I love surprises!

And I got a great one on Friday, when I heard from my friend Anne, aka Guppy, who was on her way to the Bay Area from LA to visit with her nieces Stacy and Michelle, who are disturbingly hot blonde 20-somethings. (Actually, it's disturbing that they're 20-somethings, because that makes me feel really.... really... OLD.) Michelle lives on the Peninsula and is about to move into the city, and it's so cute that she's so excited about it. I'm excited for her.

So yesterday, we were joined by Michelle's boyfriend for lunch here, and our timing was perfect, as the rain had stopped and the sun was shining...and we even got a great window table. And the sun was so bright that we were forced to drop the window shade a bit, because it was blindingly bright and poor Stacy was baking. Trust me, that doesn't happen all that often on the beach in SF! And certainly not lately, with all the friggin' rain we've had.

Then we spent some time watching the bison in Golden Gate Park and hiking around different areas -- most of them uphill, I might add -- and communing with nature. We capped off the day with a coffee stop here and more laughs.

It was a blast. And so much better than my original plan for the day, which was to sit on my ass and watch a bunch of bad television.