Balance and the City

We walked over to Dad's for a drive to yoga class. He'd just pulled out his beloved classic red Ford Mustang for the season and wanted to check it out. Lauren was thrilled. She adores cars, especially classic cars.

Class was surprisingly quiet, especially given how busy it's been over the past few weeks. I guess a lot of people didn't want to brave the heat. There were only 8 people, including Lauren, me, my friend Pattie, and the teacher Karin. Since there were several newcomers, we concentrated on basic balancing and standing poses. I'm getting better at balancing, and I'm already pretty good at standing poses. Lauren didn't do bad for her first try.

My arm was still feeling sore. It was better for a while, then hurt again. Pattie, a licensed massage therapist, did some pulls and massaging to make it feel better. It did help a bit.

We strolled Collingswood for about an hour after class. We bought drinks at the WaWa down the block from Yogawood. We stopped at the thrift shop and said "hi" to Erica. We chatted with the nice lady who owns Collingswood Used Books and we both bought books from there. I found the script from the play Brighton Beach Memoirs (one of my favorite Neil Simon shows) in book form and a candy-shop based mystery series I'd never heard of before. (I'm a sucker for mystery series with recipes.) Lauren bought a bookmark and a huge book called The Bankers for her dad, a retired bank manager.

We headed to the PATCO next for our trip into Philadelphia. After making a quick bathroom break at the Gallery Mall, we headed for Independence Hall to taken in the tour...or so we thought.

It was very hot and sunny, though not as sticky as Tuesday. The relatively nice day must have brought everyone out of the woodwork. There were three times as many school groups in the Independence Mall State Park than there were when Linda, James, and I visited here in November...and there were a lot of kids then! We literally could not fit in the gift shop at the Visitor's Center, the line to see the Liberty Bell went half-way around the building, and they were out of tickets for the Independence Hall tour until well into tomorrow.

Oh, well. We did stroll around the grounds, and Lauren was able to see enough of the Liberty Bell through a window to get a picture. She said she was happy just being able to see the outsides up close. (Apparently, the last time she was in Philadelphia was on a bus tour with her parents, and the bus wouldn't or couldn't stop.) I did see the tour with Linda and James, so it was no great loss for me, either.

We headed in the other direction down Market Street, passing more groups of children (with very annoying duck whistles). I wanted to take Lauren to my favorite place in Philadelphia for lunch, Reading Terminal Market. It was very busy, but we were able to find two seats together at, ironically, the very same Middle Eastern counter I ate at on my birthday. I had a chicken gyro. She had a chicken shish-kabob sandwich. Either way, they were delicious...and messy, too. We ended up eating half of both with forks.

Next stop was the big historic Macy's a few blocks down from Reading Terminal Market that used to be Wanamaker's. We browsed the ground floor, and I got to show her the organ and where the light show is at Christmas. I ended up buying a Flyers' t-shirt. Like I told the cashier in the men's department, it's necessary right now.

We made our way around City Hall (the entrance to Broad Street was blocked by construction) to my favorite FYE and Borders. We both did very well at FYE. I picked up Volume 6 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection for about $29 with my Membership Card. Lauren found Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 3 and the complete series for Hong Kong Phooey and Danger Mouse, the latter for $40.

Our stop at Borders was briefer. For one thing, both theirs and FYE's air conditioning didn't seem to be working. It was a bit cooler on Borders' third floor, but both stores were hotter than they should have been. We both had drinks at Borders' cafe. I had a Mint Italian soda; Lauren had iced tea. I found more of the candy-recipe mystery series I'd bought earlier at the used book store.

We had a lovely stroll down Broad Street, passing the theaters, the University of the Arts (where my sister Jessa goes to school), and the Sounds of Philadelphia building. We turned on Pine Street, passing Antique Row and ending up in Washington Square. I wanted to show Lauren my favorite used book and record store, Russakoff's on 10th Street.

We spent almost an hour browsing in there. I picked up the American Girls book Very Funny, Elizabeth! and two Broadway original cast LPs for the 60s flop with Elaine Stritch Sail Away and the mid-80s hit based after Huckleberry Finn, Big River.

(And thank goodness they had no problems with air conditioning!)

The 10th Street PATCO entrance is more steps from Russakoff's. We picked up a fairly full train there around 5. Dad picked us up at the station soon after we arrived. We spent the rest of the evening enjoying slow-cooked beef ribs and watching Looney Tunes cartoons.

Oh, and good luck to the Boston Celtics in the basketball finals! Lauren's watching the game on ABC's streaming video as I type this.