November-ish

Can you believe Twilight is set to open in less than 2 weeks? I have been seeing the ad campagin for the movie for months now, but to see this billboard with my very own eyes took my breath away. The momentum just keeps building. I just read that for all intents and purposes the premiere showings of Twilight have SOLD OUT. So I don't really expect to be able to catch it until the following week, perhaps in Napa over Thanksgiving break we may sneak out to sink our teeth into it? (Nannoo nannoo! Hilary!)

I am ashamed to note that it's been weeks and weeks since my last post. It's either so dead that I have nothing to talk about, or it's been so busy I haven't the time to write anything coherent. Lately it's been the latter, that and throw in the fact that I am just too tired these days to form a straight thought in my head.

We spent last weekend in San Francisco participating in the Alternative Press Expo (APE). Most of the pictures of our trip can be located at ganerda.com under the blog section. It was quite the adventure and we are very glad to have gone. The only sad thing was that we missed Halloween with the boys. We are so lucky that Angele, Hilary and John are consistently up for babysitting duties!

Elizabeth, Eric and I in the lounge room at Last Gasp.

Our Friday, Halloween night, was spent at a mixer for APE at Last Gasp's offices. There we got to check out the awesomeness that is Last Gasp. We explored the offices, storage stacks for their mail order as well as their lounge area. We also got to mingle with a lot of the other exhibitors. That night we had the pleasure of meeting Elizabeth Guizzetti (Faminelands and Out for Souls and Cookies) and her brother Eric who drove 16+ hours from Seattle. Afterwards we celebrated our San Francisco weekend with a dinner at a local Vietnamese noodle house. Yum! It was the perfect antedote for a cold and drizzly night.


Saturday arrived too soon and we were up and off running early. Arriving at the locale a little before 8:30a to set up, we were greeted with rain! We quickly got things up and running and introduced ourselves to our neighbors; Brian Apodaca and Laura Feucht (Reunion Comics), who is also a biology teacher at St. Bernards!; Sina Grace and Sean Seamus McWhinny (Diary of a Catering Whore). I want to comment on how hilarious Sina's stuff is! He's got a series of comic books about the life of a girl working in a comic book store. In this case Hi De Ho in Santa Monica. What I find especially amusing about this series is that Kenny's dragged me in there many times and I am somewhat familiar with some of the staff and boy was it hysterical to see his very good caricatures of them!!With the exception of Sean, who is local, all of us are from LA.

I was able to roam around the expo and bumped into a few friends and Kenny's co-workers: John Bahn (doodledose), Chris Bennett, Albert Calleras (Hot Mexican Love Comics) and Jackie Huang (shadowbugs) who was nice enough to give me two bug buttons (so cute!). I also had the opportunity to meet Camilla d'Errico of whose work I had caught at a recent showing at Copro Nason in Bergamot Station a few months back. She was there with a bevy of books and misc. items.

Brian and Laura.

Sean Seamus McWhinny and Sina Grace.

John Bahn of Doodledose and Christopher Bennett at their table.

Albert Calleras of Hot Mexican Love Comics stopping by our table.

Once the show doors opened we got to work. Our first sale of the day was to Stuart Ng. Stuart remembered us from Comic-Con where he had a huge area roped off to display for sale some of his amazing mass of unique and rare books. He has a store in Torrance as well as an online site.

Before long my stomach took center stage and I decided to hunt around for something yummy. I found it at a place across the street called the Holy Grill. There I found the most amazing salmon burger. Perfectly grilled salmon, cooked but moist to the bite, sandwiched between an artisan bun accompanied by slices of tomato and lettuce along with a tasty mildly spicy chipotle sauce! Aaah! Heaven.

At the end of Saturday we drove around San Francisco looking for dinner before finally settling on a Cambodian restaurant. It was a beautiful night in a beautiful city and it was also the night we were to set the clock back an hour for daylight savings. Aah another hour to sleep in and without the boys to wake us up! Not to be! That night at 3:00a a fight erupted outside our room and we were riveted!

Sunday passed much the same as Saturday with the exception of this funny incident... while running around checking out the competition a guy came up to me and complimented me on my hair, which I had recently got cut (Thanks Jenn!) and proceeded to ask if I was available! Hahahahhaha!! I told him, "no I was married" and he commented that he could see why. Awwwww!

Lunch was another delicious meal, though my first choice, the Holy Grill was not open on Sunday. Instead I got some spectacular burritos from a taqueria across the street. Yummy!

Before long it was time to call it a day, we cleaned up, packed up, filled up and were soon back on the road on our way home. We had a wonderful trip filled with incredible memories and a stash of comics and artwork signed by the artists!