I must say this year is shaping up to be pretty crappy, indeed. 2015 and I have not started off as friends and I anticipate parting under the same circumstances, the way things have been going.

 I'm off dealing with all of what makes it crappy.  But one little respite (because we desperately needed one) came last week when we drove up to Philadelphia to see a friend in a play.  It was a lovely old little theater and a great production of The Three Musketeers.  And Alexandre Dumas gave my kids Three Musketeers candy bars at intermission while I was in the bathroom.

 We got there early and had some time to kill so we took a tour of Eastern State Penitentiary - something I've wanted to do for awhile now, but for some reason, children under seven are not allowed and every time we've been in the area, we've had one of those things.  This was the first time they would let us in without leaving one of the children tied up to a bike rack outside.  

 It's a fascinating building in use as a prison for nearly a hundred and fifty years - from 1829 to 1971 - and almost completely unchanged since it closed it's doors. 

 I didn't have a great camera with me and would love to go back and photograph it for real, but here are a few shots from a smarty phone.  They're pretty, handy, these smarty phones.