Yesterday, Lisa and I had our best date in a long time, and it all started at Manayunk.

With Lisa busy with final exams, and me swamped with fantasy baseball, we haven’t had time to spend an entire day together. The cosmos aligned yesterday, and we kept our schedules free in order to immerse ourselves in relationship building, evolution and development.

My boss told me about Manayunk. As he explained it, Manayunk is the area in Philadelphia where all the hip young adults hang out.

According to the Manayunk website, the neighborhood, located just north of Fairmount Park, “is a unique shopping, dining, and service destination with over 50 Chic boutiques and 30 restaurants and eateries. The town also has over 20 furniture and home furnishings stores, which is the largest concentration of furniture stores on one street in the entire East Coast.”

They weren’t kidding about the furniture shops. The first placed we stopped at was a furniture store called Dwellings. It was a two story warehouse filled with the trendiest and most comfortable furniture this bod has ever sat.

It was at this point I realized I was underdressed for Manayunk.

See, we had tickets later that night for Cage the Elephant at the Electric Factory. So when picking out my wardrobe for the day, I dressed for the rock show, wearing cords and a flannel shirt.

Nobody in Manayunk was wearing cordoroy or flannel.

Or as Lisa said, “I don’t understand your fashion.”

It’s the same fashion I wore when I was 16, and even then I was misunderstood.

Dwellings, though, was pretty much the most upscale establishment in Manayunk, and after that I felt a little more at ease with the atmosphere. We checked out a few more furniture shops, and realized I needed to make a whole lot more money if I ever plan to furnish a bedroom, much less an entire house.

There were some clothing and jewelry stores we checked out, and Lisa bought a pair of earrings. We grabbed a pick-me-up at the coffee shop and finished the day with dinner and drinks at the Manayunk Brewery and Restaurant.

The food and the beer were excellent. They had great appetizers of shrimp ceviche and baked plantain chips with guacemole. However, the service was left to be desired. The staff just didn’t seem happy to be working, and their attitude reflected in the way they dealt with the customers. Our waitress was the one sour note to the day.

But we didn’t let that damper our day, or the light sprinkles of rain.

Our date was fun and rejuvenating, and later on we made it to the Electric Factory and I was able to settle into my element, and teach Lisa about the ways of the rock show.

To be continued…