Some parings have an everlasting status that transcends the tides of popular culture. Adam and Eve. Fish and Chips. Homer and Marge. Cookies and Milk.

From Gladly Gladee, Japan, comes a series of sweets bags and purses. The chocolate biscuit plushy soft zip bag has a double stuff filling too so as not to be outdone by Oreo double stuffed cookies. Mercifully, the Gladly Gladee One Pint Milk Carton Bag top zips open, rather than forcing the struggle to separate the gables at the top of the carton.

The milk carton bag comes in regular milk and a chocolate milk version not pictured and stand about 5 3/4 inches. The chocolate biscuit bag comes only in one version. Interior of both bags are lined with nylon.

   Ever been to a party with flimsy plastic forks, spoons and knives? Ever suffered dropped food on you lap because the limp fork never really impaled the store bought microwaved lasagna? Ever feel disappointment and frustration after realizing that the necessary eating implements were not included in the take out bag? Dishes plied high in the kitchen sink because you butt hutt dweller roommates have not cleaned anything since Super Ball Sunday? Solve all these problems and more with a Personal Folding Travel Fork, Spoon, Knife and Bottle Opener Utensil Set.

   Unfold the fork 180 degrees and then slide the fork and it's handle about a 1/4 inch toward the spoon. Now lift up to separate the fork with it's handle to use as an independent appliance. The spoon and knife fold out from the other half and each can be used as needed.

  All parts except the handles are made of stainless steel. The handles are made of anodized aluminum. Dishwasher safe. When closed the cluster measures 4 inches long, extended about 5 1/2 inches long.

It is always fun for us when we get enough different colors of an eraser that we can put together large sets of erasers. Now that we have Series 1, 2 and 3 of the Iwako Monkey Japanese erasers we have done just that . 18 monkey erasers in all.

The Mega Monkey Japanese Eraser Set is not nearly as large as the 36 piece Marina's Epic Hamster Set, but the color spectrum is still impressive.

Lulu who works in Sausalito Ferry Co, took a ride on the Sausalito Ferry and assembled a Staten Island Ferry model kit.

The Fascinations Metal Works Staten Island kit takes about 20 minutes or so to assemble. The laser cut pieces can be snipped from the stainless steel sheet they are etched on.  Then they can be fitted together by inserting the tiny tabs into their corresponding slots on neighboring pieces.

Here at Sausalito Ferry Co brick and mortar we have over 30 different Fascinations Metal Works kits. They range from the Wright Flyer to the P51 Mustang, from the Titanic to the pirate ship Black Pearl, from the Eiffel Tower to the Empire State building. They and all the other kits will appear on sausalitoferry.com soon. For now, we are staying local with the Golden Gate Bridge as in the previous blog post and now with the Powell and Manson Street Cable Car.

Fascination's Golden Gate Bridge kit comes as one thin sheet of laser etched stainless steel. Following a yellow instruction sheet, Lulu carefully snips the parts of the bridge. Each of the pieces fit together with tiny tabs that fit into tiny slots. Lulu's assembly time for this kit is about 16 minutes, but a first time assembler will take longer. The finished Golden Gate Bridge is about 4 inches long, substantially shorter than 1 1/2 miles of the real structure.

Flash drives common enough these days we do not give much thought to them until we need one.  Kinda like a stick of gum.

From Bone in Taiwan, we have a collection of 8GB flash drives that take a different approach to data storage. Within the British Royal Palace Guard and the fanciful Ninja, the flash drives are encased in the figure. By bending forward the head, the male section of the flash drive is revealed. When inserted in the USB port of a laptop, the Guard and Ninja look to be taking a short snooze, sitting and leaning against the side of the laptop.

The uniforms and weapons of these Bone flash drives are made of a matte finish silicon. Legs and arms are poseable so you can stand your Guard or Ninja at attention to provide security for your devices. The flash drive can be removed entirely if needed.

In the Very Small Happy Cats and Gods section of sausalitoferry.com we have a collection of miniature hand painted porcelain figurines from Japan. Each different figures meaning is determined by it's color. A golden owl, turtle or maneki not surprisingly would bring you money or wealth. Only a half an inch tall, they could be exquisitely decorated hard candies.

 According to the legend of the Seven Gods, on New Year's Day they disembark from their sailing ship to distribute fantastical gifts to deserving people. Of course, each of the gods has a power that he lords over. We as retailers, have a special affinity to Ebisu, the god of merchants and fisherman.

Seven porcelain and ten glass manekis should cover most all your wishes from protection from evil to bringing good luck.

If Japanese Gods, owls, turtles and manekis are not the type of deity you are looking for, we have rabbits, frogs and ninjas as well.

Our FedEx ground delivery guy brought us the long awaited Ty Hello Kitty erasers couple days before Christmas. In the midst of the shopping chaos in our store, we disappeared into the stock room to post these erasers. We should have stayed out on the floor to help semi panicked shoppers, but we had been waiting for a year for the Ty Hello Kitty erasers. We could not wait.

The Ty Hello Kitty erasers are made by Iwako Japan, the maker of all the Japanese erasers. Stores in the US must buy them from Ty, maker of Beanie Babies and Beanie Ballz.

