Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Belated Valentine's Day

Our real Valentine's Day celebration began, as all good celebrations should, with copious amounts of drinking before noon.
After brunch, we went to the Barleywine Festival over at Toronado on Haight Street. Barleywine is basically really really really strong beer. One kind we tried was 27% proof. Compare that to Bud Lite's 5%. You could buy it in tiny little tasting glasses though, so you would be able to try lots of different kinds. We only made it through 6, mostly because it simply got too crowded in there for us. There are some people who wait outside before the place even opens at 11:30 am, then camp at a table with a picnic lunch and 5 of their best friends. They then proceed to try ALL 50 KINDS! Not that hard with 6 people and only 3 oz glasses, but still amazing.
After that we headed to the Antiquarian Book Fair. I wasn't terribly excited to go, mostly because Joe was excited about the stuff like a Plato manuscript. Which is cool and all, but boooooring.
But there was tons of cool stuff. Recent books, super old books. The most expensive one we saw was a first edition of Gulliver's Travels for $150,000. Wow. Pretty good condition too. There was a first edition of Bartholomew and the Oobleck I would have loved, but what I really wanted, and what I would buy if I had a few tens of thousands of dollars lying around, was a first edition copy of "Where the Wild Things Are." They ranged in price from $18-35,000.
Mom, did you have a copy of this when you were a kid? It was published in 1964. Please say yes.
Then say that you think you still have it up in Grandpa's attic. That would be a great inheritance...
Our final destination was the Cliff House, a restaurant that juts out over the Pacific Ocean (not the Bay, by where Luke works). The food was excellent, though still overpriced as we expected. It was neat. The Sutro Bathhouse used to be there, and the restaurant kept part of the original ceiling. They would pump in ocean water and heat it. 10 cents a swim! You can still see part of the ruins.

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