Top 5 Reasons to Move Back to the Bay Area

I spent last week keeping Caroline the Cat Sitter company while Erika and Martin looked fruitlessly for a place to live in the Bay Area. We move into a temporary place in Palo Alto (thanks Deanna and Lois!) on September 30 and the search will continue...In the mean time, it's a whirlwind of activity closing up shop in New York(Our last brunch at Prune! Our last coffee at Jack's!) along with visits from the Willett parents and Uncle Neil, and the height of Birthday Season.

Erika has put together a list to help me get used to the idea of moving to California. You can tell Erika made this list because 3 out of the 5 items are food-related:

Top 5 Reasons to Move Back to the Bay Area

1. Great friends and family members abound
   
2. It's Its (only available West of the Rockies)
   
3. Banana peanut butter pancakes and a glass of milk for breakfast at It's Tops (in keeping with the "It's" theme)
   
4. Independent book stores (what happened to all of the book stores in NYC?)
   
5. Dungeness crab (read it and weep, expatriate Willetts)
   

ANOTHER SIDE NOTE from Erika:
I've seen some great bumper stickers lately. My favorite is on our local Greenwich Village fire engine (station 18). It's an "I support our Troops" sticker, but someone has removed the "Tr" in Troops.

Also of note is the tribute to September 11 as shown on the Defective Yeti blog.