Belated Friday five.

Five recommendations from today, in no particular order:

• Picking up a copy of the 2008 EcoMetro Guide, featuring coupons for Bay Area green businesses and all-purpose green products. I got mine from Earthsake on Fourth Street. Rumor has it, you can get it from Elephant Pharmacy and various other East Bay shops, or just order online to save the paper bag.
  
• Planning your day around a letter of the alphabet. For example, the letter "R" could begin with breakfast at Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe, followed by rowing a canoe around the estuary or running Inspiration Point, lunching on authentic rice and beans, followed by reading to blind people, recreating a dream through charades, replacing all of your light bulbs with energy-saving bulbs, or releasing a small spider into the wild via your balcony.
  
• Lunching at Tacubaya (the vegetarian chile relleno, followed by churros, is highly recommended).
• Exploring a new place in the Bay Area, like maybe Albany Hill, the lump by the freeway on I-80 near Albany that features lovely views, Ohlone-made mortal bowls in the rocks at the base of the trail, and no more manufacturing of explosives (may those victims rest in peace).
• Spending the day with good friends.

It's so easy (and so typical) for me to go about my weekend solo, but dinner last night, the adventures today and all the subsequent incidental or purposeful conversations were incredibly priceless, especially given my current state of mind. Thank you, friends. Canada 2008?