Okay, so as I was saying, Friday was a wonderful day. And so was Saturday:

We started Saturday at the Farmer’s market. Apparently there are several markets all over town (heck, it’s a big city) but this one was down by the water on a pier. And it was awesome! People everywhere eating crepes and fruit and sugar snap peas and coffee-banana-chocolate gelato smoothies… okay, that was just me. I don’t know what anyone else was having.

We found a mushroom vendor who had absolutely everything: shiitakes, chantarelles, morels, and even truffles. He was selling these mushroom-farms-in-a-bag that looked totally cool under their bell-jars in the display (why didn’t I take a photo?), so I bought one for our hedgehog-sitter. The bug brick of potential mushrooms is supposed to produce 5 or more batches, so we’ll see.

From there we went back towards downtown to check out a big, smelly soap store called Lush. Cailin had to fill an order for her mom, and she filled her basket with some stuff for us, too. Okay, the stuff goes on her, but that is for me, too because she smells so dang good.

After that, I feel like I am forgetting something, but at some point we went to go see Shrek 2. It was pretty entertaining, especially for us Huyck’s and our affiliates: we like wordplay and puns, and this movie likes that silliness, too.

Again, my brain is shutting down, and I can’t remember what we ate for dinner that night, but I know we ate in, and I know it was good. Expect an update with the missing pieces after I dig deeper into my memory banks (read: Cailin, Teddy, and Clea).

And that was Saturday.

Sunday we had pancakes. Clea did a fabulous job whipping up the egg whites and folding them in, so we had some major fluffiness going on. Teddy and I, and probably Matt, too, all have a bit of a love/hate thing with the pancake. When we were growing up, our dad did breakfast on the weekends. He got really good at pancakes. The Classic Randy Huyck Pancake was– and you have to understand this was the early-mid 80s– the pancake was a Smurf. He got really good at making Smurf-shaped pancakes! It was perfect: he would make Smurf pancakes while we watched the Smurfs, adn then we’d come in and eat Smurfs with loads of syrup. It was… aw geez. Okay, it was Smurfy. You made me say it! I didn’t want to, but you made me!

Anyway, the main feature of the day was the redwoods at Muir Woods! It was the main feature of a lot of people’s days, but what can you do? It was Memorial Day. We had avery nice, quiet time walking the path and chatting for a while. It was reminded me quite a bit of the Douglas Fir/Western Hemlock forests Cailin and I lived in when we were in Olympia, Washington. I guess unfathomably tall trees are like each other that way.

Finally, we headed back to the ranch for some awesome New Mexico-style enchiladas a la Clea. She makes her own sauce from chiles she hordes from Santa Fe whenever she goes back home. It was soooooo goooooooood. There I go with the drooling again.

Feeling low-key after the delicious meal (and the cosmopolitans didn’t hurt the mellowness), we decided to try to watch Finding Nemo. We didn’t get all the way through, but we did get our heroes through the jellyfish gauntlet. That Ellen Degeneres is one funny fish.

Then sleep, and the vacation was over. Sad. Oh, well. We’ll just have to go back sometime so we can hit the MoMA or an art show or something else San Francisco has to offer. No arm-twisting necessary.

Well, It seems I am at least a week behind my life right now. Not only am I only just now posting about our great trip to San Francisco to visit my younger brother last weekend, but the stuff I ordered for my older brother’s birthday won’t ship from Amazon until the 18th. That’s more than 2 WEEKS after his birthday! Crap.

On the other hand, I have had a couple of the most productive days (artwise) I have had in a long time. And here I am, actually posting photos and some thoughts about my trip to SF. Better late than never, as they say.

So, we left for San Francisco after work on Thursday and got to Teddy and Clea’s apartment around midnight (2 AM our time) to find the futon made up, and a huge bouquet of roses on the table next to it! It turns out the flowers were in recognition of those two’s seventh anniversary that week, and not for us, but we happily enjoyed their color briefly before passing out after our long day.

Friday started with some light fog and a little misty rain, but that only lasted an hour or so, and as we walked down to the Haight past the Painted Ladies, it burned off quickly. The first place we tried to go was Kid Robot, which I have been admiring from afar for a while. They weren’t open yet, but there were some caffeine needs in the group, so we paused at a nice little inside/outside coffee shop to snack and sip. This was where I got my first caffeinated banana-coffee-chocolate shake of the weekend. This one even had peanut butter in it. I think it was called a Monkey Crank or something to that effect. I don’t usually need caffeine, but that was GOOD.

Anyway, once I was wired, I was ready to finish walking up the Haight to find my other main destination: Giant Robot. This was my favorite store from the trip, by far. I picked up McSweeney’s latest publication, edited by Chris Ware. I know I am not the first artist or designer or really any fan-of-all-things-badass to say this, but I want to make hot monkey love to Chris Ware. Sure, I’m married, and I don’t really swing that way, but this man is pure creative genius, and I want some of that.

Ahem.

Before I get back on subject, a quick geek aside: the McSweeney’s store is Fuseboxed! How cool is that?

Okay, back to the monkey love. No wait, not quite. Next thing I bought was an awesome comic from Ghost Shrimp Press called The Octopi and the Ocean, by Dan James– who, by the way, is something of a badass himself. Not hot-monkey-love-badass, but at least a pat on the butt for the man. I’m not the tattoo type, but if I were, I’d be using one of his octopi, and I could then bear my shame in Juxtapoz’s “Inkwell” column. Anyway, The Octopi and the Ocean is an awesome story involving a kid, his amusingly abusive parents, and some octopods and sharks, all in a battle over dominion of the sea. Read it. I mean it.

To round out my purchases, um, literally (cuz it’s 3-D, get it?), I bought a Scary Girl toy, designed by Nathan J.

Oof, am I still on the Haight? Moving on, we backtracked, stopping and several very cool clothing and shoe stores. Clea tried on a few pairs of shoes, and I mostly drooled on the ones on display. Nothing I had to pay for, but I did get out my hankie to dry a few pairs off.

Finally we got back to Kid Robot. It was awesome, too, but there were so many cool toys to choose from that I couldn’t really choose. I ended up getting a little capsule toy by a Japanese guy I don’t know anything about, Hideyasu Moto.

By that point we had been walking around for a long time, and even though I wandered into another comic shop on the walk back to Teddy’s apartment, I was overruled, and we went back to make some lunch.

After gobbling up some sandwiches and carrots and celery, we got into the car and drove out to the ocean to check out the ruins of this crazy turn-of-the-LAST-century bath house. By this time, it was a gorgeous day, and we stood out on a precipice and watched a flock of pelicans riding the air currents and talking about flying vs. invisibility.

Finally, we headed back to the neighborhood to go to Godzilla Sushi. I was drawing in my sketchbook before we left for the restaurant, so Teddy suggested I bring some paper to draw on at the restaurant. They collect Godzilla drawings that the customers do on their napkins or whatever, and put them up on the wall. The food was great, and I left the drawing I did next to the tip when we got up to go home. I don’t know if they put it up, but maybe if you are there sometime, you can look for a drawing on an 8.5×11″ sheet of paper signed by DH.2004 and BoMo.

Obviously it was quite a full day. It was a lot of fun, though, and I’d repeat every step of it.

And this post got waaaaaaay too long, so I’ll do the rest of the weekend in another post (or two– I’m telling you: the weekend was action-packed!)