Hangin' Out

Yesterday I called Lucy about going to the San Mateo branch of Lee's Comics, which is a decent comics store which stocks a good selection of paperback and hardcover collections to see if she was interested in going to their sale this weekend. I've been lending Lucy a number of comics, and have sold her on Astro City, Castle Waiting and most of Alex Ross' work such as Marvels. She was up for it, although it was raining like crazy where she lives, which is about 40 miles north of me. Strangely, it was dry and even almost-sunny where I live; Newton had even plopped down in a hazy sunbeam to warm up. But, I'm up for driving nearly anywhere anytime so up I went.

It started drizzling at my place just as I left, and about halfway there I hit the rain: Many small drops coming down very hard, and being kicked up in white sheets of mist by the cars in front of me. It was by no means a heavy rain, but the mist made it tough to see, so I took it slow and tried to stay in a lane by myself as much as possible. It wasn't too bad.

John came with us to the store, and both Lucy and I bought stuff. On a whim I picked up a collection of a book called Mister Blank which surprised me with how good it is. A well-drawn, self-contained story which is quite witty. Worth a look. I picked up a couple of random other things, too.

(I also - ahem - noticed that there was an unusually high female-to-male ratio of customers in the store. I wonder why that was? It's rare to see any women in the comics shops closer to where I live...)

I got to ooh and aah over Lucy and John's new couch, which is very comfortable and has a fold-out bed. I must buy myself a nice couch sometime, as my futon doesn't really cut it. We otherwise lay around for a few hours, petting the cats and reading, until it was just about dinner time. Then I went on my way, ate and read at Borrone, and came home.

Today was similar, in its way: I met Subrata at Hobees for lunch, and then we came back to my place where we spent the day watching football, talking, and reading. Subrata started reading my comic books, beginning with the oversides items: The big Alex Ross-drawn Superman and Batman yarns, the recent JLA tabloid, and then getting into the 40 Prince Valiant volumes. I joked later that he'd been in my apartment all afternoon and there were still things unread.

We watched the Rams/49ers football game, which was pretty good in the sense that the 49ers put up a good fight. Then we watched part of the Raiders/Chargers game, which involved a lot of field goals. We enjoyed the highlights from other games, petted the cats (Subrata's allergic, but my cats are pretty tame, allergy-wise), and went to dinner at Max's (oinque).

We talked about house-buying, too. Subrata set me straight on some mortgage issues which I'd been unclear on (I'd meant to ask Lucy and John about these things yesterday, but it's slipped my mind), and he'll probably lend me some books later on.

So it's been a pleasant, lazy weekend. It's a little chilly now, the rain has passed, and I'm looking forward to the new week.