Move like starlings.

Pittsburgh regional accents mean that the names Tessaro's and Zarra's come out almost identically, which led to a lot of confusion when I heard people talking about them at the same time since I thought it was the same place. When I learned it wasn't, I said, "You need to emphasize the T and the A! ...that did not sound right."

The context is I was attending an ice cream social to recognize everyone graduating from the LIS program this upcoming August, myself included, since we won't have a formal graduation. Must be the off-season.

Most of the day was spent walking through the South Side neighborhood on one of Pittsburgh's fourteen nice days a year: mid-eighties, low humidity, bright blue skies with a few breezes and clouds. I took the bus halfway, walked over a bridge to get across the river, and then took another bus to get to the end of the main street so I could walk back. The trek started out with a visit to the Silver Eye Center for Photography, which had a very underwhelming exhibit but a very enriching conversation. Since I was the only one there, the guy manning the desk was able to be frank and say he didn't like the exhibit much either, and we figured it's because digital collage is so familiar to our generation we don't see why this project was worth the gallery space, which led to some talk on generation gaps and making room for new types of expression. So that was a win.

Farther down the street, I got a pair of used albums from an independent record shop, went to an aggressively non-Starbucks coffee house that had pinball machines in the back and got an iced coconut latte which might be the best version of that drink I've ever had, and then stopped at this place and walked out with a bunny. No, really. One of these little guys, which didn't go into my pack but stayed on my hip for most of the rest of the day. I could have helped myself, but as soon as I picked it up I didn't want to: it's got a gorgeous texture and good heft and it lets me hold a bunny again. I've named him Chalk. A lot of people noticed and asked about him, so I might take him out again sometime.

I wandered up 140 stairs to look over the neighborhood through a cover of trees and then wandered back down, enjoying the feral green of the hillside and the common joy of finding new streets to walk down in places I've already visited. I ended up getting a blackberry Italian soda and made a short visit to the local REI outlet for a long-overdue purchase of some climbing chalk, which I'll put to the test in the gym tomorrow.

Then it was back on a bus for the ice cream social, back to the house for a dinner of slow-cooked green beens with plenty of garlic, and had to stop and muse on how I'm only just now really getting to know the city. Which is a shame, since I'm leaving it so soon.