You have to love the CEO (I do, at least) who walks down the steps of his own immaculate corporate lobby to lead you up to the meeting. Who talks (fluently, seamlessly) about the genesis of shirts, the affability of a certain car mechanic, the allure of the farm and the sea (also the fish-stocked stream), and the holism of a certain river before settling into the meeting itself—a review of numbers and themes. I see this man once a year, maybe twice, if I'm lucky. What makes him extraordinary is his willingness, always, to grow. I guess I should mention that he runs an extraordinary company extraordinarily well. Which isn't precisely beside the point. It's in addition to.
Some people just have it all, and I'd wager that they're the ones who figured out long ago that personal wealth is not in the end about money. It's about how we reach toward the world, and how we allow the world to reach back out to us.
City Hall, the mayor's home, as viewed from the 22nd floor of the former PSFS Building, now the Loews Philadelphia Hotel.
This year my husband surprised me at Christmas with plans he'd made for an entire evening out. Philadelphia would be our destination—an upper room with views in the impeccable
Loews Philadelphia Hotel, located in the former PSFS building; a matinee showing of
Tango Fire; and a dinner at
Amada, the Jose Garces (you might have seen him on the TV show, Iron Chef) tapas restaurant. A night like this would be special by any accounting; it was and is especially wonderful for me—an evening like no other in my married life.
I love Philadelphia; you know that I do. I loved our lunch at the
Reading Terminal Market before the show, loved walking, in anticipation, up Broad Street, loved stepping inside the melting pot that Philadelphia has always been—so many different voices and languages in the sold-out audience of the Merriam Theater. And of course, I love tango—fell at once for the passion and talent and acrobatics and commitment of the Fire dancers—and tapas are my favorite meal at any time; no one does them better than Jose Garces.
But if you look here, at these photos, you will find, between a picture from the Reading Market lunch and the view outside our hotel window, that something utterly unexpected happened during this already perfect afternoon and evening; the dancers from Tango Fire had come as well to Amada. I had my little camera with me. They acquiesced to a photograph. So that there I am, happier than I can say, among the things and places and man I love.
Hmmm, this is not consistent with my memories of client meetings when I was in the communications industry.
Are you saying they gave you the correct building address AND nothing was thrown at you in the parking lot?
I *knew* I was on the wrong team!
;-) A.