Mostly selfish Saturday.

On Saturday Neeracha and I drove to Sausalito to see the Floating Homes Tour. It was a Spare the Air Day, one of not too many we've had this year, so I took BART into the city and we drove to Marin together.

It must have been National Walk the Golden Gate Bridge Day! I've never seen so many camera-happy pedestrians on the bridge before. You couldn't blame them. There was not a cloud in the sky and the temperature easily reached 80F. The hundreds of white-sailed boats on the Bay made it look like a tricky day to be out there. The view makes me catch my breath every time -- another perfect moment.

A few months ago I read an article on human egg trade in Cypress. It was both fascinating and horrifying. Since I read it I have mentioned it to a few people, who were appropriately horrified but not to the extent I was nor had they seen the article. And then in the car to Marin Neeracha mentioned this article! Apparently she'd read it in the same obscure business magazine I had. This is why we are friends.

The Floating Homes Tour was not what I expected. There are 400 floating homes on Richardson Bay, 17 were open this year. I was looking for two things: designer showcases and/or cleverly designed homes to make use of the unusual space. Nope. They are narrow houses on barges. Some were airy and Lichtenstein-filled. Others were dumpy and needed a good cleaning. Most had optimized the view; a few hadn't. One had a Gaudi-style guest bath. A few had decks at the water line so the owners could kayak. One had an entire upper level of Japanese minimalism. We saw a lot of Ethan Allen traditional furniture and many variations on the spiral staircase. Most are occupied by artists or retirees. There were many for sale and the range was $350,000 to $975,000.

After the tour we had a late sushi lunch and stopped at an off-the-beaten-path travel book store to see what we could find for next summer's adventure. The small shop had a surprising number of interesting books and our Italy collection grew some more.

Neeracha dropped me off at the 16th and Mission BART station. I sat outside of it for a few minutes, taking in swirling tongues of a language I don't understand, the smells and the look of a place I don't usually go. Those ten minutes felt like a very short vacation. And then I hopped on a train and went back to the burbs.