I walk in and see Linda Walters, who is now Linda Walters McSwigan, and I recognize her instantly because even when she was a little girl she had the face of an adult, droopy and fixed and serious. She ran for classroom pr­esident in fifth grade, the same year in which I managed the campaign of Michael Tobin, who was our class’s most handsome, athletic and popular kid; one night he and I sat in his kitchen as I glued stars to a colorful poster and whipped up the memorable slogan “With Tobin the Terrific, You’re Always on Top!” All of the other “campaigns” gave out favors—licorice, Fun Dip—to woo voters. I did, too, but not to the other candidates, nor to their campaign managers. If nothing else, Catholic school teaches you tactical thinking.

I cheek-kiss Linda and a few other girls from Resurrection of Our Lord grammar school, Class of 1977, here for our 35th reunion. An odd year to mark, but Jimmy L­amplugh didn’t make the 25-year and he’s in from Ireland and what the hell, the beer will be good. We’re in a wedding-factory-type hall in the Northeast, a few miles from our old school in Rhawnhurst. About 70 graduates are in attendance—a decent turnout from a class of 120, especially when you consider the troubling fact that eight of us are dead.

High-school reunions are one thing, but in Philly, your Catholic grammar-school reunion is something special. To many, it’s the only reunion that counts. If you went through Catholic school here, you’re bonded in a unique way that people who went to public or private school just can’t understand.

I sit at a table, silently wishing I had dropped 20 pounds before coming, amazed at how little so many of us have really changed: Jimmy Drumm, a tough back in those days, is a cop; Lisa Cosenza, loud and brash and bawdy at the age of seven, is still all of those things at 50. I turn to Debbie Wilson Kovach, to whom I basically proposed marriage in seventh grade, only to be crudely rebuffed (Me: “You turned me gay.” Her: “Sorry”), and remark that my 30-year public-high-school reunion turned out 13 percent of the graduating class; here, we have almost 60 percent. I’ve heard similar numbers for other Catholic-school reunions.

Debbie mulls the strong showing. “Maybe it’s simply the fact that we all survived it together.”

But how many will in the future? It’s a question far more sober than Lent. In 2012, the Catholic-school population in the Philadelphia archdiocese—a sweeping land mass that includes the city and most of the adjoining Pennsylvania su­burbs—stood at somewhere around 68,000, which is roughly how many kids were enrolled in 1911. At their zenith in 1961, the region’s parochial grammar and high schools boasted enrollment of 250,000. That’s a total drop of 73 percent over 50 years. And the pace has only picked up: The archdiocese has shed a third of its student population in the last decade.

For someone like me, the verdict here—that the Catholic-school system in Philadelphia is disappearing, school by school—is incomprehensible. In a parochial city such as ours, parochial school has been a tie that binds for generations, as much as neighborhood or ethnicity. We who attended find one another and instantly start talking about the nuns, the discipline, the sacraments, the uniforms, the loudspeaker announcements, then the discipline some more, then the nuns some more. My mother and her hairdresser posse still dine out on horror stories about infamous Sister Bernard Loyola, at St. Columba at 24th and Lehigh. These women went to grammar school in the 1930s.

The archdiocese knows all of this, of course. It knows its schools are an enormous cultural bond in Philadelphia. It also knows they’re dying. Which is why it’s handed the keys to its education system to a new, outside initiative in a last-ditch effort to stanch the bleeding. I just wish I could really believe it’s going to work.

It’s ironic, I suppose, that what I’m missing is faith.

My t-shirt is soaked like a dishrag; my foam rubber mat resembles a Jackson Pollock canvas. It’s lunchtime, and I should be eating a sandwich somewhere—preferably one loaded with processed meats and trans fats. Instead I’m trying to catch my breath in an Old City workout studio, surrounded by 21 women who appear to be perspiring much less than I am. They’re mainly in their 20s and early 30s, fit, fashionable—no baggy tees and ill-advised spandex here. By comparison, my Sixers t-shirt and Champion shorts give me the look of a sweaty, hyperventilating hobo. I’m gripping two elastic resistance bands that dangle from the ceiling, trying, largely in vain, to keep up with the choreography in a class called “Weightless.”

“Arms are going to stay low,” says the cheery instructor, Lauren Boggi, through her headset microphone. “It’s just stiletto and flat, up and down, squeeze the glutes!”

The club music pulses as the women around me flap their bands and make sharp, distinct movements that would do Beyoncé’s backup dancers proud. Booties are slapped. Struts are fierce. I flop around like a just-caught mackerel on a dock.

