gtpooh, posts by tag: san francisco - LiveJournal (original) (raw)

I had the best intentions of continuing my review of Pantheacon, but the past two days have been so busy and full of fun stuff that I just need to comment on them first.

Last night, Februrary 20th, we went over to Menlo Park to a cool bookstore called Kepler's. We were there to listen to a reading by one of my favorite authors, Dan Simmons, who was hawking his new book, Winter Haunting. AiYume had a bag of books and he got them signed, so I think he was very happy.

It was a good reading and I always enjoy listening to Dan talk. He's a really nice person and even consented to be photographed with Emily Rabbit at the World Horror Con in 2000.

Then this morning the lovely Kathleen and I picked up my two friends who are visiting from Denver, Kuma and Maggie, and we spent the day together, starting with a cup of yummy coffee at Starbuck's. Then we went into the City and spent the day being tourists.

Our first stop was the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. It is a bit early in the year for the garden to be at it's best, but it was still a very pleasant experience. We followed this up by a lengthy and wonderful walk through the Arboretum and Botanical Garden. We spent a couple of hours there, totally enraptured by the variety of plants blooming even this early.

Finally we took a break and had a pizza and chatted. It has been a while since I really got to talk to both of them. We followed that up by a trip to a couple of fabric stores. Both were really great, in their own way. Satin Moon Fabrics, located at 36 Clement in SF, specializes in really nice fabrics. . .I mean really nice. ::sigh:: Velvets, silks, and brocades. . . FabriX at 101 Clement is a discount store and has great bargains in weird kinds of stuff.

Well, I have to go to my TOPS meeting and see how much weight I gained on the weekend at Pantheacon.