Happy Birthday to Me!

takeout from Firehouse Pizzeria

Mine

A mysterious package came in the mail today!

Happy Birthday, Tom!

A walk to the Bistro for cioppino. We spotted Peter and Carmen out the window.

Back home for lucky eyeball cake.

Lunch at Lucille's

Lucille made a spinach salad with mangos, apples, oranges, carrots, peppers, and chicken. Asiago cheese and pan crackers with pecans. Sparkling wine. She doesn't let up in her fight for literacy at the state level--and she tutors kids in her home on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Down the Coast

The path above Moss Beach

Land and Sea Farmers Market at Harbor Village

Walking Home

7:20 p.m.  Walking down the Great Highway

...and up Balboa Street

4 Pairs for $8.00

Yep, it's true! Four pairs of reading glasses for eight bucks. (In case you don't have your calculater handy, that's two bucks apiece.) You can order them here. Every time Sally comes to San Francisco, she yanks a pair out of her pocket to read the menu. They're amazingly stylish, are they not? They're delivered to your door straight from Hollywood (Hollywood, Florida, that is) and they come wrapped up in newspaper and tucked into a little white box. When I checked the link I gave you, I noticed they now have them with light green stems––pink stems, too.

Crazy Wind

6:44 p.m.   Instead of snow, we have sand drifts. Our 10 ft. high sea wall has almost disappeared.

Walking Home

6:36 p.m.   Down the Great Highway ...

6:49 p.m.   and up 47th Avenue

Marin Home Tour: The Houseboat!

One of our favorite homes on the AIA tour was a houseboat designed by David Spurgeon.

This is the outside (2 bottom photos www.davidspurgeon.com).

And inside! The architect stood behind the bar making coffee drinks.

Land Art

That's Wood Line on the left behind Sal and Pat

Sal and Pat are in town for the Maker Faire. Today we went on a search for some of Andy Goldsworthy's sculpture. Andy makes site-specific sculpture and land art. (Remember Rivers and Tides?) We found two of his pieces today within a mile of my house.

Looking up at Spire.

More land art discovered this evening, just one block from my house (artist unknown).

Found in the Sand

7:32 p.m.

Down the Coast

Hiking in the beautiful woods above Moss Beach

... and a new trail (for us) near Princeton by the Sea

Fog

The beginning of the Coastal Trail. The foghorns sounded otherworldly this evening.

Piqueos

I landed in Bernal Heights an hour or two before writing group and had the best time wandering around this sweet neighborhood.

I hit the children's room in the library, then walked down Cortland. I found a great book on the sidewalk in a box labeled FREE (The Hello Goodbye Window by Norman Juster and Chris Raschka) and stuffed it in my bag. Then I walked on down to Badger Books and looked around, and ducked into Heartfelt: plastic jewelry, friendship bracelets, wonderful socks.

Best of all was dinner at Piqueos, a tiny Peruvian restaurant. I had Sanguchon, a pulled pork sandwich with yam, red onions, and rocoto aioli (spicy!!) along with a Peruvian beer.

At TIAPOS*, Doug brought mahmoul and told a fantastic story about buying the ingredients and making the cookies. He made us dip them in coffee. All in all, it was a great Thursday evening.

*Our writing group is called TIAPOS, which stands for "This is a piece of shit." We aren't allowed to apologize for our writing, but we are allowed to say "tiapos" if we feel like it before we read.

Sidewalk

walking home on Anza Street

Home Again

Columbus Children's Book Festival

Today was the day. And it was pouring down rain! The tents were taken away and we had to move inside. Luckily the Columbus Library is huge and beautiful. (It was designed by Robert Stern, the famous architect.)

The festival did the most wonderful thing. They handed out little autograph books to every child. This meant I wasn't sitting at my autograph table all alone while people bought up all of Jerry Pinkney's books and lined up at his table, which was right next to mine!

Aggles had shown up by that time, so she sat with me and took good care of me. She retrieved my phone when she noticed I had walked off and left it sitting on the podium after my presentation, and later she noticed that I had kicked my purse across the floor while I was signing autographs. Good grief, where would I be without her?

We got a few rounds of Dueling Noses in after my first talk, with stickers for prizes.

The girl above was so tickled by my show at her school yesterday that she brought her mom along to see it again today.

Friday Afternoon

This afternoon I visited Rigdon Road Elementary and gave my terrifying 101 Do-Overs Presentation. I'd been a little nervous. I'd never used a mic before––or spoken in front of 400 kids. But it was a BLAST! They screamed when Catdog's photo first popped up––and they immediately caught on to the PLEASE DO IT OVER refrain and would shout it out along with Catdog.

When it was over lots of kids came up to get hugs and have their photos taken, and to ask questions of a more personal nature. Some of my favorite questions:

"Are you married?"

"Are you rich?"

"Do you see the 49'ers?"

"Is that the iPhone 5?"

My New Writing Group

I'm writing a book about pizza. It needs help. I took the story to my writing group here in town last week and they had some good suggestions. But they're adults! Every last one of them.

Since I knew I'd be visiting Allen Elementary School this morning, I asked Ms. Greer if she'd put together another critique group for me. One made up of kids. She did! The kids in this group are BIG readers. One is autistic, two are English learners: all are super-sharp. I got some great feedback, and then we MADE PIZZAS.

You can see all the fantasy pizzas the children made over here at the Allen Elementary Pizzaria.

Squeezed in one more walk before the 6 a.m. flight tomorrow. I'll see Aggles on Sat!