“You got it!” says Boggi.

I don’t.

Welcome to Lithe Method, the made-in-Philly boutique fitness craze that has made otherwise sane women wake up at 5 a.m. to check the Internet and see if they’ve escaped wait-list limbo for a crack-of-dawn session. (As one classmate tells me later, “If you’re not registering three weeks in advance, you’re not getting in.”) Lithe was founded by Boggi (pronounced BOH-gee), a peppy blond firecracker whose self-described “ca­rdio-cheer-sculpting” kingdom will soon include five locations, spanning from the city to the Main Line to a soon-to-open outpost in New York City’s trendy Flatiron District. “She’s like Joan Shepp,” says Boggi’s former publicist, Nicole Cashman, comparing her to the Philadelphia designer-boutique doyenne. “Joan was a trailblazer in her industry 40 years ago. Lauren is doing the same thing in the fitness world.”

Lithe’s classes have cheeky names like “Skinny Mini” and “Arm-istice” and incorporate “Lithe-exclusive props” like the resistance bands and trampolines, wrapped in tidy but brutal one-hour workouts. At the center of it all is Boggi, today in a white sports bra and black yoga pants, her hair in a swishy ponytail. At 35, she represents Lithe’s aspirational, but relatable, fitness ideal: Unlike the waifs and Gumbys who populate most yoga and Pilates studios, Boggi is a four-foot-11-inch powerhouse, with muscular thighs and steely abs that offer no evidence of self-deprivation. She talks freely about her curves, and her recent struggles to lose baby weight. She has the workout instructor’s cadence down cold, striking just the right balance between life coach and drill sergeant. “Shake it!” she exhorts. “Really tuck. I want to see cellulite in the right cheek.” Boggi still sounds like the cheerleader she was in college, but not the kind you want to see tormented in a horror movie—she’s the one on the dean’s list who’s nice to the nerds.

She moves us to the barre. I grip it with both hands while holding the tension bands, trying to keep my left leg in “stiletto” position, perched on the ball of my foot as if I’m wearing an invisible five-inch Louboutin. We do squats, knee lifts, reverse lunges, all in sets of 30. I consider myself to be in pretty decent shape, but by the final set, my calf is shaking with fatigue. Some of my classmates struggle with me; others, dead-eyed and focused, don’t tremble at all. Boggi has advised me to “not worry about anyone else. You’re focusing on survival.”

There were cheers and laughter when Boggi introduced me to the class. Few guys try Lithe, and of those who do, almost none come back. (Ass-shaking and “stiletto” moves hold limited male appeal.) What’s less obvious is why Lithe has become a certified phenomenon, a religion for the region’s most discerning and demanding female fitness junkies. It’s more than just a workout. It’s a clothing line (Lithe Wear), it’s health-conscious meals and drinks, including a cleanse (Lithe Foods), it’s even exercise getaways to chic villas in the Caribbean (Lithe Escapes), all orchestrated by the petite Boggi, Lithe’s L. Ron Hubbard. Says one Lither: “It’s a cult.”

Question 1: Guide to Obamacare

You think you can explain Obamacare? Really? Where do you even start?
Here’s what you have to know: As of January 1st, 2014, most Americans will be required to have health insurance or pay penalties. Most employers will have to provide insurance or face penalties. The states and the federal government are setting up exchanges to make shopping for insurance easier, and to let you see if you qualify for a tax credit toward your premium.

Question 2: Guide to Obamacare

I’m scared my company will stop offering health insurance once Obamacare kicks in. Could that happen?
Forecasts about what employers will do once the exchanges come online in October vary wildly. One survey found that zero out of 512 companies planned to drop health insurance, while another poll of 1,300 employers reported that 30 percent would. The problem with surveys that ask about future economic decisions, experts say, is that companies don’t actually make those decisions until they have to.

Here’s what we do know: Census Bureau data says employer-backed coverage for those under 65 eroded in nine of 10 years between 2000 and 2010, with only 58.6 percent of employers offering it in 2010. “Employers have been dropping coverage because it’s unaffordable, and this will continue regardless of Obamacare,” says Robert I. Field, a health management and policy professor at Drexel’s School of Public Health. “It’s possible now that some employers will drop it and blame Obamacare for their decision.”

