We're going day-by-day reliving an eleven-day trip that I recently took with my great friend Amber to Las Vegas, Philadelphia and New York. Before you read about Day 4, you might do well to read about Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3.
Friday, May 25, 2018
The Philadelphia Marriott was crawling with cartoonist friends. Every trip through the lobby, I'd run into some. When we went up to pick up our badges, we ran into some. In the elevator, a woman who was not with our group asked me, "What kind of convention is this?" I told her it was a gathering of the National Cartoonists Society and she sighed and said, "I hope no one draws an insulting cartoon about me."
Amber and I had planned to do sight-seeing for part of the day today as there are many fine sights to see in Philadelphia and we saw only a few our last visit here. But I needed to do some foot repair and not walk a lot, and Amber still didn't have an appropriately fancy dress for the appropriately fancy dinner the next night — something that would look proper alongside me in my tux and divert attention from the moth holes in my tuxedo.
We brunched at the Reading Terminal Market. She had fried rice. I surveyed the countless offerings and decided on the same thing I had the last time I was there — the turkey at a stand called The Original Turkey. Terrific food, well worth traveling 2,718 miles from my home. Then she went off in search of The Greatest Dress in the World and I went back to my room to attend to sore feet and to finish up a script that should have been done by half-past Vegas.
I wrote for a while. Amber occasionally texted me a video from a Macy's changing room of her trying on a dress to get my opinion — certainly one of the reasons the Internet was invented. She picked out a great one.
The NCS had a casual-dress welcome party/dinner that evening and we all cheered as an award was presented there to veteran cartoonist Arnold Roth. I'm of the mind that every organization that gives out awards gives out way too many of them but this one made so many people happy (not just Arnold) that it seemed very right.
I spent a lot of time that evening and over the next few days with Nick Meglin. He was funny and altogether Nick-like and none of us, of course, imagined that soon there would be no more Nick Meglin. The time we spent together now seems very special and I'm very grateful for it.
Tune in tomorrow for the next installment of Amber and Mark's Excellent Adventure with our special guest, Jake Tapper.