Now that was a weekend.

While most of my days off are spent watching DVDs, cleaning, cooking, and irritating my boyfriend, I did very little of any of that this weekend. Chris was here, and we had a blast.

Friday night, we went to our favorite Ethiopian place. On the way home, we stopped off at Albertsons so Chris could get some milk and, apparently, booze that is considerably less expensive than in Washington, and I realized I'd left my purse in the restaurant. Fortunately, the proprietor found it and kept it behind the bar for me. All was well.

On Saturday, we drove down to Point Lobos State Reserve, which some of you may recall is, in my opinion, one of the prettiest places in the country. We wandered around for a few hours, basking in the near-perfect weather (not too hot, not too windy), taking in the sights. We had a picnic lunch overlooking some tidepools, though a smiling park ranger cut our meal slightly short when he informed us that we were setting a bad example by not dining in a designated picnic area.

We drove up beautiful Highway 1 to Santa Cruz in the midafternoon to spend some time downtown. When the sun was starting to set, we went to a beach in Aptos. I enjoyed the sand on my bare feet and Chris made a pair of sand pants. Dinner was at Charlie Hong Kong, after which we were all pretty tired and decided to head home.

Sunday morning Chris informed me that he'd like to do some touristy activities, like driving across the Golden Gate Bridge. Kevin said he'd rather stay home, so we headed up in Chris's car. The bridge was the first stop, and it was lovely aside from all the crazy traffic at Vista Point (please hold your eye-rolling). I learned from my sister that North Beach was a zoo of a street fair, but we parked under a hotel on Washington and walked up Columbus to visit her candy store. We at lunch at a nice little place that wasn't insanely busy.

Chris's old friend just finished nursing school at USF, so we headed to Inner Richmond to hang out with her for awhile. We took a long stroll around Golden Gate park, stopping to watch (1) rock 'n' roll roller skaters and (2) drum circle hippies along the way. Then we got ice cream in fresh crepe cones, which was memorably delicious.

Next weekend I'll go see the Mountain Goats (and someone has claimed the ticket--story to come after the fact), then hang out with my mom. Apparently on a sailboat owned by someone who was a friend of my dad's.