the city

as promised, here are some snaps from my wanderings up north...

on tuesday morning i hopped in jen's car [thanks jen!] and headed west. the drive was beautiful. on monday i had realized how much i miss the trees in northern california. and the fields. there are good fields there. i made a stop in davis for nostalgia's sake [and a bagel] and headed on down to good ole san fran.


on my way i stopped off to see a few dear friends. which always puts a smile on my face. liz and i wandered around oakland for a bit which proved to be full of charm and treasures. tacky dive bars, cool old signs, closed down burger joints, and free books! i picked up a few of those and we continued our wander...

{you probably want to click for a bigger version of this one}

just so you know, my initial reason for the trip was basically to kill 2 birds with one stone--

birdie 1: see a show at the Fillmore [i'd been having quite the withdrawals]
birdie 2: see the cold war kids [if you know me, that needs no explanation]

unfortunately neither of these ended up happening, but luckily ally and i woke up on wednesday with smiles on our faces and ready for a new day.

various maps were drawn--accurate or not--and we made our way to the city, dropped off the husband, and hurried over to our first destination of the day :


EDEN & EDEN is a lovely shop that ally had been telling me about for months. rachel the owner is the nicest, and i enjoyed experiencing her idea of neat things and how they should look in a space. i even picked up this great piece from my favorite city across the pond.

neat, eh?

more wandering ensued, as well as picture-taking video-making as we made our way to visit jeff. jeff is an amazing artist and sign painter who i have been admiring ever since i stepped foot in my first Mollusk in venice a while back. [if you don't know already, you will soon learn that i have a bit of a thing for type]. i had emailed jeff before i headed north asking if i could stop by his shop and chat for a bit, and he was kind enough to oblige.


both ally and i were struck by his openness and his humility. he even invited us to lunch with him. we had a great chat over thai food and headed on to our next destination: the sunset.

when we weren't walking to the parking meter for the 50 millionth time, we were either thrifting, exploring the strangely beautiful Paxton Gate & Paxton Gate Children's stores, or falling in love with the Curiosity Shop.


i think lauren & derek [the owners] are some of my new heroes as not only have they created an awesome store, but they have also published a neat book with my favorite publisher. ever.

the day was getting on in hours and we still had to make it over the hill to mollusk. i had already been to their other 2 shops, so i had to go to this one too to make my experience complete.

it was worth it.

i mean, what is not to like, right?? beautiful boards, rad books, TREE HOUSES! the guy there was great--very friendly. he quickly earned the name cathy [read: chatty cathy] as he kept using fancy surfing lingo all the while ally and i just nodded and smiled.

we finished off the day with some fancy macaroons. times 2.

it's crazy to think that that's pretty much ALL we did in an entire day. somehow all of our quick stops turned into extended stays. it wasn't until the end of it all, that we were struck by just how nice everyone we had encountered throughout the day was. everyone was super open, willing to chat, etc...there wasn't a sour one in the bunch.

i don't know if i've ever had a single day like that before. we both walked away inspired: inspired about art and inspired about people.