Ah, Sunday morning. What a wonderful pair of words. A true leisurely weekend day. We'll have coffee, and go out for a nice brunch, and pick up our new chapbooks, and go to our nephew's birthday party in the afternoon, and come home to decorate our Xmas tree... Mmm. After yesterday, I'm looking forward tremendously to today.

Yesterday might have been fun, but it wasn't, ultimately. Heather's mom is visiting, and we decided to take her to the Dickens Fair (she loves dancing). We wound up taking our nephew with us, which was not what we'd had in mind -- we love the kid, but hadn't counted on tending a two-year old all afternoon. Plus, our car is a little coupe with a vestigial back seat, and it was hellishly cramped in there with me, Heather, Heather's mom, and a kid in a carseat, and all the necessary stuff that accompanies a small child. My knees were jammed up against the dashboard the whole way, and I don't know how Heather even managed to work the pedals or turn the steering wheel. (Aleister was quite well-behaved, actually, but since Heather's mom had to spend most of her time watching him, she didn't get to dance much, just a waltz and a polka, which sorta defeated the purpose.)

Anyway, so, the Dickens Fair was interesting, but it was held in south San Francisco, and traffic getting there was pretty monstrous, because it was the last Saturday for shopping before Xmas, I guess. So after an hour on the road we spent about three hours at the fair, running into acquaintances, looking at hand-made leather masks, observing attractive women in corsets, eating (thankfully) less-than-authentic Victorian English cuisine, etc. A mildly diverting experience, all told. Around 5:45 we left.

And spent the next two hours in traffic. The traffic coming in was light, was merrily flowing, in comparison to the traffic on the way home. It's the worst traffic I've ever been trapped in, I think. At least I didn't have to drive -- Heather suffered that. We would have been stuck in traffic for a lot longer if she hadn't taken an exit and zoomed along some surface streets, winding through the city and merging onto the bay bridge at the last possible on-ramp. But still. Two hours.

We traveled a distance of roughly 17 miles in that two hours.

The Dickens Fair was not worth spending three hours in traffic. If it had been possible to get there via mass transit, it would have been worthwhile, but having to drive in those conditions... no way. We won't be going back next year.

This is one of the reasons why we never go anywhere. Heather and I have a low tolerance for being in our car. We both hate driving. The only time I don't mind is for trips to Santa Cruz, where we get to spend a couple of days, because a three-hour round-trip is a small price to pay for that. But a three-hour round-trip to be served bangers and mash by a woman with a bad fake English accent, and to pay $5.25 for a plastic cup of cold Guinness? No, thanks, once was enough.

Things got better last night, though. Heather and I ordered in Thai food, snuggled on the couch, watched DVDs, drank beer, frolicked, made merry, etc., and generally had a great time.