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March 11, 2007
Signing Off
The time has come to say farewell to the Philadelphia Flower Show. Tomorrow is the last day. At 6:00pm, the crowds must leave the building and we must begin our marathon retreat. The rules say we must be out by 2:00am Monday morning, so we have roughly eight hours to pack our boxes, take down the booth, throw it all in the truck, and roll wearily home to Chestertown.
As angry as I still was about the presence of dinosaurs at the Ireland-themed flower show, today was much brightened by a visit by our good friends the Westbrooks.
Matt and me
And young Jennifer, curled wretchedly on the floor after four solid hours of flower show immersion.
I suppose that when you're four feet tall, the Philadelphia Flower Show is a lot about looking at other people's butts. This might be a fine passtime during sprink break on Padre Island, but at the Philadelphia Flower Show, there are not many butts you really want to get friendly with.
The show was outrageously busy today. This is a group of people waiting in line...
...to leave. THEY ARE WAITING IN LINE TO LEAVE!
I am a firm believer that there is enough empty space in the world that there should never be more than, say, six of us in any square mile. We should all spread out a whole lot more.
If there was an opportunity to do so, I am convinced that people at the Philadelphia Flower Show would wait in line to wait in line. So that they could wait in line.
Between the long hours, the careless signage, and the inexplicable dinosaurs, The Flower Show raises my dander and accelerates my already fast metabolism.
To compensate, I have to eat a lot. Extraordinary amounts. Never knowing for sure where my next meal is going to come from, I eat two or three meals worth of food each time food becomes available.
All week it has been my job to fetch lunch for everyone in the booth. I have gone next door to the adjacent Reading Market to buy sandwiches or salads, according to the tastes of the day.
Every night we go to the same Chinese restaurant, Tai Lake. We go for the delicious food and to see Helen, our friend who works there.
Here is Helen.
I should have photographed our food. We eat the same thing every night, for the most part: fried tofu, salt squid, greens, chow fun, some sort of fish. Tonight we had giant oysters as well in honor of Roji's having arrived early this morning.
Here are the frogs we did not eat. That somebody else has probably eaten by now.
Here's something that we see on the walk between Tai Lake and Travelodge.
And something else nice that I saw.
The flower show has been fun, but it's time to go home. We're tired and ready to return to the barn. How do I know that we've reached the end? Robbi has started sleeping very strangely.
Apparently this has something to do with combatting swollen feet and hands, but dang, it looks uncomfortable.
Maybe this is what they were talking about when they said I wouldn't be able to take the barn out of the girl?
So long, Flower Show. It's been fun. Same time next year.
Posted by bogenamp at March 11, 2007 12:11 AM