They Don't Have President's Day in Brazil

[spectralbovine]

The weekend was not to go as planned. This was for the better, however! The plan was this: sainfoin_fields (Tris), sophia_helix (Sophia), and actoplasm (Alex) would drive down on Saturday, and we would get tickets for the King Tut exhibit at the De Young at 2:00, ogle ancient Egyptian artifacts, grab dinner, and attend Writers with Drinks, after which we would all return to our respective homes. Sunday would be boring until there were games, and Monday would be boring until there was rehearsal.

Here's what actually happened.

• encountering ricockulous traffic from all sides, causing us to shoot for the 2:30 tickets
• enjoying the secret parking spot in Golden Gate Park that I can't tell you about
• watching the turtles on Stow Lake
• imagining what the Parcel Check guy does all day and how many times he hears someone walk up to his booth with interest and read aloud, "Parcel Check"
• discovering that the King Tut exhibit is sold out until SOLD OUT
• deciding to turn a day trip into an overnight stay and buying 2:30 tickets for Sunday
• not getting the 20% AAA discount we were hoping for but pulling out my trusty student ID to get at least a couple bucks off the overpriced admission
• having a late lunch at Marnee Thai, where Sophia regaled us with tales of her awesome dentist and his ability to remove wisdom teeth and perform root canals without giving her anesthesia
• exploring the botanical gardens...where we chased a strange fox-whom we named Renard, or Zorro-who enjoyed pooping in public and then running back into the jungle
• disturbing the ecosystem by feeding a squirrel-whom we named Lucille-some Chex, even though I got scratched in the process
• taking the paths less traveled and pretending to avoid poisonous vines
• watching Tris soak in the beauty of the magnolia blossoms
• admiring the unposed picture she took of me
• discovering that squirrels can make some weird-ass noises
• taking a circuitous route to find the Conservatory of Flowers, which was closed
• seeing a wild goose or something
• constantly pointing out the "Devil's Tower," which is what I had called Sutro Tower when I took them on the Mission Tour last month
• allowing Magiben to direct us to the Mission, where I drove around looking for parking, to no avail
• accidentally finding a parking spot at the corner of Mission and 22nd, a few yards from the Make-Out Room
• drinking a very tasty cafe mocha made by a cute barista at the Borderlands Cafe
• witnessing how user-friendly the cafe is, given that a) the guy was able to answer Tris's question about how "chai-y" a tea was, b) offered to make her a new tea if she didn't like it and hadn't drunk more than a quarter of it, and c) following through on said offer
• lamenting that someone had bought Bikini Planet from Borderlands before I got around to dropping three whole dollars on it
• squeezing into the packed Make-Out Room for Writers with Drinks
• being touched by the cute British woman-codename: Caroline-I met at an AMWA outing at the Legion of Honor a couple weeks ago, when we spent a couple hours making fun of art and I gave her a ride and invited her to this event
• enjoying James Rollins's story of how he became a veterinarian author and wanting to read Amazonia, his book featuring mutant piranha-frogs
• laughing at Derek Powazek's real-life tale of snowmobiles and space ninjas in Canada
• appreciating Andrew Porter's very short story about the future of a relationship as viewed from a precious moment
• cracking up at Charlie Jane's ridiculous intros
• finding that our spot in front of the men's bathroom is not the best and moving during intermission, whereas Tris and Sophia left to find a place where they could sit
• sitting on the floor in front of Vikram Chandra and not even knowing it
• standing right next to Cherie Priest and not even knowing it
• discovering that Cherie Priest has written a steampunk zombie novel what
• voting for the Boneshaker excerpt about two airships crashing over the one about a single mother fighting off a bunch of zombies
• meeting Tris and Sophia and, unexpectedly, Tris's friend, Strike, whom Tris had summoned, at Doc Clock, engaged in a game of Trivial Pursuit
• deciding to pack into Caprica and go to Strike's for food and gaming
• being unable to give Caroline a ride home unless she wanted to climb into my trunk
• letting Strike navigate back to Golden Gate Park after Magiben became obsessed with Beaver St.
• driving through Golden Gate Park in the dark with my high beams on
• turning a blind corner and seeing a guy standing right in the middle of the street like something out of Silent Hill
• seeking a late dinner of veggie hot dogs but settling for one of pizza
• making fun of Peter Jackson's King Kong while eating
• using Batman voice while playing Family Business but not intimidating the competition enough to win-despite instigating a St. Valentine's Day massacre that resulted in over half a dozen bodies-losing to Sophia, who never wins games
