Three Days Before

I never got a chance to write about it, but we THREE had a great day in center city Philly on Friday. We caught the Free @ Noon performance of Hoots & Hellmouth at World Cafe Live. I worked with singer/guitarist Sean Hoots and bassist Tim Celfo back in my days running MindWalk Records. They were both in The Gilroys, whose self-titled CD I released eight years ago. Hey, (shameless plug) that Gilroys CD is still available for sale on my MindWalk Records site and on iTunes, as well as via every other digital music service.

H&H's star is certainly on the rise. I had to stand in line during an official Meet & Greet to say hello. How weird. H&H blend an Old Crow Medicine Show/Church tent revival sound to create a foot stomping good time show. Their debut CD is available now on the Drexel University student run Mad Dragon Records.

From there, we went crosstown to the other river and had lunch at Dave and Busters (think: adult Chucky Cheese's). We had a gift card from two years ago and opted for the free lunch instead of a quality meal in town. Good financial decision but the food sucked royally. There are too many great restaurants in Philadelphia to settle for that kind of garbage. We went there primarily to let our girl play games and to save the dollars. Our company had their Holiday party at D&B's two years ago and we both still had a zillion credits on the never-expiring game cards from that event. We racked up enough points/tickets to score a full size Cookie Monster stuffed animal, a poddle purse and a couple other trinkets. Again, all free (so, if you are keeping score at home that was a free concert, free lunch and free games - a great day so far!) The finale was to be gelato at Capogiro's on 20th (not free). We had just ordered some gear from my Cafe Press store, World's Fair, and she was going to be rockin' this Tee Shirt for her special treat - but by the time I crossed town (again) she was asleep, exhausted from a full morning and early afternoon. It didn't help that I requested a stop at AKA music where I picked up The National "Boxer" CD, along with the new efforts from Dinosaur Jr. and The Sea and Cake. If I did not spend that 10 minutes in there, she may have still been awake for gelato. Oops.

We opted to let her sleep and wind our way back towards home, in rush hour traffic by this point. We stopped at a great ice cream shoppe called Handel's for a little bowl of Chocolate Rasberry Truffle. She loved it but did throw a mini-fit at first when she was told that we ditched Philly while she snoored away and were going for ice cream instead. Gotta love a discriminating palette.

I hope your holiday weekend was lovely. I am typing this as my new little girl sleeps on Mommy's (also asleep) shoulder. Absolutely adorable.

Oh, one more thing before I go...Today is the last day to enter all the Anniversary Contests! Get your entries in before 11:59pm Eastern Time for your chance to win cool stuff from The Pokey Pup, Gustafer Yellowgold, World's Fair (where you too get own an I Love Gelato shirt or one of thousands of other neat items), Can Do Kid and Putumayo Kids. Just scroll down from here and you will see them all.

Thanks for all the well wishes over the past 24 hours. We appreciate the love.