bunrab | We are back from Pittsburgh

We visited with

landley this weekend. We set out at 9 Saturday morning, and arrived in time for lunch. We left Pittsburgh at 10:30 Monday morning, when it was 71 degrees there, and arrived home in Catonsville Monday afternoon to a temperature of 81 freakin' degrees fahrenheit. (That's 27°C, for you metricoids.)
We were introduced to a local chain restaurant called Eat'n Park, which makes really good blueberry pie. We went to a party at

ralphmelton's with Rob and Fade, and met some nifty people. Music was had. Books were perused. Food was eaten. We got up at the crack of noon Sunday, ate more food, did some coffee-shop-internet-sunday newspaper type hanging out, went to Tarjay to pick up some home furnishings. The 1" thick foam pad makes sleeping on the floor a heck of a lot more comfortable. (Besides not sleeping as well just lying on carpet, I'm also old enough that when I post at the computer, my back prefers that I be sitting in a chair with the keyboard up at table level, which is why there were no magic posts from Pittsburgh.) We made stew, which I snuck leeks and parsnips into, and Rob ate them. There will be a separate digression about the stew.
Fade and I did ribbing, using circular needles, and the importance of good lighting when knitting. A hat is well under way. I, of course, bought some souvenir yarn. Between the restaurant and coffee shop and book store and yarn store and grocery store, and the fact that there's no such think as parking right in front of their house, I did more walking than I have in ages. I'm sure my doctor is proud of me, but the last couple of attempts at stairs were at a pace that would embarrass a snail. I did an awful lot of napping because of all the hillage and stairage.
The driving there and back was nice. It's less than four hours. For our Texas friends: I've already mentioned, Philadelphia, PA is closer to Baltimore than Houston is to Austin. Well, Pittsburgh PA is just about the same distance from Baltimore as Dallas is from Austin. The highway is a heck of a lot nicer scenery, too. Hills, hills, hills. Pittsburgh itself is all hills, as I remembered it being from the couple of times I was there a quarter of a century and more ago. I like it - it forces houses to be close together and neighborhoods to be compact and stuff to be nearby; it discourages the building of sprawling McMansions. I could stand to go back there with an electric scooter or a Segway and just drive up and down every street looking at the architecture; imagine an entire city of houses like Travis Heights, except mostly brick rather than wood frame. Most of the houses are from between 1900 and 1929, and are absolutely charming in style.
A digression about stew: Basically there are three ways to get beef to be edible. There's brute force physics: pound it with a meat hammer to break up all the fibers. That requires a certain amount of work, though, and also a good meat hammer; doing it by stabbing it repeatedly with a fork takes way too long. There's subtle chemistry: place meat tenderizer on it to eat away at the protein fibers. That takes a while, and many meat tenderizers contain MSG, which is a no-no for me. (Some don't; some contain only papain, from papaya or pineapple.) Then there's the merger of chemistry and physics, as in add water and heat and boil it into submission. That is what stew is intended to accomplish. If anyone expresses an interest, I will write out the recipe. Many people think they don't like parsnips, usually because they're actually thinking of turnips. But turnips are big white beets, whereas parsnips are big white carrots, much tastier. I happen to like beets and turnips as well, but I am aware not everyone does. Parsnips, however, should be much more popular than they are; everyone I've ever tried them on turns out to like them. Try some! Leeks, of course, just automatically improve almost anything. Well, maybe not dessert...
We managed to leave a library book there. With luck, Fade can find it and mail it back... no trip is without its little adventures.
We all had a lot of fun arguing with the GPS unit. Ah, new forms of entertainment in the 21st century!

We ate lunch, arrived home, and I took a nap until rehearsal. Then, coming home from rehearsal, part of I-95 was shut down, for no reason we could tell - everyone was just being shunted off to the I-895 spur. So it took us a bit of exploration to get back to the Broadway Diner on Eastern Avenue, which has the best dessert case we've seen so far in the Baltimore area. (And thank goodness for the GPS unit!!)

Now it's time for more sleep.