Dangit. What a bad few weeks it's been for favorite stores of mine. First of all, Relli's Bakery, the place where we got those great brutti e buoni Sicilian cookies, closed when the proprietor retired. How I wish he'd trained someone to take his place instead! It's hard to find authentic, old-school bakeries these days, largely because the bakers worked their tails off to put their kids through college and then the kids went out and got office jobs. Too bad a few more of them don't opt to go into the family business. :-(

Anyway, on the heels of this news, Mark just told me that Pearl Arts and Crafts on South Street has closed down. PHOOEY. I used to love that place. DOGGONE it, that's really disappointing. Stupid freaking economy. Thank goodness we still have AC Moore relatively close by, or there'd be no art supplies at all near South Philly on this side of the Delaware River.

Drat that these good stores have closed, with nothing springing up to take their place. :-(