The ACA makes dropping employee insurance almost a no-brainer. While it costs an average of $15,000 for an employer to provide insurance for a worker plus family, the employer will only pay a $2,000 penalty per employee for dropping coverage—a savings of $13,000 a pop. What’s more, the penalty only applies if the employee goes to the exchange, gets a policy and gets a subsidy. If the employee stays uninsured—or goes to the exchange and doesn’t qualify for a subsidy—the employer is off the hook.

But numbers don’t tell the whole story. What will ultimately stop many employers from dropping coverage—and has stopped them to this point—is the need to remain competitive in the labor market and attract the best employees. In fact, 87 percent of employers in one survey said they offer coverage to retain good workers. Theoretically, the tipping point would be if a large number of employers decided at the same time to drop coverage, effectively removing the benefits incentive from the table. Doing so, of course, would require a seriously organized effort.

Question 3: Guide to Obamacare

Will the insurance plan I have through my employer change?
Technically, no. The Affordable Care Act doesn’t mandate that employers have to change the insurance plans they offer to employees. In fact, a grandfather clause in the ACA states that plans that existed before the law was passed are exempt from many of its provisions—so long as those plans only undergo modest, routine changes. If your employer should make significant changes to your plan, such as cutting benefits or increasing your co-pays, it would no longer qualify for grandfather status, so your employer would need to offer you a new plan. In 2010, the Obama administration estimated that about half of employer plans would lose grandfather status by the end of this year.

Question 4: Guide to Obamacare

What are the “essential health benefits” that everybody’s talking about?
The term refers to a core package of health-care services, defined by the federal government, that’s required of all individual and small-group plans created since the passage of the ACA in March 2010. (Large-group and employer-provided plans are exempt; most already include these benefits.) The EHB designate 10 broad service ca­tegories—emergency services, maternity and newborn care, prescription drugs, ambulatory patient services and more—but it’s up to the states to decide what specific services fall within each category. Along with 20 other states, Pennsylvania and New Jersey went with a default option for deciding, as defined in the ACA; the former will follow an Aetna POS plan and the latter a Horizon HMO. Information about what’s covered in each state’s benchmark plan can be found here.

Question 5: Guide to Obamacare

I’ve shopped for health insurance before, and it was one big headache. Will Obamacare change that?
In theory, yes. Health insurance exchanges are online marketplaces intended to make insurance shopping easier by allowing for side-by-side plan comparisons based on quality and price. All policies offered on the exchange must include the essential health benefits, and there are caps for out-of-pocket expenses. Plans will be categorized in tiers according to their cost-sharing structure:

• Bronze for lower-priced plans in which the insurer pays 60 percent of costs and you pick up 40 percent.
• Silver for plans with a 70-30 cost-sharing split.
• Gold for plans with an 80-20 split.
• Platinum for plans with a 90-10 split.

Another plus: You’ll only have to fill out one application—a draft version posted online in March ran 15 pages for a family of three, and the government estimated it would take up to 30 minutes to complete—and if you qualify, you’ll see how much of a tax credit you’re eligible for right after you submit it. The exchanges will also include online calculators, glossaries and other resources.

“The strength of an exchange will be determined by the depth, specificity and accuracy of the information on it,” says Pamela Clarke, vice president of the Delaware Valley Healthcare Council. “We’re not sure yet how the information is going to be monitored—or who’s going to do the monitoring—to ensure it’s kept up-to-date.”

Question 6: Guide to Obamacare

Governor Corbett opted not to create a state-run health insurance exchange and instead will rely on a federal exchange. Does this matter to me?
Probably not. There will be little difference on the front end between state-run and federally run programs; both will include policies at various coverage and price levels, and use standard enrollment forms, marketing tactics and more. The difference is the back end, which will be managed by states, the feds, or a combination of both. (Under the ACA, states can reevaluate this choice each year.) Since Pennsylvania is one of 26 states opting for a federally run exchange—seven more chose state-federal ­partnerships—the federal government will have its hands full creating and implementing a new online database that merges tax files, immigration status, Medicaid information and myriad state regulations, all by October 1st. “There are going to be glitches. Websites are going to crash. We’ll find a lot of bugs,” says Drexel’s Robert Field. “People should expect that it will be a tough transition, and it will take time to work out all the kinks.”

