Happy New Year?

Okay, by all available evidence anyone who actually reads this blog will have assumed that I vanished without trace in Philadelphia on December 27. That is not exactly what happened, but a whole lot of stuff intervened to stop postings.

Sunday the 28th Kate and Brenda had a lot going on so we spent the day as just the three of us, going to the Reading Terminal Market for lunch, then spending the afternoon at the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia's natural history museum, seeing dinosaurs and other fun natural stuff. The Academy claims to be the oldest natural history museum in the country and so far as I could tell, is. We had intended to stop at the Franklin Institute as well, but didn't. The Academy took up the whole afternoon.

Then we got together with Kate and Brenda for the evening. They had focused in on a menu delivered to our hotel by a Chinese carryout which had low-sodium and otherwise healthy stuff on it, so after checking to make sure they had an eat-in capability we took a cab there. It was good enough as a Chinese carryout but obviously did not cater to eating in; there were about three or four tables, tea was served in styrofoam cups, etc. We ate and then adjourned to a tavern on the corner. This redeemed what could have been a rather silly side trip to a Chinese place, because Kelliann's Bar and Grill, as the reviews linked to note, is a real neighborhood tavern, the find you find easily in Baltimore or St. Louis or Cleveland or Boston, but that are pretty thin on the ground in DC (except in all-black neighborhoods). Irish (-ish) with a significant proportion of the people there in Eagles jerseys [the Eagles had just clinched a wild card slot in the playoffs that day: I see now they've beaten the Vikings, so they must be happy at Kelliann's], with flat-screen TVs positioned so that no one doesn't have a view, and all generally on the same channel. Though we'd all eaten at the Chinese place most of us ate something again. Kate had a peach cider (not exactly standard draft most places). Guinness was served slow-draw. A serious little neighborhood joint.

Since Kate was tied up all day Monday we decided to take a longer route home and avoid the I-95 corridor. I knew Gettysburg had opened their new visitor's center in the past year, so we decided to amble out through Pennsylvania Dutch country and down through Gettysburg.

I woke up Monday morning, though, with a sore knee and ankle. At first they felt like I'd twisted them, and perhaps I had. By Gettysburg I was limping and in some pain. I have a tendency towards gout, but medicate for it; this did not at first feel like gout, but my doctor has told me that if I stub my toe or twist an ankle, that can lead to gout in that spot. Sure enough within a couple of days it was swelling up. The doctor wasn't around during the New Year, but I took what pills I had and am limping back to normal now. Kind of put a damper on the new year, though, as my norovirus put a damper on the runup to Christmas. I only spent one day in the office in two full weeks -- on December 30, but wasn't exactly having a lot of fun some of that time.

Happy New Year. More as I can.

.