Clippings

Since we were still operating on Central Standard time, we arrived at the SFMOMA like early bird chickadees. Good thing ~ as the Frida Kahlo exhibit was as compelling as any art show gets. The lines were crazy as we were leaving. Me with my heart in my hand and Kenny with a new coffee table book. Next stop: Golden Gate Park’s Arboretum and my first view of the Coastal Redwoods. Something smells enticingly good about this big, busy city. It’s Eucalyptus! In the air, clearing out sinus cavities and generally making the world smell clean and organic. Until I learn that tragically this elegant shag-barked Eucalyptus tree was introduced to coastal California some century ago from Australia and it has now been classified a noxious weed! Highly flammable due to the oil and tragically invasive. Yowzer.

The breadth of plant material that can live in Northern California is beyond imagination and reason! Flowers bloom, trees bloom, weeds bloom, rocks bloom. The public arboretum is a breathtaking fairyland for this horticultural neophyte. Window boxes are busting out all over and blooming  bouganvilla grows thick across nearly every threshold. San Francisco is infused with colorful, tropical delight. I know that we are no longer in Kansas.

On the way to the Giant’s game we scurried through famed Haight-Ashbury for some local color and strong coffee. Kenny loved seeing the new stadium and added a ball cap to his growing collection. I on the other hand I was near frostbit and happily paid the $15 cab fare back to the hotel at the end of the evening instead of negotiating the BART back across town. Mark Twain once said that the coldest winter he ever spent was a summer in San Francisco. True that.