Question 7: Guide to Obamacare

I’m happy my 25-year-old son can stay on my insurance. But what happens when he turns 26? His employer doesn’t offer insurance.
Take a closer look at the terms of your policy. Some children can stay on their parents’ insurance through age 30 in Pennsylvania and 31 in New Jersey, according to laws in those states. But if not, beginning in January, your son will be able to get coverage through the exchange. If he makes around $43,000 or less a year, he’ll be eligible for tax credits to help him pay for it. The credits can be applied to his premium each month, so he doesn’t have to wait until tax time for a rebate. If he’s really cash-strapped and willing to take a bit of a gamble, your son can get catastrophic coverage until age 30; it covers the essential health benefits and three visits with a primary-care doctor each year. Note that while his monthly premiums will be lower, cost-sharing for expenses beyond the covered benefits (if he needs an emergency appendectomy, say, or breaks his arm skiing) will be higher than under more comprehensive plans.

Question 8: Guide to Obamacare

It already takes me three months to get an appointment with my doctor. Will I be able to get in faster once Obamacare goes into effect?
Not likely, because there will be 29 million newly insured people seeking out primary- care docs. With only one in three ­doctors now practicing primary-care medicine, the Association of American Medical Colleges estimates we could face a shortage of 21,000 PCPs by 2015, swelling to more than 45,000 in a decade. Many older doctors are heading for retirement, and there aren’t enough med students choosing careers in primary care to fill their spots. While the ACA aims to create more primary-care residency slots through financial incentives and loan forgiveness for PCPs, some say it doesn’t do enough.

“ACA tinkers around the edges,” says David Nash, dean of Jefferson’s School of Population Health. “When a doctor comes out of medical school, he or she could be looking at $150,000 in debt—that’s a home mortgage. So many go into a specialty because it pays more.”

Question 9: Guide to Obamacare

If I can’t get in to see my primary-care doc, who is going to take care of me?
Under the new “patient-
centered medical home” model, your PCP will be like an air-traffic controller, orchestrating and managing your care with other providers and ultimately saving money by eliminating redundancies (you won’t need two MRIs for two different specialists, for example), increasing patient safety (Medications that don’t work together? A thing of the past), and encouraging patients to be more involved in wellness and prevention.

So while you should expect to spend more time at your PCP’s office, it may not be with your actual doctor. “The important role of the primary-care doctor will be to take care of complex medical problems, but all the mechanical stuff—g­etting your flu shot or a mammogram—could be done by somebody else in the office,” says Kay Kerr, chair of family practice at Main Line Health.

Question 10: Guide to Obamacare

My premiums just keep going up. Will the ACA do anything about that?
Probably not. In fact, it may make the premium predicament worse. “There are no clear, iron-clad guarantees that rates won’t go up by large amounts,” says Drexel’s Robert Field. Part of the problem, many experts say, is that the ACA doesn’t do much to address the underlying driver of premium inflation—that is, the actual cost of health care. We spend an average of $8,233 per person annually on health care in the U.S.—more than two and a half times what most developed nations do—and our health outcomes in many cases are worse.

On top of that, the ACA requires a new health-­insurance tax and minimum coverage levels, and outlaws discrimination based on preexisting ­conditions—all changes that will push premiums up. Then there’s the new rule that a plan’s oldest subscriber can’t be charged more than three times the rate of the youngest. This is a huge change for many states, including Pennsylvania and New Jersey, where current laws allow for 5:1 ratios or greater. While the measure may keep premiums down for older, sicker consumers, it could increase them for under-35s by as much as 30 percent. What’s more, if young people see rates go up, they may opt to pay the penalties and forgo insurance altogether, shrinking the pool of the insured and throwing off the ratio of healthy-to-sick within that pool. Meaning? Premiums go up again.

The Obama administration says there are enough provisions in the law to hold down premiums, including the health exchanges, which it says will keep insurers competitive. There are also measures to shield younger consumers from rate spikes, like allowing them to stay on their parents’ insurance and offering wage-based tax credits. In the meantime, the administration is keeping a close eye on rate changes, announcing in March that all requests for rate increases will be subject to review. The intention is to monitor market disruption now and tweak policies as needed before the meat of health-care reform goes into effect in January.

Question 11: Guide to Obamacare

I had to go to an out-of-network ER for chest pains. Will I have to pay extra fees?
According to the letter of the law, no, but there’s a catch. The ACA forbids insurers from charging higher co-pays or co-insurance amounts for out-of-network ER visits, and from imposing coverage limits that don’t exist for in-network care. However—and here’s the rub—nothing in the law prohibits hospitals from billing you later for any services your insurance doesn’t cover. This is called “balance billing,” and many states currently prohibit such billing for out-of-network care.

>>What’s the deal with free birth control pills? Click here for more of the Ultimate Guide to Obamacare.

