Jane's Birthday and Walk the Line

On Saturday, we celebrated Jane's birthday. We got up early and I cleaned house a bit before getting ready to spend a fun day in San Francisco.

Our first stop was our newly minted favorite eatery in San Francisco, The Fog City Diner. Located on the Embarcdero, The Fog City Diner has been a fixture in SF since I was a kid. I went there a couple of times as a youngster, but only recently rediscovered it when my good friend Brent came into town from Paris, where he is going to school - Thanks Brent for picking that spot. Anyway, we shared a few selections from their 'Little Plates' menu, which is kind of like a tapas menu. Delicious food and a little dessert for the birthday girl at not-too-steep of a pricetag and we were off to our next destination.

We were originally planning to go ice skating after lunch, but it was raining. So, we spontaneously decided to drive up to Coit Tower to hang out for a while before going to the movies. It was foggy and wet, but Hylah had never been up there so we went to check it out. After walking around, I realized that all I had ever done up there in my 25+ years living in the city and the countless times I'd been (or taken someone) up there was hang out in the little parking lot/vista point area. I was surprised that I had never walked around the tower or gone inside to ride the elevator to the top. We decided not to ride up since it was foggy and there would be no view, but we spent time looking at the frescoes painted inside. We also did the tourist thing and walked around the Coit Tower gift shop for a bit.

After that, we went to see Walk the Line. It's a biopic about the life of Johnny Cash, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon. I just can't say enough about this movie. The performances were great and the music was done really well. I was also very impressed with the vocal performances of the actors. Joaquin and Reese both recorded and performed all of the songs in the movie that were originally recorded by their real-life counterparts Johnny Cash and June Carter-Cash. While it holds to the same story beats as most biopics, my limited exposure to and passing interest in the life of Mr. Cash kept me wanting more through the whole movie. Much like Ray (starring Jaime Foxx, about the life of Ray Charles), the music was great to listen to and the story was very compelling and informative. Ali (starring Will Smith), by comparison, suffered from not providing enough 'new' information about the subject to keep it interesting - at least for me. (Bonus: We used some movie passes that I received last year as a gift from work (Thanks Ginger!). During the movie, there was a constant loud banging coming from outside our theater. After a little investigation, we found out that it was a bathroom door that was slamming because of a broken spring. So we talked to the manager and he gave us some passes to use on our next visit, which means free King Kong before the end of the year!)

Finally, we came back home and trimmed our tree in preparation for Christmas at the end of the week. All in all, it was a great, fun-filled day that we all enjoyed. What a great way to kick off the holidays and celebrate Jane's birthday. Happy Birthday Jane!