2002-11-06 - 12:50 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: Beethoven's "Fur Elise"

Well, I voted. The Libertarian candidate did not win, of course. Not that I was expecting it. I'm just relieved that he got more votes than the Green candidate.

My MIL must be ecstatic about the Republicans gaining control of the Senate. I won't mention -- not yet, anyway -- that now she has two years to rant about how they're not doing anything.

My polling place is, of course, easy walking distance from my house. Less than three blocks. NIFTY! Every time I do something new around here, it's so EXCITING! I can WALK there! Not only that, but I can take DIFFERENT ROUTE HOME than I took to GET there!!

And aren't you TIRED of JOURNAL ENTRY after JOURNAL ENTRY of me RHAPSODIZING about it?! Tough toenails for you, eh? It's either that or home improvement entries. That's all my life is about these days.

On the way out, I met one more neighbor I hadn't previously met. She was another one of those folks who's madly in love with Philadelphia. I mentioned how many of them there seemed to be, and she said, "Yeah, it's all city people here."

Got me thinking a bit. There are some people who are madly in love with their suburban neighborhood, because it has everything they want: big house, big yard, nice neighbors, safe place for kids, etc. But there's also a large segment who just happen to be there by default, because the U.S. is mostly suburbs at this point. In the city, it's different. Nobody who can afford to choose will bother to live in the city unless they truly love it, because financially it's really not worth it. The end result is a lot of extremely enthusiastic neighbors, full of information about restaurants and fun things to do, and I like it.

Speaking of city living, I was reminded last weekend that THERE IS A REASON WHY YOU LEFT THE SUBURBS.

We wanted to get my dad a couple of DVDs for his birthday -- Godzilla for the surround sound and Spiderman because he hinted. I figured it would be just as easy to drop in at Oxford Valley Mall, on the way to my parents' house for the party.

Unfortunately, since I hadn't been there in YEARS, we accidentally took the wrong exit (Business Route 1) and sat in the most horrendous traffic I've experienced since I left DC. Jesus god. It took us 15 minutes to go a mile. I was tearing my hair out.

I was somewhat mollified because we got Godzilla for $10 and Spiderman for $15. Nevertheless, it is far, far more worth it to pay an extra few bucks per DVD buying it at the local Blockbuster in the city than it is to sit in traffic on my way to a party. Unfortunately, like an idiot I had completely forgotten you can BUY stuff at Blockbuster and it never even crossed my mind.

On our way home from the Home Depot last night -- our trips there are becoming weekly ones; ugh -- I convinced Poindexter to take a little detour and go by Jim's Steaks, on South Street. Nearly everyone we've asked has said this is their favorite place for cheesesteak. I dropped by once over the summer, but there were, literally, fifty people in line. It was snaking out the door and around the corner. Now I figured since it was raining and cold, there wouldn't be many people around so we could get some food easily.

BOY am I glad we went! Woo!

The only other place I'd tried previously was Tony Luke Jr's on 18th. It was boring. The onions were practically raw, and the steak was tasteless.

Now, Jim's has a cheesesteak I can get used to. Really good steak (no gristle), sweet flavorful onions that had been cooking on the grill for a while, and just the right amount of cheese whiz. I ate half last night and half this morning at 10:30am, because I didn't want to wait for lunch.

Awhile back, I read an article that said cheese whiz was the only way to go. I had trouble believing it, but it's true. It's REALLY good in a Jim's cheesesteak. Wow.

What I ended up doing for my dad's party was e-mailing all the attendees beforehand and asking them to answer four questions (or as many as they could):

1. My favorite thing about [Dad] is...

2. The funniest thing I ever saw [Dad] do was...

3. The happiest I've ever seen [Dad] was...

4. A favorite memory of [Dad] was...

Poindexter found them for me on a party site. Amazingly enough, EVERYONE wrote back. I was only expecting a few replies. I was overwhelmed. And damn, but they were FUNNY memories! My dad is something of a character, so people had fun recalling the actual memories and embellishing them to sound as funny as possible. I made them into a card, inserted a few pictures, and read a few of them out loud at the party. Everyone enjoyed it, especially my dad. Some of the memories were sweet, too. I think he really enjoyed it.

And, of course, I made a seven-page stick-figure illustrated "memories" birthday card for him, with two segments per decade of his life. He laughed when he first got it, but he laughed even harder after everyone had left and he had time to really look at the card. I got a few really good pictures of him laughing, so I'm very pleased.

We had a bunch of kids at this party -- more than we've had in years. Alicia's three kids plus Stacey's two. It was enormously entertaining, although I almost stepped on Alicia's youngest once -- he's crawling right now. I narrowly missed stepping on his hand.

I had promised Kelsey a half-birthday present awhile back, but with one thing and another I didn't get to give them to her until now, so I called it her "7 and 3/4 Birthday" present. One of the things I gave her was some paints that are supposed to be used on mirrors and glass. I told her that her mom probably wouldn't want to deal with it, but that she could use it on my sliding glass doors anytime.

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