“No matter where you go, there you are.”

A review typically requires more than one sentence, but when it comes to describing most hotel restaurants, Buckaroo Banzai’s eight-word epigram does the trick perfectly. Whether the rooms upstairs have a view of Central Park, Biscayne Bay or east Market Street, the dining room might as well be in Cleveland. There’ll be steak and salmon, a blue-chip wine list, and barely a whiff of whatever city lies beyond the doors.

The Hotel Monaco’s Red Owl Tavern has everything it needs to conjure a more compelling sense of place: a view of Independence Hall, an in-house butcher, and an executive chef groomed by Charlie Trotter. That would be Guillermo Tellez, whose deft hand with the spice box has made Square 1682—Red Owl’s crosstown corporate cousin—a decent destination even if you don’t have a room.

So it’s a shame that the Kimpton chain’s second Philly location fumbles its advantages. Aside from the handsome zinc-topped bar, the only tables that capitalize on the view are a pair of two-tops jammed into tight crannies next to the revolving door, and maybe a couple seats on the mezzanine. Anywhere else, and you’re soaking in the same weathered-wood-plank-and-exposed-brick atmosphere that 800 other restaurants have lifted from Pottery Barn. A tidy display of mason-jarred pickles rounds out the vibe: spacious, tasteful and, ultimately, banal.

That pickle juice is sugary, which made the carrots sparkle but overwhelmed more permeable items, including petals of lamb tongue that dripped too much sweetness into roasted marrow bones. Venison struck a better balance, with a huckleberry marinade—but the meat was mealy in spots. Sirloin filet trimmings deepened the flavor of a bacon cheeseburger, but the lettuce and tomato atop it were ice-cold. For $17, I’m not looking for a McDLT.

Such was the pattern: a few things to like in a dish, and then something else that marred it. Luscious house-made pastrami sandwiched in flaccid “grilled naan” without char. Exquisitely cooked sheepshead snapper over an underseasoned cassoulet. A dynamite linguica sausage—arranged on awkwardly oversized toast bites. A deep liquor list but completely forgettable cocktails. Even the beet pasta I loved at Square 1682 was gummy here. And service was a roll of the dice: swift and candid one night, clueless and interminable another.

Only one dish was a total flop—scallops ruined by salt—but only one hit my bull’s-eye: a surprise box of apple-cider doughnuts my server packed as a parting gift at lunch.

A pity that the most resonant thing about Red Owl was walking away from it.

Chanticleer

Wayne | 786 Church Road
The garden path may only be a mile long, but it’s a looping tour around the world. The Teacup G­arden is a verdant mess of tropical vines; the neatly planted cut flower and vegetable garden evokes Colonial days; and the clever Ruin Garden boasts partial stone walls, reflecting pools, sculptures and trees that, combined, nod to the 1925 home that once stood there. Flora is unlabeled on purpose; Chanticleer’s seven full-time gardeners are eager to engage.
Go to this Philadelphia public garden for: Whimsical metal gates, carved benches, tree ornaments and stone sofas, all crafted by the gardeners in the off-season.

Morris Arboretum

Chestnut Hill | 100 East Northwestern Avenue
This Penn-owned sanctuary is as historic as it is lush. The glassed-in fernery was built in 1899; the immaculate Rose Garden was created in 1888; and the serene Japanese Hill, rich with Far East specimens, dates back to 1905.
Go to this Philadelphia public garden for: Unplugging with the kids. There’s a soaring treehouse playground, and the Garden Railway, a not-so-small train that whizzes around a quarter-mile track, past mini versions of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Great Wall of China and Independence Hall.

Longwood Gardens

Kennett Square | 1001 Longwood Road
It’s one of the most lauded gardens in the country. (Yeah, we said country.) A du Pont envisioned this space, which gets more theatrical with every turn. There are water-fountain displays fit for Versailles, a ringing Chimes Tower, forests, meadows, and a mindboggling array of flowers. (Bring a real, non-phone camera.) Leave
time for the Gatsby-esque Conservatory, where rooms of gargantuan hanging planters, orchids, fruit trees and more will make you rethink your lame houseplants.
Go to this Philadelphia public garden for: Bragging rights. This is truly one of Philly’s greatest treasures.

