Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay

Julochka has promised to send a cargo ship to pick me up to bring me to see her in Denmark. I guess we'll bum around Copenhagen first, and then head out to the Galápagos Islands (this all makes sense if you read her post).

Without going into a lot of detail, julochka has the inside track with sailors, so I feel confident that I can get a lift soon.


I stopped by the Pirate Supply Shop at 826 Valencia to get some supplies, in case we run into pirates on the way back. People don't believe me when I say that there's a Pirate Supply Shop in San Francisco, but there is. (Even David Byrne has said that this is "one of the top five pirate stores" he's been to lately.)


Sorry for the blurry photos. You'd have thought I took these photos looking through the viewfinder with my glass eye or that I was holding the camera with my hook instead of my sword hand.

Yes, this is a silly post. I admit it.

But it's Free Friday Eve, so I'm allowed. Har!

***

ps.: If you ever want to read some cool books about what life at sea was really like, try Scurvy: How a Surgeon, a Mariner, and a Gentlemen Solved the Greatest Medical Mystery of the Age of Sail by Stephen Brown, or Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age by Marcus Rediker. You can read about Anne Bonny or Mary Read: women pirates, yeah! No joke... pirates were equal opportunity employers. And these ladies were not the Keira Knightley fake pirate types either. Read the book and you'll see.

pss.: The "Have You Got Scurvy?" sign is just one of the many informative, absurd and hilarious signs you'll see at 826 Valencia. In addition to being a kick ass pirate supply store, 826 Valencia is a well-known writing workshop, dedicated to helping kids aged 6-18 develop their skills as writers. They're also the publisher of the awesome new book of kids' letters to President Obama called Thanks and Have Fun Running the Country.

psss.: Photo of Anne Bonny from wikipedia.