In Japan, Iwako is offering four colors of the the Hello Kitty erasers rather than the red and pink that Ty has. We are trying to get the Japanese versions for sausalitoferry.com. The Iwako Hello Kitty erasers are on ebay in a box of a hundred but the price is over $5 an eraser. A little pricey.

For all of you Sonny Angel fans who have been waiting breathlessly for a bobble head version, you can exhale.

As with all bobble heads, these way too cute Sonny Angel bobble heads are attached to their way too cute Sonny Angel bodies by a spring which allows maximum bobbling when placed on the dashboard of your car.

So this past week we received from Iwako a whole lotta of new Japanese erasers. We are most enamored about about the Peek-a-Bear Japanese erasers, but the Just Hatched Chicks are high on the aww scale.

The new colors of the Newly Hatched Dinos will replace the colors of the first series that came in some decidedly non dinosaur colors.

Omokeshi Picnic Set 23 continues Iwako theme set series. Omokeshi Sports Set 24 contains new colors of bowling pins that of this writing are not available in the individual bowling erasers. We expect to see those new colors sometime in the future.

Nine styles of solar powered manekis or happy cats. The bobble heads are battery free and  need only normal interior lighting to bobble.

TY HELLO KITTY SHIPPING UPDATE. According to Ty, they will not ship the Iwako Hello Kitty eraser in 2012. We do not have a ship date.

We must admit that the Hello Kitty eraser aficionados is not a large group. But they are dedicated. The Holy Grail of Hello Kitty erasers are ones made by the Japanese eraser company Iwako a few years back. They were full figures rather than the flat two dimensional or monochromatic Hello Kitty erasers we show on sausalitoferry.com.

Last winter at the New York Toy Fair, Ty, the maker of Beanie Babies and other plush, showed samples of those figural Iwako Hello Kitty erasers that they said they would ship sometime this year. We have been told by our Ty rep that we should see them this month, November.  Maybe.

In the meantime, we have received a set of figural Hello Kitty erasers from Sanrio, Korea. We have two versions of the four eraser set. The difference is the color of the shirt on the two Hello Kitty erasers. Not pictured is the pink and blue shirt version, but both are available at sausalitoferry.com. The My Melody and Purin erasers are the same in both sets.

The Hello Kitty erasers in this set are about 1 3/4 inches tall, which should be a bit smaller than the impending Iwako Ty Hello Kitty erasers.

If you have ever been to the brick and mortar Sausalito Ferry Co or our sister store, Games People Play, just across  Bridgeway Blvd, and made a purchase, you might have received a two dollar bill in your change. Using two dollar bills is just one of many idiosyncratic things we do here.

We could not help ourselves when we saw Two Dollar Bill wallets in our travels looking for stuff for the stores.

The wallets come in $1, $2, $10, $20, $50 and $100 denominations. (We apologize to the President Lincoln fans for the absence of the five dollar note).

The duofold wallet is made of vinyl infused canvas and has a single bill pocket and two slots for credit cards.

Frankly, in the last year we have been pretty bored with the Japanese eraser releases from Iwako. All the supposedly new Japanese erasers were just minor color variations of existing erasers. Meh.

So much to our delight when we opened a package from Iwako, we were surprised at the new Parka Bear Japanese erasers that will show up in late November.

Reminiscent of Peek-a-Pooh danglys a few years back, we are lead once again to use adjectives for the new Parka Bear Japanese eraser such as cute, aww, precious.

Living here in seismically active San Francisco Bay Area, when the ground shakes, one often wonders if it is a large semi truck rumbling by or the real event. From Gama-Go we have a t shirt that poses another possibility.

We have the California Street Bowling shirt in men's sizes, both in the brick and mortar on on the website.

The brick and mortar know as Sausalito Ferry Co is right in the center of the town where tourists concentrate. In the three decades that we have been here, we have always maintained that if you merchandise only to those tourists, your store is not going to be all that interesting. Especially to the locals. 

There has always been local residents that want to maintain a truly small town feel of Sausalito. Those residents have made sure that the retail area that caters to the tourists is limited in size as not to spoil the local feel more than necessary.

The tourist commercial area extends a couple of blocks along the San Francisco Bay waterfront. Go beyond that south to the Golden Gate Bridge or north towards the houseboats, Sausalito has not changed all that much since the Liberty Ship building days during the Second World War.

From Alex Frankel, the Keep Sausalito Salty t shirt is just a wink and a nod to keeping Sausalito local. Alex writes about the meaning of Keep Sausalito Salty.

"Keep it salty? We noticed that the best parts of Sausalito are under threat of being waxed, polished, fixed, and otherwise tweaked. By buying the shirt you hold in your hands, you can help keep your favorite Bay Area town just the way it is. Ten percent of each sale supports a public information outreach effort to keep Sausalito citizens informed about local development issues. The original design is by Nathaniel Russell. Shirts are printed in Emeryville, Ca. Thanks for supporting our cause. And keep it salty, my friend".

Once again, mostly not showing a shred of modesty, the 2012 Sonny Angel Halloween Series has arrived. As always, we receive the Sonny Angels blind boxed. Buying toys blind boxed is like buying capsuled toys from a vending machine. You never know which toy you are going to get.

We open the boxes and offer each Halloween Sonny Angel individually. You the customer can avoid playing the lottery trying to get the Sonny Angel figurine you want.