Magic Gardens

Center City | 1020 South Street
There’s no grass, no fl­owers, no tweeting birds, but this garden is as mood-lifting as greener pastures. Artist Isaiah Zagar began excavating this South Street property in 1994; 14 years later, he finally finished. The result is a subterranean funhouse enveloped in mosaics crafted from tiles, mirrors, mini figurines and wheels. Plan your visit around one of the tours, artist talks (Zagar spins tales in his upstairs studio), classes or concerts.
Go to this Philadelphia public garden for: It’s a garden. It’s art. It’s pop culture. It’s activism. It’s downright fascinating.

Winterthur

Delaware | 5105 Kennett Pike
Less showy than Longwood (but equally spectacular), this garden, museum and library is another gift from the du Pont dynasty. Hard- and soft-scaped areas are expertly planned yet still natural-looking, and blooms arrive in waves of color. A tram provides an orienting tour; paths are meandering; the Enchanted Woods children’s garden even delights adults; the Americana objects housed in the museum are fabulously quirky. (The Campbell’s Soup tureens will inspire you to dust off your good china.)
Go to this Philadelphia public garden for: Well-run events, like this month’s Point-to-Point horse race, mommy stroller walks, and flower-arranging workshops.

View Philadelphia’s Best Community Gardens and Arboretums in a larger map

On a winter’s night 20 years ago, a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania who was working on an English paper heard a ruckus outside his dorm. A group of sorority sisters was singing, stomping and yelling, and he couldn’t concentrate. So he shouted out the window at them: “Shut up, you water buffalo!”

The young man, Eden Jacobowitz, was Jewish. The women he yelled at that night were black. He was subsequently accused of violating Penn’s policy against racial harassment. In the months that followed, what became known as “the Water Buffalo Incident” would threaten the confirmation of Penn’s then-president, Sheldon Hackney, as chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities; attract the attention of the ACLU, the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee; provide the world with a thorough gloss of the Hebrew word behema, which translates more or less to “ox of water” and is used in Israel, where Jacobowitz had lived and studied, to mean “thoughtless, rowdy person”; and be dissected, in such forums as the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Times of London, Rolling Stone, the Village Voice and the New York Times, as the ultimate example of political correctness run amok. The women eventually dropped their complaint against Jacobowitz, stating that the media uproar prevented them from getting a fair hearing. He graduated, sued Penn, went to law school, and went into human resources. No one involved in the incident wants to talk about it today.

The international outrage over what happened to Jacobowitz should have stopped PC in its tracks. Instead, that outrage was swept aside by a rising tidal wave of people claiming offense over nonsense. In the decades since, PC has spiraled out of control, starting on college campuses and graduating into the real world, eventually splitting the nation into two sides, red and blue, that don’t speak to one another, despise each other, and don’t even bother to try to understand the other’s point of view.

That, anyway, is the argument made by Greg Lukianoff, president of the Philly-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (a.k.a. FIRE), in his new book, Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate. He posits that political correctness has hamstrung free speech, resulting in a society where citizens lack the “experience of uninhibited debate and casual provocation” that keeps minds open and dialogue flowing. People lose their jobs because of jokes and misinterpretations; they’re hung out to dry in public when they misspeak; they quake in fear of being accused of “disrespect.”

Those who dare question whether these offended parties have actually suffered harm are shouted down by the hurt-feelings “sensitivity” industry and social media and news organizations trolling for hits. And the costs of disagreeing with the PC guardians ratchet ever upward—costs that all of us pay.

My style: I like eclectic, bold, whimsical interiors—vintage mixed with ethnic and a little bit of glam.

DIY drapery: They’re $20 canvas curtains from IKEA. I painted the pattern on them. I like that you can see the little mistakes, so it’s not just the same mod chevron print that everyone else has. It feels more unique.

Animal instinct: I’m drawn to animals. They bring life to a home, even when they’re inanimate. I have antique Staffordshire dogs that belonged to my grandmother, and lots of little brass animals.

Sofa: I love chinoiserie, and this has the amazing elephants and umbrellas and monkeys on it.

Ethnic flair: The artwork is a Mexican Otomi fabric that I framed. I like its handmade quality.

Lucky finds: The chair with the ikat print is from HomeGoods. It was made to be a dining room chair, and I had the legs cut off so it sits more at lounge-chair height.

In the pink: That pink ottoman is a thrift-store find. I wanted something round; you need different shapes in a room. I found three or four yards of amazing vintage pink velvet, and I used it all around the house. It’s got little dings in the velvet, so you know it’s old.

Happy place: I know my space is really kooky. I suspect there are people in my life who think it’s cool, but they wouldn’t want to live in it. But boring spaces depress me. To me, this is joyful.

