFi "restaurant" required an ID to enter...so internet has been scarce. Off the top of my head I have the following:

Situation-The team is doing what we do best, being completely awkward in our urban environment, and doing PT down by the waterfront. As we're lunging past the slutty Wednesday crowd that I'm guessing was gearing up for the Rihanna concert, one of the girls in a strapless dress runs up to our team leader "Are you guys like on a team? Do you always work out at this time? I'm in Cross Country and I run 7 or 8 miles a day," with the intent, it seemed, of joining us regularly on our workouts. Now my mind, of course, working slowly due to the stress of sweating, came up with several responses to "Are you guys like on a team?" but was too appalled at the ridiculousness of the situation to utter any of them. The best of these being:
*Yeah, we're in a bowling league in Cherry Hill, we're pretty intense about it.
*We're synchronized swimmers but a kid pooped in the pool so we're doing dry land training today.
*We do Chinese acrobatics. We're not very good.

But the slutmonster got away without the condescending comment she deserved. Sometimes I'm just too benevolent for my own good.

Situation-I leave for the weekend to visit a friend in Pittsburgh. Someone gets shot right in front of our house in Camden on Friday. No one informs me of this. Sunday, I decide it's okay to risk walking home the mile from the subway stop at midnight on Sunday. I make it with only one offer to sell me coke. Find out Monday morning about the shooting...wtf team?? Under the category of Things I Need To Know- deaths 5 feet from our front door. Thank you in advance for your future cooperation in this matter.

Situation-I hate the south. Next project Baltimore!! Huzzah! Point one for team itchy-fuck-the-south.

That is all.

Picture: "it comes in Pints?? I'm getting one!" Screw that, it comes in Liters! Damn Skippy.

"Male strippers are like clowns. Funny, sexy, clowns."

I. Love. Megabus. For a marginal fee I was able to make my traditional August visit to Boston which I thought I would have to skip this year. Though I only got to see 2/3 of my former Dublin cohorts it was a fabulous weekend consisting mostly of activities related to my friend Emily's wedding in October. These activities were including, but not limited to, a surprise bridal shower, suggestively shaped cakes in a hotel room, dinner in Boston, and culminating in the ultimate of bachelorette party festivities-a strip show. As Grace Duffy epically observed, it is not nearly as pervy to go to a male strip show because male strippers strive to entertain by being funny as well as sexy. They make fun of themselves as they provide lap dances to blushing brides that are designed more to embarrass the crap out of the bachelorettes rather than turn them on. Of course there was the requisite horny 50 year old intent on making every entertainer take their dollar bills out of her bra, but hey, we can't all be as pure and innocent as our dear Emily...


So in case you didn't come here for an account of our evening of debauchery I will turn to more mundane updates. Respond continues to spoil us-Tuesday they took us on a field trip to the shore to take pictures of houses for inspiration for our painting jobs and then gave us time to go to the beach (which was a no go due to the $5 fee for beach access. Stupid Jersey.) and bought us lunch at the Lobster House. The daycare center we're working on offers us lunch every day (though we rarely accept, does anyone remember daycare food?? ...yeah.) But the crowning moment of our week was when the homeless shelter that Respond runs found out what our food budget was and is now giving us their leftovers from Panera's donations. Oh don't worry, you read that correctly, we are pitied by a homeless shelter. and being given their leftovers. My. Life. Rocks.