movin', movin', movin', keep 'em doggies movin'

My dear ol' dah-ling and I have relocated to the city of Brotherly Love. I am in the last week of "vacationing" (which really means unpacking, trying to figure out what that awful death-like smell in the kitchen is, managing my challenges with the local law enforcement, sanitation, and DMV, AND working on my dissertation) before I start work on the 15th.

Philly is a nice city. It feels a bit smaller than I am used to but I have to admit, I have only been in a few areas of Philly (mostly south philly, so this judgment is based on my travels in 1/4 of the Philly city limits). It is a lot more Italian-American than I had expected. But, again, there is a caveat here, I do live in the Italian Market area- the heartland of Philly's Italian community. It is very nicely bike-able. I am looking forward to making it part of my regular commute and being on a reduced car-life. I will be biking 4.4 miles to my colleague's on a regular basis so that we can commute to work across the river together. I couldn't commute to work because, not only is it about 12 miles from home, it is also mostly on the highway.

An exciting culinary development occurred in my house the other day. My spouse purchased a small (approx $10) grill. The legs fold up and it looks like a spaceship. We did the typical grilling of a steak and some veggies. It was delicious but that was not the revelation. We tossed two super ripe and soft plums on the grill too. A few minutes later, we had these mind-blowing, unnaturally bright fuschia mushy orbs of yummy goodness. Wow. We just grilled up the rest of the plums last night (we had about 3 pounds of plums). Now I am looking for more things to grill now.