Local Celebrity of the Day: Solo Spear St. Mystery Twin Lady

So I've decided that I'm going to start featuring people that I see on a regular basis throughout my day-to-day life in the city.  These people to me are local celebrities as I see them frequently yet know very little about who they are.  I tend to imagine brief personal biographies from the small surface level observations I am able to make.

Today's celebrity is an elderly woman that can be spotted almost daily near the Southwest corner of Market and Spear streets.  This lady has a peculiar style that I would say is all her own, except for the fact that she has an identical twin that dresses exactly the same as she does.  I typically only see one of them on this corner and wonder if the other is off on another corner asking for spare change, and if they alternate spots.  I imagine the two of them living together in cluttered single room apartment somewhere nearby.

I've been a curious about these two ladies for quite some time now and have yet to muster up the gall to actually speak to them.  So I did what any indisposed human would do, I Googled the terms "San Francisco, twins, sisters."  I learned a little bit about the famous Brown Sisters, however there was next to nothing about the two ladies that I see near my place of employment.  She/they stand in a high traffic area so I know many people see her/them daily like I do, yet there's little to no word about them on the ol' interwebs.  Eventually I suppose I'll ask them about themselves but until that day all I have is speculation.

The only other evidence I could find online of these ladies together was a photo from lnkyhack's flickr stream:

Winchester Mystery Tour - Highly Recommend!!!

This past weekend I finally managed to get down to San Jose to take a tour of the Winchester Mystery Mansion. This had been somewhat of a childhood dream destination of mine ever since I saw a brief documentary about it on one of those history or discovery channel shows.  For those of you that don't know what it is, basically it's a house with a ton of rooms, strangely placed doors, windows, and other structures.  The story goes that Sarah Winchester, widow and inheritor of the Winchester rifle estate, believed that she need to have continuous construction on her house to appease the ghosts of the people who were killed by Winchester rifles over the years.  The results were this superbly bizarre house.
While the entrance to get your tickets (conveniently placed within the gift shop) is a bit on the over-polished-truck-stop side, the actual tour of the house is pretty freaking spectacular.  The tour guide had her schpiel down pat and moved the group through pretty efficiently, but with enough time to inspect things on your own without feeling rushed.  Unfortunately photography is not allowed inside the mansion, but below are a couple of shots I snapped with my phone of the exterior.

One thing I would recommend avoiding however, is the "Behind The Scenes" tour.  It may seem like a deal only being an additional $5 more than the the Mansion tour, but it's really just completely pointless.  The only thing on this portion of the tour that you can't explore on your own is the basement, which is surprisingly run-of-the-mill.  Save yourself $5 and skip this part.