A Small Disappointment Saved by a Sandwich

On Saturday, we went to the BeadFest at the King of Prussia Convention Center. (For those who don't know, it's near Philly, and about 90 minutes or so from my house.) This show is THE BIG ONE (since I won't/can't go out to Milwaukee for the big Bead & Button soiree) and I was greatly anticipating this. I had a list of things to buy, and even printed out the map of the show, highlighting who was where (geek!! DORK!)

After we got there and looked around, it was obvious now that beading/jewelry making is so popular, they've gone and jacked up ALL the prices on supplies. I managed to get a few things on my list, but after two hours, my eyes glazed over and I was done. There are only so many rows of pearls and howlite dyed hideous colors before I shut down. (Howlite is a stone that is 'born' white, but takes to being dyed very well. It's passed off as turquoise a lot, and the trend now is to dye it hideous shades of pink, neon green, and most alarming of all, fluorscent orange. It's AWFUL)

As we left, I was very, very sad. I had really been looking forward to buying a big bunch of good stuff, and using them to make fabulous creations. Alas, I'll have to use the eight shoeboxes, and three tubs of stuff I've accumulated for fabulous creations. Ahem.

Obbie told me about a place that makes, "The best roast beef sandwiches you'll ever eat." so we went there. Traffic going into the city was horrendous, but that's life in the big city, and after awhile, we found the place. "Nick's Old Original" on
20th and Jackson in South Philly. Trust me. If you've never eaten a Nick's roast beef, you've never had roast beef. Oh my. And gravy fries! I'm not one for gravy fries, since they usually are that gawdawful canned/jarred beeflike gravy, but these are heavenly. The gravy is real gravy, with chunks of beef. Almost as good as the sandwiches. I'm glad we split an order! We scarfed down the sandwiches, fries and pitcher of Yuengling in no time. Nick's Old Original is 'just' a bar. Small. Dark. Beery. Ooozing with character and characters. I cannot WAIT to go back again.

After the sandwiches of a lifetime, I took Obbie to IKEA. He's never been. And we wandered aimlessly for a very long time in their giant store. We have to go back with more money, because we found a couple really cool things for our show booth. Yeah, that's it, the booth. After that we headed home. I was sulking about the lack of goodies at the bead show, but kept smelling my hands to get the roast beef sandwich rush over and over again. Sicko.