Shopping in San Anselmo

Flowers give mouths something to do during tangos, turn vases into useful things, and can even express hard-to-verbalize emotions such as "suspicion that the newcomer to your rich uncle's book club is a traitor, or at the very least, an orangutan in human clothes." Today’s Groupon celebrates the many utilities of the flower with $40 worth of beautiful flora from Bell and Trunk Flowers for $20, all custom-arranged by Bell and Trunk's fastidious florists. Delivery is available for an additional fee.You: [Gender] Me: [Gender]

Through education and acculturation we evolve the lenses through which we see our world. Today's side deal will change the border around those lenses with $150 worth of chic frames from SF Optics for $70. Choose from a selection of glasses so fab that "two-eyes" becomes a backhanded moniker only slightly less potent than "popcorn toes."

The shops known as indie industries began in New York City, where a group of graduates from the Fashion Institute of Technology teamed up to create a designer-owned and produced collective selling small runs of home décor, clothing, and jewelry. The shop reached unexpected success, hitting the pages of Time Out New York, filling orders for more than 50 stores nationwide, and receiving a coveted shout-out in Dick Cheney's fashion blog. Today, savvy staffers fill the San Francisco shops with fashion-forward, sometimes one-of-a-kind picture frames, jewelry, watches, and threads, such as hand-inked graphic tees as unique as a snowflake's fingerprints. Beyond hosting the occasional art shows and shopping parties, the community-minded spaces beautify the streets with rotating window displays arranged by local artists.