Annual Report

So: A year ago today, we bought this rowhouse in Philadelphia's Brewerytown neighborhood.
No Parking! { .img-caption } !!! tip "Previously:" - First 90 Days - Six Month Report It took me a long time to put a name on how many people reacted when we announced the plan to move here, but the overwhelming response boiled down to, "did you lose a bet?" and at least one friend who was sincerely worried that something was horribly wrong with me, Kath, or our marriage, and that was the driving force behind the move. As we've been here and told the stories about what we've been doing here, those questions have dwindled to a trickle. The year was overflowing even when we forget about the move: - The company I'd worked at for the previous 4 years rather suddenly went out of business two weeks before the closing date on this house. - ...and luckily I was able to return to my long-time employer Art+Logic and keep working with just enough time to pack, move, and unpack (and in an odd coincidence, today will be my final day working at Art+Logic. More about that in a different post). - Kath spent 5 weeks in California with her mom. - ...and while she was there, my mom passed away. - our pup Scarlet went back and forth between feeling great and having more serious health problems. She loved being a city dog for 10 months, but we had to say goodbye to her just after Christmas. - We got to see the kids pretty frequently, getting between the NYC area and Philly is a pretty easy thing to do. - and bringing things full circle, today is my last day working at Art+Logic. Highlights {#highlights} Neighborhood {#neighborhood} This is exactly the kind of weird, noisy, urban environment that I wanted to live in (I mean, first choice would have been one of the fancy old-school neighborhoods where the rich folks live, but...) Our little corner is filled with a bunch of excellent neighbors who have provided all kinds of useful advice, support, and fetching of unattended packages from the stoop to get ahead of porch pirates. This summer brings the World Cup, and the national Fan Festival site is just a few blocks from here at Lemon Hill Park; it's expected to bring 15000+ people every match day. I'm very curious to see what effect that has on the area, both during the 5 weeks of the world cup, and afterwards. Food {#food} This is a really great food town. We've been enjoying exploring the restaurant offerings in different neighborhoods, and much of the weight that I had lost in the year before we moved here has somehow come back to me. There's a first-rate brewpub almost directly across the street from our house -- a small thoughtful menu that's updated frequently, a well-curated beer selection, and (most importantly) a happy hour burger special that I have more frequently than I should. Around the corner is an incredible Filipino restaurant that was included in Philadelphia magazine's list of 50 Best Restaurants in town. Music {#music} I've made it to 20 concerts since we moved here; about half of those were presented by Ars Nova Workshop, an organization I've been following for a long time, and knowing that they would be offering a steady diet of music that's squarely in my wheelhouse was one of many factors that made me want to move here. The bigger deal was that last fall I got to take part in a composers' workshop organized by the PRISM Quartet and the Free Library of Philadelphia. They, along with a small group of performing artists, worked with a group of local composers over four sessions to write new pieces for any combination of available instruments culminating in a concert performance at the main library on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. My piece "Brewerytown Cycles" was written for the PRISM quartet and drums, performed by 2024 Pulitzer Prize winner Tyshawn Sorey.
PRISM concert { .img-caption } Etc. {#etc} One of the biggest things that I wanted out of this move when we first started considering it was that I wanted to live in a place, not near a place. For the 35 years we lived in northern NJ, it always felt like all the amazing things were happening in New York City, and on one hand it was easy to get there, but in practice, it was a hassle, and took an hour, and it was easier to just stay home most of the time. It's very different here -- we're a 10-15 minute walk to the Museum, the Zoo, Boathouse Row, there are 4-5 major SEPTA bus lines stopping more or less outside our front door that get us anyplace in the city easily. The gap between "hey, something that looks fun is happening" and "hey, we're at the fun thing" is very very small. The House {#the-house} I had previously written about part of the renovation work we had done on the house; the missing part of that story was the work to turn an empty generic bedroom into a workable office; that part was wrapped late in the fall. Our contractor fabricated and installed some beautiful built-in shelves and painted, and I cobbled together an excellent desk/music workstation from a Home Depot workbench and a keyboard drawer.
Before { .img-caption }
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Mostly moved in { .img-caption }
Ready for work { .img-caption } I like it here.
Snowy night { .img-caption } Backlinks: {#backlinks} - Renovations (part 1) - Goodbye Scarlet View Change History