i had an outing yesterday. first, i went to the flea market, and it was almost exactly like the mesa swapmeet, but less huge and rambling and hence better. there were a bunch of guys doing a drum circle, and this dude who had a cowbell couldn't keep a beat. he kept casually walking around, trying to find someone to stand next to and watch so he could magically find the beat. it did not work.

then, i took BART into san francisco. the trains go through a tunnel under the bay -- i need to look that up and see how it works. i was worried i wasn't going to know when we were in the tunnel, but then my ears starting popping, so there was no question.

i walked around in the mission district, where hip people live. i felt all day that i was not dressed cool enough. but anyway, it was pretty and fun, and the bookstores were excellent. i bought a book of short stories by TC boyle -- according to the inscription on the cover, a guy named ryan gave it to someone named dave because he remembered dave liked short stories, and ryan was nice enough to go through the table of contents and star the stories he particularly enjoyed. some of the stories are even double-starred. i ate dinner at a taqueria that had very good, creamy horchada. i walked over to the actual mission, which was lovely. i like big churches -- go big or go home, religious people.

here are some pictures:


see what i mean about mission dolores? it ain't here to play around. the original mission in the little white building on the left obscured by trees, btw.


i don't know what this shop was, but their window display was rocks surrounded by a layer of plastic bottle caps.


this might be hard to see, but it's a drycleaner that advertises itself as environmentally friendly, which i thought was funny.

grocery shopping has become a more high-risk endeavor than it was in AZ. i always, always, ALWAYS forget that i have to be able to carry all of what i buy at once. so today, at berkeley bowl, i bought this huge can of tomatoes, not realizing what a mistake it was until i was bagging it. but i'm always surprised at what can fit in two bags, and i think you can really fit a lot more in the average reusable bag than you can in a paper bag.

UPDATE ON THE TRANSBAY TUNNEL: omg! according to wikipedia, it's not under the bay, but rather it sits on the bottom of the bay. it was built in sections and then placed out there and weighted down. sweet! so it's not really a tunnel, i guess.