My name is … Jen Childs. On my dad’s side of the family I go way back to the Mayflower, I think, and Childs is a very old American type of name.

I live in … South Philly, hon, in a rowhome that is 100 years old.

If you’re making me a drink … you’ll want to put bourbon in it.

The last time I drove a car was … 12 years ago, for a movie. I don’t drive. It’s my lot to be chauffeured.

The funniest film I’ve ever seen … is Young Frankenstein. There’s nothing else like it.

Comedy is … necessary, transformative and how I make my living. It’s also the hardest of all art forms. Failure is so instantly felt.

I’ve chosen Philly for my life … because it’s a place where things can happen. It’s full of contradictions, all this scrappy traditional history combined with a lot of really progressive thinkers and people who are moving art and business forward and changing the city in amazing ways. But then you’ve still got those waitresses at Villa di Roma.

If I had a pig, I would name it … Hubert. I don’t know why. It just sounds like a good name for a pig.

The first musical recording I ever bought was … Shaun Cassidy, the one with “Da Doo Ron Ron” on it. I’m 44. There are probably Justin Bieber fans who will have similar feelings 30 years from now.

When I was 16 … I lived in England for a bit with my father. That was the first time I saw Shakespeare: Kenneth Branagh in Henry V, in London. It was life-altering.

When I want to relax … I go to the steam room at the gym.

My daughter … is named Lily. She’s nine. I ask her questions like, “Does it feel like you have to throw up, or are you crampy?” She says, “Mom, if my pain was a stone, it would not be an arrowhead but a skipping stone, because it comes and goes in waves.” That was at three in the morning.

I go to church … pretty regularly, at St. Peter’s. My dad’s a pastor, so I grew up in church. My first kiss and breakup and everything happened there.

It’s My Party is about … women and comedy. My daughter turned seven the same year my mother turned 70, and they’re both such funny people in such different ways. And I wondered: Does a woman’s comedy transform as she ages? That’s where this show came from.

If I didn’t live here, I’d want to live in … France. My husband’s family has a house in Normandy, and it’s in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by cows and corn and apples. You have to drive to a nearby town to get wi-fi, or “wee-fee,” as they call it.

My height … is not much. Five feet on a good day. When I was at UArts, I had a teacher tell me to consider a career in radio because I was too short to be taken seriously. Now I have my own company, and she has passed away.

One thing you can’t do better than me … is the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle. I do it every Sunday, and I can finish them in 20 minutes. Ish. Depends on how often my daughter comes in and out.

I am deathly afraid of … failing.

Somehow, non-Asian parents have gotten the idea that demanding that their children work harder amounts to abuse. This is the opposite of their Asian-American counterparts. Remember Tiger Moms?

Anthropologists at UCLA have intimately studied the interactions of families in Southern California. “One of the major conclusions of the researchers,” Fox News reported, “is that the families focus mainly on their children—but not in a way designed to help those children stand on their own two feet. Instead, the focus seems to be on treating them almost like toddlers, fostering dependency on parents long after it’s wise to do so.”

I keep thinking back to another article in the Wall Street Journal, adapted from a book called Bringing Up Bébé and written about a year ago by an American mother. She spent some time in Paris and was amazed at how calm, well-behaved and self-sufficient French children are, especially compared to American kids. The reason for that is startling in its simplicity: In France, children do not run a fa­mily. Their parents do.

Demanding too little from our children has become a problem in this country. The Journal goes on to say: “For some, the specialized high-school test itself is clearly racist. Repeated demands have been made to change the entrance requirements. The NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund filed a complaint with the Department of Education in September of 2012, calling the test a violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.” Yet when free test-prep programs were made available to disadvantaged students trying to get into those elite New York schools, not enough black or Hispanic students showed up. Asian parents, on the other hand, impress on their children that failure in school is a disgrace to the family.

Too few black and Hispanic parents are pushing their children to do better. The same goes for white parents, which is why so few white students are getting into Stuyvesant, compared to Asians.

We have caved in to the foolish idea that being a good parent means being nice to our children, and making their youths as pleasant and free of stress as possible. We want them to win at everything, from dodgeball (scratch that—dodgeball is too violent) to grades, no matter if they’re lousy on the playground or lazy in the classroom.

But I’ve got news for today’s parents: You are doing your kids a gross disservice if you’re not preparing them for a world that really doesn’t give a damn if they are happy or not.

