One of the fun things about showing up at Foster’s on Saturday was the fact that before we even walked through the doors, we were greeted by the sign you see to the left. You see, I had done most of the set-up and planning with the folks at Foster’s and so they weren’t aware that I had a co-host. So I got all the credit and Scott got, well, Scott got lots of joke ammunition (which for him is often better than credit).

In other news, today was surprisingly and subtly wonderful. I ended up having an impromptu lunch with a friend I hadn’t seen in awhile. We ate outside of Houston Hall at Penn and after we were finished, I ended up going back to her office with her.  I sat there, stealing some wifi, writing a blog post and chatting with her occasionally as she did a little bit of work. Eventually we walked over to Ben and Jerry’s on 40th Street with a co-worker of hers and had ice cream on what was an unseasonably gorgeous January day.

When they headed back to work I stayed on 40th Street in order to wander through the used bookstore that is a few doors down from the ice cream shop. There is a cat that lives in that store, and at one point he silently padded over and started twining through my legs, nuzzling up and scratching his head on my sneakers. I crouched down and petted him for a couple of minutes, until someone approached, needing to access the row that the cat and I were blocking. I left the store nearly an hour after I had arrived and walked home, talking to my mom on my cell phone the whole way home.

This evening I went to sit with the sangha (a Buddist meditation group) that I used to regularly attend, at least during the semesters when I didn’t have class on Wednesday night. As soon as I entered the room, I could feel the pull of deep quiet smooth out my consciousness. The sitting was beautiful, silent and seemingly endless. Afterwards I felt refreshed, as if I had gotten an extra night’s worth of sleep or perfectly relaxing massage.

And after all that, I got to have dinner and hang out with Scott. Life is good.

The picture you see above was taken by Thad and you can see the rest of the pictures that he and Angie took that day here.