Entries Tagged as 'Interesting Encounters'

Sunday, November 15th, 2009

Handwashing and KYW

At Barcamp Philly this last weekend, I noticed the sign you see above in the restrooms of the University of the Arts, where the conference was being held. I appreciated the reminder, however they would have been far more effective, had the soap dispensers beneath them contained any soap at all.
In other news, I did [...]

Friday, June 12th, 2009

I saw all that love

Most mornings, Scott and I leave for work together. We’ve developed a nice little rhythm, in which we ride the elevator down, walk about the back door and then kiss good-bye at the corner of 19th and Ludlow. This morning was no different, although we overslept (I turned my alarm off instead of hitting snooze) [...]

Tuesday, March 25th, 2008

Good things do happen

Since Scott and I started the process of moving in together, we’ve generated something in the neighborhood of 25 bags of stuff that we no longer needed, wanted or had room for. A lot of it has been mine, as I’ve worked to make room for his stuff among the 42 years of accrued [...]

Wednesday, January 30th, 2008

Meeting my online friends

I first started exploring the world of blogs sometime in the fall of 2004.  I was turned on to them through an article in the New York Times by blogger Heather L. Hunter (yes, I went back to look for the exact story).  I checked out her blog, which led me to other blogs, some [...]

Tuesday, October 30th, 2007

Screamed at in a train station

This afternoon I was standing in Suburban Station, waiting for a train that would take me back out to Germantown and my mechanic’s garage, when a man approached me.  He was dressed in ragged clothes and one of his front teeth looked as if it was rotting away in his mouth.
He said to me, “Excuse [...]

Thursday, August 16th, 2007

Another lovely encounter with a man who asked me for spare change

Things are pretty quiet ’round these parts.  I spend most of the talking through my fingers as opposed to using my voice.  I’m a little boggled by the speed at which time is passing, my fall class starts two weeks from yesterday and my first thesis deadline is a week after that.
Yesterday I was walking [...]

Sunday, August 5th, 2007

Opening a bottle of water

On Wednesday, I was walking down Chestnut Street to meet some friends for lunch, when I walked past an elderly homeless woman sitting on the sidewalk.  I’ve often seen her in the neighborhood, wearing a long synthetic blond wig and looking confused.  This time she was sitting outside the CVS and holding up a water [...]

Tuesday, July 31st, 2007

Coincidences, both near and far

I got an email from a friend today, with a picture attached. She and her husband-to-be were recently on vacation up in the Pacific Northwest when, on Bainbridge Island, they spotted this poster, advertising a concert featuring my sister and her friend John. Unfortunately, they were scheduled to come back to Philly before [...]

Friday, July 27th, 2007

Handbags, scooters and muzuzahs

When I walked out the door of my apartment this morning, I think I entered some sort of strange time and space warp.  On the very crowded elevator, an elderly woman from the floor above me kept turning around and smacking people with her very large handbag.  She wasn’t doing it intentionally, but it was [...]

Tuesday, July 17th, 2007

Just looking for a place to lock my bike

I rode my bike down to a friend’s house tonight, to have dinner with a group of women with whom I used to eat lunch with every Tuesday when I worked at Penn. It was part celebration and part send-off as a couple people are either graduating or heading off to new grad school [...]