I got back into Philadelphia early Friday morning. After a day of unpacking, buying groceries and reorienting to east coast time, I picked Ingrid up at the airport. She had some airport drama but thankfully the travel gods knew that it was important for her to get here and so delivered her safe and with luggage intact. Up until last May Ingrid had been living in Philly, when she decided to move back to her home state of Texas. I miss her the way I miss my family, not every moment of every day, but frequently and with the occasional pang the leaves me breathing extra deep.

It has been WONDERFUL to see her. In many ways it feels like she never left, because it has been so comfortable and easy to fall back into step and conversation. Saturday night we had a fondue party at my apartment for the extended cluster of friends who all wanted to see Ingrid while she was in town. It was a enormously fun evening (cheese, chocolate and a round of “Celebrity” never fail to delight) and made up for the decidedly lackluster New Year’s Eve we ended up having. We went to the same party we had gone to last year, but several people were absent (Cindy, Andrea and Una were particularly missed), as well as some essential party energy.

The best part of the evening was the moment while walking up 10th Street when we discovered that we could see the Penn’s Landing fireworks perfectly from the corner of 10th and Fitzwater.

I write all this to say that I’ve been busy since I got back into town, which is my half-hearted excuse for not blogging more regularly. If you’re longing for more interesting things, you should wander on over to Fork You, where Scott has put up our latest episode, Booze for the Holidays (or post holidays). The gloog was very (VERY) good. Even slashfood thinks we’re fun to view.