City Outing

I woke up to an unfamiliar sound this morning, and it took me a while to figure out what it was. And then I couldn't believe it. But finally, it's raining! Raining! Keep raining! I hope it will. It's been falling steadily today, not too much of a deluge, which is perfect, a nice soaking. I'd really been missing lying in bed on a dark Sunday morning listening to the rain falling. It was a lovely start to the day. The birds are very happy, prancing about on the deck, flitting through the oak tree, flying from fence line to fence line. What a relief, even just a brief one. And a surprise, I didn't see any precipitation in the forecast.

M and I did rouse ourselves from our rain-induced hypnosis and got to the Center this morning. The theme this month is meditation, and I'm glad I went since meditation is something I'd like to do more of. I'm also reading a book about meditation, Peace Is Every Step by Thích Nhất Hạnh, so that's nice synergy. Being out for a bit made it nicer to get home and putter around the house. Yogurt is straining in the fridge, keeping a Cook's test recipe of flan company, and a loaf of sandwich bread is cooling on the counter. I have no enthusiasm for the Superbowl. We'll do some sort of stir fry for dinner tonight, so M can master his wok chops.

But, yesterday! Yesterday was an adventure in the City. Felicia and I had been planning to see the Bulgari exhibit at the de Young for months and it was pretty eye-popping.

The exhibit area was kept very dark, I assume to highlight just how scintillating the jewelry is. Each case was lined with sparkly white material. There were more guards than usual, so Felicia couldn't sneak in any photos. There were a couple of "interactive" displays that were really just animated projections. After seeing the Gaultier exhibit a while back with the projections of faces on the mannequins, I wish they would have a technology where you could project your own face onto a display, as if you were wearing one of the designer dresses or the enormous emerald necklace that once adorned Elizabeth Taylor, and then take a picture. Wouldn't that be fun? I bet they'd get a lot of buzz around that too, though maybe they don't need that.

While we were having lunch at the de Young after seeing the exhibit, Felicia remembered that her friend had recommended a park in San Francisco that had incredible views and a mosaic staircase. Since it was a brilliant day and it wasn't too far from the museum, we set out on foot to find the park. It wasn't quite as close as I had thought it was going to be, and the first hill seemed like just a nice warm up. But then we came upon this set of stairs:

I hope you can see how many flights there are in the photo. And then when we got to the top of the stairs, there were a few more uphill streets to climb. Then more flights of stairs once we got to the park in order to get to the top. We paused regularly to, um, admire the views and kept up a "Hawaii" mantra since we'll both be going in a few months and are trying to get in shape for our trips. But it worth getting to the top! It's not much of a park, but the vistas are amazing--definitely earns the name of Grandview. We saw the Farallon Islands on one side, and the bay on the other, filled with sailboats, Pt. Reyes to the north. We could see so many SF landmarks. We lucked out on an absolutely perfect day.

We walked down the other side of the park looking for the mosaic stairs. Here's a shot of just a few flights, but there are 10 or so, all beautifully done. We had no idea what the theme was when we started, we just paused at each landing and looked behind us for the next installment. It was kind of fun coming from the top and working our way down. The water themed mosaic looked particularly beautiful with the blue sky, and blue blooms of the rosemary and pride of Madeira. 

Such a lovely weekend. A wonderful start to February.