Long weekends rule. This has been the weekend of glorious breakfasts. Saturday Heather and I did our usual pancakes and eggs feast at the Coffee Mill. We had Scott's amazing eggs-and-pesto-and-cheese baked in a loaf of cheesy bread on Sunday. Monday we went to Café Brasil, where I got beef a cavalo -- a piece of bread, topped with a steak, topped with poached eggs, topped with a tomato, covered in mozzarella. (One of my favorite meals, and I haven't had it in years, because we never seem to make it over to Brasil when we're in Santa Cruz these days.) This morning, wanting our Independence Weekend Breakfast Festival streak to be unbroken, I rooted around in the fridge and found enough leftovers from our last fajita night to do a kick-ass huevos rancheros, with black beans, jalapenos, guacamole, cheese, sour cream, and fresh avocado garnish. And, you know, eggs and so forth. Good stuff.

The weekend in Santa Cruz was great fun. Scott and Lynne were marvelous hosts as always, and it was fabulous to see Jenn too. Some highlights: Many games of Oh, Hell. Exceedingly drunken Book Lover's Trivial Pursuit. Drinking vodka mixed with "hibiscus cooler," which prompted me to boozily exclaim that I was drinking "motherfuckin' flower juice!" Setting off some mentos-and-diet-soda bombs in the back yard. (Diet Coke worked far better than Diet Pepsi.) Finding a $40 book, The Dictionary of Imaginary Places, for only $15. (I'm a sucker for dictionaries like this.) Reading The Blood Knight by Greg Keyes, which started a little slow but eventually became just compulsively wonderfully readable. Strolling around downtown and watching the marimba musicians. Introducing Jenn to the joys of the Saturn Café. Cookies from the Pacific Cookie Company. Everything was beautiful.

We came home yesterday afternoon and promptly started watching more episodes of Veronica Mars, which we're enjoying a lot. There was a bit of annoyance and chaos here, though -- the handles on the kitchen sink broke, and it took some effort to make them usable again. I got an e-mail from someone telling me that a check I wrote them bounced... but there's plenty of money in the account, and everything looks fine according to my online statement, so I have to call the bank to find out what's going on, and they're not open today. But I suspect everything will work out. Things generally do.