City of Brotherly Mug

At the moment, I'm parked on Monkey's couch basking in the A/C after returning from an indugent sushi dinner. Philly has proved to be as muggy as I expected for early fall. We've been trying to limit our trips to must-do errands and must-eat meals, and boy has there been plenty of both.

I arrived after midnight on Thurs and was thankfully picked up in style via Philly Ride Share, chauffered by Ferret and navigated (maybe) by Monkey. As promised, Monkey had some Indian food from Minar Palace waiting at home so I gorged myself on lamb vindaloo and some paneer dish before going to bed.

On Friday, we were on a mission to find Monkey a bridesmaid dress! Unfortunately, our online research revealed the sad truth that inner city Philly is home to little respectable shopping. The only department store was Macy's and we knew of few boutiques to try. Laughably, Monkey suggested Daffy's, saying she'd heard it was similar to Century 21 and might be worth checking out. Well, it wasn't. I've never seen such a ghetto department store. Within minutes, I knew we would be walking away empty handed. We escaped quickly to jcrew and banana republic to see if they had any long dresses, but the stops yielded nothing. Our last hope rested with Nicole Miller which thankfully had a store in the city. JACKPOT. We found a beautiful long chiffon dress with spaghetti straps in a pleasing fern color that looked perfect on Monkey. I'm confident it'll match my wedding dress well.



Basking in the euphoria of a successful find (ok I was doing the basking, not Monkey), we stopped by a Dick Blick store that recently opened and brainstormed some ideas for making menus and place cards. It's a bit early to actually make anything but it was fun to look around. By that time, we were pretty hungry so we ate at one of Monkey's favorite restaurants, a Malaysian restaurant called Banana Leaf. We ordered a peanut satay appetizer, a seafood fried noodle, and a beef curry with rice. Delicious. The rest of the day was spent chatting, eating leftovers, and wedding planning. We managed to address all the invitations and Monkey made a burnt sugar cake.

Today, we woke up late and trekked over to Trader Joe's for some groceries. Having been so productive yesterday, we took it easy today, putzing around the house. In the late afternoon, I did a bit of yoga while Monkey took a nap. And finally for dinner we went to a local sushi joint to celebrate Monkey's 28th birthday. That pretty much puts us at present with my sister enthusiastically kneading bread dough (where does she get the energy?), Tony the Cat wandering aimlessly, and myself blogging while watching Pretty Woman on TBS. I hear the plan later is to go over to Ferret's place and play Settlers of Catan.

I love doing nothing with my sister. I wish she lived next door to me, or at least in the same city, or I'll even take the same state at this point. Hopefully she'll find a good post-doc in CA when she graduates.

Quote of the weekend:
"If someone's gonna give me a hogie, I'll eat it." -Monkey

In other news, the wedding planning has been progressing well. I had a design meeting with Sophie where we gathered a bunch of different flowers and hashed out bouquet and centerpiece ideas. I'm confident we can come up with beautiful floral arrangements and decorations. The question is, can we do it within budget? I did find a wholesale flower place in San Diego and will try to visit them next weekend to scope out the quality. Here's a sample bouquet Sophie made that I think is beautiful. I'm trying to convince her to eventually become a florist.



Aside from decor planning, Ryan and I did some cake research last weekend by stopping by Extraordinary Desserts and sampling the Viking and some other white chocolate cake. The Viking was ridiculously rich and to die for. However, the consultation is $100 bucks so I think we're going to try one other place first before we give ED a try. The catering manager at Estancia recommended a bakery in Mission Hills called Cake, which apparently has free tasting! We're scheduled to sample some tasty treats on the 27th. I'm also scheduled for my second dress fitting on the 25th. I guess with everything moving like clockwork, it's time Ryan and I sit down and actually plan the different components of the ceremony, i.e. readings, vows, etc. I'm sure I'm missing some stuff but that's the latest and greatest I can think of.