I Love Philadelphia With These Friends

There's something about a friend who picks you up early on a Saturday morning and has these waiting in the car for you.

Can you tell from Jenica's face where our first stop was when we arrived in Philadelphia?

It was also pretty incredible to have these two friends in the city with us as well.  We made them meet us at Federal Donuts.

Jenica and I ordered one each of the hot donuts - vanilla spice, strawberry lavender, and cinnamon brown sugar - as they are a donuts from heaven and must be eaten immediately. 

Jenica made donut art.

We dropped Ryan off at his hotel and we went to the Mutter Museum to view medical oddities.  This was the only photo I was allowed to take inside the building and it was raining so hard all day that I forgot to take photos outside.  This museum was crazy with objects like a 20 lb ovarian cyst.  It was fascinating.

We dropped Brigham off to run the Rocky steps at the museum and we went back to Ryan's hotel room for Jenica to get some work done.  I was just counting down the minutes until we picked Brig up to eat tacos!

I read about Los Gallos and it just always makes me so happy to find good tacos on the East Coast.  It doesn't happen often.  

We stopped off for gelato at Capogiro which was down the street from the club where Ryan was performing that night.  Once again, pretty cool to be with the entertainment walking into the club and being seated in the front.  Ryan was still funny the week after I had just seen him perform.  But this time we were all able to hang out in the green room in between Ryan's sets. 

At the end of the day, we dropped Brig off at the bus station and I drove us home to DC.  It was a late night but so very worth it.  I'll travel far distances through pouring rain for donuts and tacos and it's lovely to have friends who will do the same!

My Friend the Comic

Sometimes I receive a text from a friend at 6 pm on a Saturday night asking if I want to attend a Ball that night.  And of course I say yes.  I then frantically search through my clothes for anything to wear until I realize that no one will really care what I'm wearing.  I'm not famous.

My friend Ryan was in town a couple of months ago to perform at the Leukemia Ball.  I didn't realize how big of a deal it was until I arrived and saw a massive room full of people laughing at Ryan's performance.  I loved it even more because I hung out with him in the green room and walked with him through the kitchen to the stage.  I like seeing how the famous people live.

This was my first time seeing him perform and he's really funny.  There's something kind of incredible about watching a friend succeed at doing something that I cannot even conceive of doing.

We stuck around to watch Huey Lewis and the News perform all of the great 80s hits that I forgot I knew.

Ryan was just on Conan last week.  It's worth watching.

Let's All Admit to Crushing On Tig

I admit to being a little surprised when I heard that Tig Notaro was organizing a comedy festival in DC.  I also immediately bought tickets for the shows I could attend. 

The Bentzen Ball was named for a man who died laughing while watching A Fish Called Wanda.  Apparently, it's the resurrection of a comedy festival that DC had a few years ago and Tig wanted to start up again.  She teamed with Brightest Young Things and it pretty much all sold out.  I'm hoping this means it will return next year.

Jenica and I bought tickets for the opening night to hear Tig with Doug Benson, Wyatt Cenac and Heather Lawless.  I have been listening to Doug Loves Movies for over a year now and it's one of my favorite podcasts.  I was excited to finally see Doug perform.  And I've heard Tig on This American Life and other interviews and was super excited to finally see her in person.  Everyone delivered and then some.  I started to crush on Wyatt Cenac as well.  This show was worth standing in the 930 club for close to 3 hours.

And then Brigham came into town the next day for another reason on Saturday (more later) but he changed his life around to make sure to be there for Friday night especially to see Doug Loves Movies.  There was some definite excitement at trying to figure out who the guests will be.  Brig spotted Sam Levine aka lil wolverine through a door and we were pretty smiley to finally see him on stage after hearing him on the podcast for so long.  He takes this game very seriously which I truly appreciate. And Tig showed up!  With Kate Micucci and Riki Lindhome aka Garfunkel and Oates.  It was the kind of lineup I could only be happy with.

Tig and Sam.  Tig was looking in that direction a lot because her girlfriend was off stage helping her through most of the games.  At one point, she came up on the stage to sit next to Tig.

Some of the folks who brought name tags trying to get noticed by the famous folk.

I like that Brigham only comes to DC to watch podcasts.