Philadelphia, PA

I arrived in Malvern, PA just before noon on Sunday and drove up the long, winding driveway of my friend Jay's house.  He had been warning me for weeks that his major house renovation would still be underway when I arrived and I should expect a mess, lots of dust and an unfurnished house.  I've know Jay for a long time, so I was actually expecting a totally neat, dustless, partially furnished house.  Guess who won that one?  :)  Jay moved from downtown Philadelphia to Malvern in April and started a massive renovation on his new house in August.  It is slated to be done by the end of November, so I was excited to see the house since most of the major work (architectural changes, carpentry, design work, etc.) would be done.  Jay has a long history of buying homes, completely renovating them, living in them for a few years and selling them to move onto another project.  He really had to use his imagination on this house - it required a ton of work to get to the standard he is accustomed to in his homes.  It's absolutely beautiful and he regaled me with stories of the next 10 projects he has planned for the house, including: additional landscape, dormers on the roof, a new facade on the front entrance - the list goes on!  I think he'll be there a maximum of 3 years before moving onto the next project so we'll see how many of the things on his list actually get done.  We ran out to lunch at a great Oyster House and got caught up on Intuit (he still works there) we also had a great conversation with our waitress about tattoos because she overheard us talking about a RIDICULOUS tattoo our mutual friend, Jeff, wants to get.  She agreed that a nautical star tattoo was "cheesy" and 34 was too old to get new tattoos when you are a corporate professional.  I wanted to record her commentary and send it to Jeff, but didn't.  Maybe next time someone shares similar thoughts on the matter (which is sure to happen soon) I'll record them and pass it along.

We went to a fabulous place in Wayne, PA for a Tapas dinner.  DELICIOUS!  Our waiter exhibited some inadequacies that made him terrible at his job, but we just laughed it off and enjoyed a leisurely dinner at his expense.  Jay had meticulously prepared his guest room for me and I slept a peaceful night in the most heavenly bed of all time.  It was like floating in a cloud of fluffy goose down.  I told Jay that if I wasn't up by 8:00 am to wake me because the bed was so comfortable that I might just sleep straight through the day.  I did wake up at 7:00, but choose to laze about in the goose down cloud until 8:00 anyway.

Jay has 2 dogs, Judy and Sadie, and he tells tales of their mischievousness all the time.   I was expecting to be impressed by their terrible behavior.  Hmmm...  They were both so well behaved that Jay kept telling me that they were "making a liar of him".  I am not sure what to believe.  Judge for yourself:

Perfectly angelic dogs under Jay's desk

More perfectly angelic dogs posing for the camera!

Judy patiently staring at her ball waiting for someone to play catch with her

I had to get on the road to Baltimore by mid afternoon, so we ran out to do some errands and had a yummy lunch at the White Dog Cafe.  My time with Jay was too short, but I will look forward to another visit when the renovation is done - maybe in the Spring.  More on my time in Baltimore in the next post.