19 February 2013 - SF Day 4

What, you think a vacation is nothing but fun and games? Well, yes, but the definition of fun and games might vary. Yesterday we started cataloging Bennett's very large collection of railroad books, as he had requested they be donated to a train museum in Sacramento. 

I am so naive. I thought we could whiz through this in a couple hours. We spent several hours on this project on Tuesday and finished up this afternoon. Robin had some banker's boxes to pack them in, but with 200 oversized (coffee table book size and bigger) books, we needed more boxes. 

Off we went. On our way, Robin says "Oh my gosh, we are going to pass Arch. You must see this place!"  Arch is an art supply store that not only has more stuff than any one person could ever want, but also has a large section of whimsical, arty and curious gifts, cards, gadgets...you name it. 
 
What a fun diversion. It is housed in an old warehouse. The name was made out of bundles of wire.  I have always loved old hardware store displays and even have a very small one made out of old wooden cigar boxes. It sits on a pedestal and can spin around. The one in this store was beautiful, it still had the original cabinet base with all the cubbies.  The drawers had the original labels for screw, nut and bolt sizes. The entire unit was about 5 1/2 feet tall. Wonderful. 

A tiny bit of parking was available behind the store, and as you should know by now, I adore painted signs. This rather steam punkish passenger pigeon was painted on the corrugate sheeting. It was at least 16 feet tall. Loved it! Between the corrugate and the fading colors it was hard to get a good picture, but you can certainly get an idea of how fabulous it is. 

Continuing on our way to Office Max for boxes, Robin says, "We should stop! We are about to pass the San Francisco Center for the book. It has moved since you were last here and you should see their new location." Absolutely!  Not only was their new space incredible with lots of room for presses, room to work, a binding room for book artists, there were two areas for art shows. 

Currently on exhibit are broadsides and handmade artists' books made in response to the bombing of bookseller's row on Al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad. A grim subject with stunning and thought provoking pieces. Here are a few:

The director of the Center saw us looking and came over and talked nonstop for at least 30 minutes about the exhibit, the artists and their work.  Interesting, but exhausting. Robin finally got a word in edge-wise about our limited time and we made our escape. Back in the car and headed towards boxes--again. Next door to Office Max was a Peet's coffee. We decided we needed some refreshment before box hunting in a big box store. 

We settled on coffee and a cookie. Since it was warm and sunny, we sat outside. Looking around I noticed birds perched on and underneath every empty table and chair. My cookie bar was quite crumbly. I swept some crumbs from my lap and started a riot. Brown-headed cowbirds came in from all directions to snap them up. I pinched off a little piece of cookie and held it out.  

Two birds immediately landed on my hand and one snatched the crumb and flew off with the other in hot pursuit.  I amused myself feeding the birds for a while. They were sitting on my feet and my knee, even landing on my hand and arm. Robin thought it was pretty Hitchcockian. I thought it was fun until I got to thinking about the bird flu, so I went and washed my hands really well.

We drove home along the ship yards, and looking at the huge cranes, I had quite the epiphany. Think back to the original Star Wars. George Lucas and his Industrial Light and Magic were in San Francisco, and I'm sure they had this same view every day.

 It seems like a very logical step to see this crane and get to the Walkers. I still remember how scary these were in the first movie. 

We galumphed home with our boxes, packed up the rest of the books and ended the day with a call from the museum volunteers scheduling a pickup on Sunday. Great accomplishments and lots of fun.