Things that don't happen in Missouri

Saturday we did the movie crawl thing. I think we saw three great movies. The guys didn't seem to like Constant Gardener, but I thought it was a great action/political thriller over the backdrop of a beautiful love story. Grizzly Man was a cross between tragedy and comedy, and beautifully put together. If it wasn't surrounding a death it would have been like a true Life Aquatic. Junebug was absolutely beautiful. Even the men were touched. Not plot-driven at all, but the characters were so well developed. Great film.

The highlight, however, was walking between theaters and encountering a movie set. P had mentioned it before because he noticed that all the cars were from another era and the streets were blocked off. Turned out to be the set of The Pursuit of Happyness. We watched them take half an hour to do a five second cut of cars driving down a street, then make the cars all back up to do it all again. The most interesting part, however, was watching Will Smith (looking like a young Jesse Jackson) walking off the main drag to sit in a director's chair. Yeah...when was the last time you saw that in the Ozarks?

Sunday we went to the chocolate festival fundraiser for Project Open Hand. Back home, fundraisers are based on the charity they support. Out here, they are based on the event sponsor. For example, we went to Ghirardelli's chocolate festival, but back home it would have been something like the Make-A-Wish cake walk. Perhaps if we had a famous chocolate factory :) or anything really famous for that matter. Other than the Assemblies of God world headquarters, of course. It would have been such an amazing event to help plan, but my guess is that they hired event planners rather than having staff do it. Who knows, though. I'm jealous of the staff if this was their baby. None of my events had that large of a scope.

The sun and the beautiful day and the beautiful city got to us and we spent the afternoon getting all sappy and appreciating friendship and fun and San Francisco. It was wonderful. Honestly, I've been so lucky since I moved here to meet such great people. Granted, I had to meet a lot of duds first, but when I struck gold I really hit it. Such a lucky girl.

We walked to the Hyde Street Pier searching for the Tales of the City marker that may not even exist (i meant it when I called it an obsession) and met Cole. Cole should definitely be classified as one of this cities treasures. He's a very good-looking man somewhere between 30 and 45 (he had sunglasses and a hat on) who patrols the pier in his wheelchairr informing tourists of the history of the area. What really got my attention was his description of Levi Plaza. One of the things he finds fascinating about the place is that if you look at the bricks you can tell the story of that area. He spoke of how some bricks were laid by people who really loved their work and put effort into it, and others were done rather shoddily. He talked of how some were of the finest materials, and others were just whatever crap could fill the space. He told us how you could see the water lines on some of the walls. Really very fascinating. I'm a dork, I acknowledge that, but I'm a dork in love with every aspect of this beautiful city. Cole inspired so much more of that in me. A truly remarkable random meeting.

He also introduced us to Stretch, the pier cat. :)

On the way to In and Out, we passed a sunglasses stand selling designer knock offs. I finally found the solution to my need for different stylish sunglasses for every outfit even though I lose each pair I buy. For 20 bucks I got three great pairs of sunglasses that won't make me sad if I lose them. And they all look like they should have cost much more. I'm a happy girl. What's really fun, though, is hearing the tourists comment on how these must be stolen to be so cheap when the shop actually calls itself "Designer Knock Offs". I'm so thankful to be a local.

On to Pier 39. I never go down to this area, so I just wanted to stop and see the sea lions. P and I were standing by the railing eating our burgers when all of a sudden I felt this horribly heavy thing drop on my head. I screamed, of course, and when I stood back up realized that a seagull had dive bombed me and taken part of my hamburger bun. The stupid thing damn near gave me a concussion. After the shock wore off a bit, I started cracking up, along with every tourist in the vicinity. Not 30 seconds later, because I hadn't quite recovered enough to hide my burger, another one did the exact same thing. This one got P a bit more than me, though. Damn seagulls. I know where I'll be doing target practice should I decide to take up the hobby again out here. Fuckers.

Back home, blue jays have been known to kills cats that get too close, and once in awhile they'll attack a human. But our rodents of the sky, crows, aren't nearly as bad as these seagulls. No bird as a big as a seagull should be allowed to fly into a human head. Perhaps next time I should bring arsenic burgers.

Okay, that was mean. Of course I'd never do it. Although I'm not so sure that someone else shouldn't. :)