Arrived!

I have safely arrived at rilina's, despite obnoxiously loud fellow airplane travelers, the guy next to me completely hogging my armrest, the insanely early hour at which my flight landed, and monstrous trucks barreling along at 70 mph freaking Rilina out on the highway.

She has to go to class later, but since she has Her Majesty's Dog 7 from the library (I didn't even know it was out yet! Mely my usual means of discovering new manga volumes has failed me!), Word Freak, a ton of anime, Neon Genesis Evangelion Angelic Days (aka, the high school version!), wireless and an air mattress, I am sure I will easily entertain myself for hours. That, or I will be unconscious on the floor from sleep deprivation.

Also, unlike the airbed at Mariposa, this one inflates fully, meaning there is less of a chance of falling off while laughing hysterically at assorted anime fowl of DOOM.

Also also, Rilina showed me the cover of Tokyo Babylon 1, and all I can say is that I feel Subaru's trauma comes not from dramatic night scenes in front of sakura of DOOM, but from the truly awful outfits CLAMP draws him in. On the inside full-color pages, Seishirou has a perm, and two misshapen cherubs trumpet over a world the shape of an egg. I think that must be where the creators of Utena got the idea for the whole "Like a chick, we will crack open the shell to birth ourselves and revolutionize the world!" thing.

Tired!

So tired now.... took the red-eye here. Also, I am worried that BART is going to tow my car. I bought prepaid airport parking from them and took the BART in, but I forgot to place the printout on my dashboard. And then I think I ended up parking in the daily parking, as opposed to the monthly parking, so that's two strikes. I'm just hoping that they fine me a ton, because my flight arrives back in SF around midnight, and I would very much like to be able to drive myself home.

Anyway! We ended up eating lunch at a tasty gourmet-ish Americana place. We got grits (!! I have never had grits before!), which were really tasty deep-fried corn meal things with chili mayonnaise. The chili mayo was particularly good, and the grits came in white and purple. I was fond of the purple, but that is just because I like purple food. rilina ended up getting the pulled pork with mashed potatoes and collard greens (very good) and I got macaroni and 3 peppercorn goat cheese, which was excellent. Also, there was a toasted disk of goat cheese on top that was delicious. And then! We had a donut sundae. The donuts at this place are AMAZING. I usually don't like donuts (outside of the chewy Mister Donut ones), but this donut was excellent. It was steaming hot and soft on the inside and wonderfully crunchy on the outside, and it was absolutely perfect with the ice cream and mound of whipped cream. I think we're going to go back tomorrow just for the donuts. My favorite part, outside of the amazing donut, was the giant pile of oyster shells right next to the restaurant door.

Then we melted back at Rilina's place and watched some music vids, then headed for the anime store. Alas, the anime store didn't have Bleach: the Styling (sorry rachelmanija and telophase! I'm going to check my local store when I get back as well) figurines or Naruto Shippuden figurines. Boooo. On the other hand, they had some very cute frog mugs.

I also found A. Merritt's The Fox Woman and Other Stories at the used bookstore and bought it solely because of the back cover copy:

Exotic
Romantic
Bizarre

Against the brittle twilight rose the ancient steps, strangely cushioned in orange and emerald moss as they wound up the side of the mountain. A woman approached them, heavy with child. From behind her came the savage chant of the wild man-beasts who pursued her. In her path stood a vixen, its head marked by the image of flame. She called to the vixen in her despair, "Lead me to safety that I may have vengeance—sister!" The vixen, the FOX WOMAN, spoke no answer. Yet even before the terrible cry had died in a ghostly echo, the vengeance was inexorably begun.

Then we snickered over the covers of Tokyo Babylon, in which Subaru wear a strangely pointy green hat, a hot pink outfit with a hot pink cross, and a white priest's outfit with a cross engraved with "Japan." Thankfully, all these items were worn separately, as together they may have caused blindness. I am trying to make Rilina post a poll to determine which is the worst, because the hot pink one is truly dreadful, but the green hat is also hilarious.