• leaving Tris to stay with Strike and taking Alex and Sophia back to my apartment to crash
• letting Sophia use my XXL Hearst College shirt to wear with her leggings to sleep in totally eighties style
• waking up early enough to lounge about as Sophia read The 826 Quarterly and Alex read Chew
• playing a rousing game of Dominion: Intrigue in our barely woken, unshowered states
• losing to Alex but not as badly as we expected
• wanting to play another game immediately but also desiring some mild sustenance
• attempting to visit a Yelp-approved cafe on 40th that did not appear to exist anymore
• going down to Piedmont, where Sophia could buy a hair clip from CVS before we hit Gaylord's, where Sophia could get a pumpkin chocolate brick with her caffeinated beverage of choice
• playing another game of Intrigue in which our strategies were completely different because that is how Dominion rolls
• buying six goddamn Provinces but still losing to Sophia, who never wins games
• tearing Sophia away from Farmville and Fishville after I took a shower
• snagging a parking spot on Telegraph a few yards from Bakesale Betty's
• getting the Bakesale Betty's experience by waiting in line for our fried chicken sandwiches, which were very good even though they got them without the 'slaw
• hitting ricockulous traffic at the Bay Bridge once again, but this time with company, which included Sophia's iPod, which included some happy, sunny songs appropriate for the weather
• hitting traffic trying to get off 101 and blaring "Road Rage" by Dizzee Rascal out the windows
• having a good run on the Fell expressway before hitting traffic
• inching along MLK in Golden Gate Park, coming to a standstill at points, until we exited onto Lincoln and flew down ten blocks in at least half the time it would have taken otherwise
• encountering slow drivers up Stow Lake Dr.
• racing to the De Young and getting there at 3:05 for our 2:30 tickets but being let in anyway, thankfully
• getting the full Disneyland experience of waiting in winding lines in order to get into the King Tut exhibit, narrated by Omar Sharif
• walking through six galleries of stuff from the tombs of people who were probably related to Tut, four galleries of stuff from the tomb of Tut, and zero galleries that actually featured Tut himself
• marveling regardless at things that were over three thousand goddamn years old, just sitting right in front of us in near-perfect condition
• being inspired to change my journal title for the first time in five years
• exploring the gift shop and museum store, since the rest of the museum was closed
• bidding the visitors adieu many hours after they had intended to be bid adieu
• attempting to leave San Francisco without the help of Magiben because I really should learn how to navigate the damn city on my own
• bringing games over to the House of Leaves, Jess & Colin's new place a ten-minute walk from my apartment (TimeCube will be missed but is not baby-friendly)
• seeing Katie (red_souffle), meeting her boyfriend, John, and commenting on an unexpected Bee's Scott Pilgrim shirt
• answering "How does Korean food sound?" with "You know I hate Koreans" and receiving a joyful "Oh good, he's racist too!" from Katie
• putting our dinner in the hands of Colin
• playing a round of Saboteur while we waited for our racist food, devouring our racist food, and playing a full game of Saboteur in which I failed to receive any gold at all, despite John's being a helpasaur
• being the first person to be killed in Bang!
• shaking my Wii controller madly as we played "Divorce Mode": Coin Battle in New Super Mario Bros. Wii, in which John was a dickasaurus
• celebrating Caprica's anniversary by finally removing the dealer's license plate frames since Oak Tree Mazda is not getting any more free advertising
• letting Jess & Colin borrow Caprica for an Ikea run
• getting a call informing me that I did not, in fact, have to show up for rehearsal, which opened up my evening
• deciding-in the spirit of the weekend-to attend Theater Pub, which was exactly what it sounded like: theater...in a pub
• finding it far less frightening than expected, most of the pieces being amusing looks at love and Valentine's Day rather than the experimental in-your-face EXPERIENCE THE POWER OF THEATRE business I was afraid of
• catching a Valentine with the following joke: "How did the Burger King get the Dairy Queen pregnant?" "He forgot to wrap his Whopper."
• receiving hugs from our fight choreographer, who played the Bitterness Messiah or something like that
• meeting a buxom redhead named Xanadu, who told me I had a lovely name
• finally riding in Dan's car, which seems to want to turn the wrong way down one-way streets
• IMing with a fellow cast member who was also dismissed from rehearsal and agreeing that we had probably been replaced by puppets