In a city where some people track the comings and goings of chefs as obsessively as others do center fielders, nothing stirs more hope than the prospect of reeling in The One That Got Away. For Philadelphia, Christopher Lee must be at the top of that list. The alumnus of New York’s Oceana, Jean Georges and Daniel really made his name at Striped Bass, on Walnut Street, where in the mid-2000s he won a James Beard Rising Chef award and just about every other accolade you can think of. Then, after a couple years, he went back to Manhattan. So news of his return was the foodie talk of the winter. It looked like East Passyunk Avenue, which just keeps getting better, would soon get better still.

But talk has a drawback: It doesn’t stir the saucepots. And neither does Christopher Lee—at least not often at Sophia’s, which opened in January. Lee lives in Long Island City, has a pub in Huntington, does consulting on the side, and commutes to Philly a couple days a week to check in on the kitchen but rarely actually cooks in it. “If someone calls in sick, I’ll jump on the line,” he told me over the phone from his car, but otherwise he plays a supervisory role while mulling whether to open his next restaurant in New York, Philly or Washington, D.C.

So that’s one important thing to know about Sophia’s.

Another is that you can get just about any sort of food you could possibly think of here—ravioli, sliders, tuna sashimi tacos, paella—but there’s no telling in what order these offerings might arrive. My first dinner proceeded like a bizarre palindrome: entrée, entrée, appetizer, appetizer, a Caesar salad smack in the middle, then (in a porcelain avalanche) another appetizer-and-entrée pair. I’ve heard the “dishes come out as they’re ready” song before—lots of places these days value the kitchen’s convenience over yours—but this was the first rendition that made me wonder if a crème brûlée might actually knuckleball its way in between seared scallops and Spanish fries.

The restaurant attempts to provide cover for this randomness with a menu split between “bites,” “salads and sides,” and two sections of what are being called “larger plates”—defined by one of my servers, somewhat comically, as “larger than small plates.” (Yet perhaps smaller than large plates; when pressed, she eventually admitted that most people would just consider them “entrées.”) Whatever you call them and however you share them, that’s a lot of mismatched dishes to pitch into the same dinner. But hold onto your helmets, sports fans, because here comes the spitball: “cheesesteak soup dumplings.”

It was the first item on the menu, and the last words I should’ve dared to utter within 10 feet of a server’s earshot. Cupped in the dimples of an escargot dish, half a dozen short-rib-and-onion-broth dumplings bore a lattice of parmesan, crisped with a blast of heat that hardened the crowns of my unfortunate dumplings themselves. These were a gimmick twice over, as mine doubled as a dead ringer for soggy-bottomed nachos.

There are two schools of thought about restaurant ordering. One deems it unwise to order things that sound disgusting. The other advocates the exact opposite: If something sounds weird or ill-advised, it’s gotta exceed expectations. The former philosophy will serve you best at Sophia’s. The latter will only enrage.

And for some folks who walk into the intimate barroom in this charming old rowhouse, or dine in the unaffectedly atmospheric second-floor dining room, that and the moderate pricing may be sufficient. Chef de cuisine Oris Jeffers turned out some enjoyable dishes in my visits. A wine-braised lamb shank was as simple and honest as Sunday family supper, and it soothed the soul just as ably. Apple-and-chestnut ravioli were delicate and velvety, with a sweetness that really sang in the presence of cracked pepper.

There were also a couple more idiosyncratic winners. Pistachio-sauced scallops with cauliflower hit savory, tart and sweet notes by way of capers, kumquats and a honeyed verjus. Paella got an unconventional two-stage risotto-pancake treatment, but the rice’s crispy finish aped the essential socarrat texture under a heap of separately cooked seafood touched with paprika oil.

But those few stars were trapped in hopelessly scrambled constellations. My d­inners—all of them—were incoherent and error-prone. Dishes clashed rather than complementing one another. Most of the “fun”-sounding ones were flat and boring. Carelessness afflicted too many others. Brussels sprouts were overcooked (really half-carbonized). Ice creams came in pools of their own melt. There’s a lovely apple coffee cake from Fond’s Jessie Prawlucki—but one night it turned up fridge-cold, in a kiln-hot bowl, after an inexplicably long wait.

Sophia’s spent its first month tinkering with a menu the restaurant abruptly discarded. It’s hard to imagine this second take will last much longer. And who knows? A third stab could be the charm. But for Christopher Lee to resurrect the hopes some people had for his return to Philadelphia, he’ll need to do something to reverse the impression that he’s really just phoning it in.