Catching up with Gisele Fetterman | Morning Newsletter
© Tyger Williams/The Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS
Gisele Fetterman, wife to John Fetterman and owner of the Free Store, poses for a portrait in Braddock earlier this month.
Weather-wise, it’s looking cloudy.
In today’s newsletter:
🌪️ Deep:We spoke with Gisele Barreto Fetterman, (former Second Lady of Pennsylvania, a.k.a. SLOP, the acronym she coined and preferred) about breaking the mold. 🔑
🦅 Funny: A guide to trash-talking the San Francisco 49ers: A service guide for Eagles fans.
🎼 Catchy: Philly beatmakers are finding community through their monthly gatherings.
In case you missed it, I’m strongly recommending real estate reporter Michaelle Bond’s trustworthy new real estate newsletter demystifying the market right now. To get her roundup of features, tips, home tours, and fun games every Thursday morning, sign up for free.
© Tyger Williams/The Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS
Gisele Fetterman talking with regulars at the Free Store in Braddock this month.
And go ahead and take a look at the first edition.
If you see this 🔑 in today’s newsletter, that means we’re highlighting our exclusive journalism. You need to be a subscriber to read these stories.
— Ashley Hoffman (@_AshleyHoffman, morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)
Next up for Gisele Fetterman: Firefighting, thrifting, and being ‘good at today’
🎤 And now I’m handing over the mic to politics reporter Julia Terruso:
Gisele Fetterman is a hugger, an easy crier, a thrifter and a proud Pisces.
She can be blunt and funny and also extremely self-effacing. It makes for a fascinating contrast to her more taciturn and sometimes gruff husband, now a U.S. Senator. I knew all this from covering the Fettermans during the Senate campaign, but I’d never really gotten the chance to spend an extended period of time with Gisele.
With the race over and her husband in Washington, I went to Braddock to find out what’s next for the former SLOP (Second Lady of Pennsylvania, a term she coined). Fetterman told me (as she’s repeatedly told others) that she has zero interest in a political career. She’s busy running two nonprofits in Braddock and training to become a volunteer firefighter. Yes, you read that right.
After her husband’s stroke (which she recognized the symptoms of, likely saving his life) she’s very focused on family and living in the moment. Don’t ask her what her five-year plan is. She’s busy focusing on today. Read my story on Fetterman and her post-campaign reflections here. 🔑
What you should know today
- With tears and smiles, Philadelphia bids farewell to the Geator.
- Bicyclist killed in Philly’s fourth hit-and-run in a week.
- A new owner is preserving faux Society Hill historic home and building condos around it.
- A collaborative monthly beatmaking club is getting some buzz.
- Speaking of a different kind of beat, our beat writers make their picks for the big NFC championship game.
- And the mayor of Atlantic City has the most epic Eagles game spread, with lobster tails and all the red meat.
- Columnist Jenice Armstrong’s latest is about a kind stranger who helped a woman deliver her baby on a North Philly street and tied off the umbilical cord with a shoestring.
An Eagles fan’s guide to trash-talking the San Francisco 49ers
It would be difficult for anyone to write anything more vital, poignant, and poetic about today’s most relevant showdown than Stephanie Farr’s completely on-brand guide to trash-talking the San Francisco 49ers. Here’s a sampling of some of the instructions.
1️⃣ Refer to the city as San Fran or Frisco, because apparently locals hate that.
2️⃣ Everywhere you look, lean into the skill use of Full House jokes and memes.
3️⃣ Do some math and make it all about how we have “half the housing cost, twice the attitude.”
Get the full guide to trash-talking the San Francisco 49ers.
❓Pop Quiz❓
What words does the Philly-area man running Liza Minnelli Outlives, Twitter’s most unlikely source for breaking news, live by?
A) Reality is something you rise above
B) Living La Vida Liza
C) Put Liza first
D) What good is sitting alone in your room?
Find out if you remember the answer from Taylor’s recent newsletter edition.
🧩 Unscramble the Anagram 🧩
The place where you’ll find what is said to be one of the country’s oldest rose gardens.
GNAWMENTOR
Hint: 🇩🇪 + 🏘️
We’ll select a reader at random to shout out here. Send us your own original anagram to unscramble if you’d like. Email us if you know the answer.
Photo of the Day
🎶 For today’s Sunday track, we’re listening to the song that sounds like this: “Little bitty pretty one. Come on and talk-a to me. 🎶
👋🏽 Enjoy your Sunday today. “Nothing is worth more than laughter. It is strength to laugh and to abandon oneself, to be light.” — Frida Kahlo.
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