What a gorgeous morning.
Every morning we wake up is special (because we are lucky enough to wake up), but some mornings also LOOK and FEEL special.
Tuesday, September 24, 2024
The Blackpool Streetcar (23 Sept 2024)
San Francisco has an antique streetcar collection (of course it does!), and the boat-shaped streetcar from England is SPECIAL.
Slow, and special. It only runs on Sundays and Mondays (currently). I've been turned away from its final trip back to the barn (where the streetcars sleep), because it is a bit slow, and to prevent from slowing down the modern streetcars, the operators take it across town without making passenger stops.
But I saw it coming at the Ferry Building, and optimistically waited. A group of tourists needed to get off, and so the operators let some of us random passengers board. And stay on. Not just to Castro Street, but all the way back to the barn at Balboa Park!!
So I got to ride the boat all the way across town! It has been years since I rode it, and this was SPECIAL.
People WAVED to us. (We waved back.). People took photos. People smiled. It was... charming.
I can't think of a more special form of public transit to take home on a gorgeous day.
Saturday, September 14, 2024
Blooming in September
Favorites (without the pianos) from the botanical garden today. I LIKE plants.
P.S. Oh, I didn't name the plants. Here are my best guesses:
Top row
-Dark red upper left is Leycesteria formosa (Pheasant berry)(Google lens helped!)-Brumansia sanguinea (trumpet vine)-Kahili ginger
Center:
-Pineapple lily
Bottom:
-Haemanthus (blood flower)-my search for "collinsia but hairy" didn't turn up a match-protea!! We all love protea!
Flower Piano (with real flowers)
This weekend and next, talented pianists are playing piano in the botanical garden. Also: there are plants!
Sunday, September 8, 2024
Friday, September 6, 2024
The Neon Museum of Las Vegas, Nevada (5 Sept 2024)
I have friends who are very dear to me who go to Las Vegas to party. I adore them, but won't go, because I don't enjoy being dressed up and drunk.
I found the Neon Museum, and it is so much more interesting than drinking!
The small piece of land filled with oversized signs contains both neon signs and other historic signs of Las Vegas, often from leased signage that was reclaimed by sign companies prior to the demolition and replacement of old casinos.
Shapely letters, so many bulbs.
Oh!
What a great S.
This required some interpretation, but it used to be part of the Flamingo sign.
Sea horses very much seem to be alien life forms - I'm unsure how they wind up posing as ordinary sea creatures of earth. This sign puts them in this alien context.
If my clothes ever emote this much, it's a sign I've had too much espresso, and need to stay home from work.
I enjoyed my visit to this museum very much, and appreciated the patio with misters, which helped those of us who were walking around in high 90s temperatures a chance to almost cool off.
Crop Circles, no, the other kind (3 Sept 2024)
So bizarre, the kind of thing that would alarm us if we observed it on another planet.
Monday, September 2, 2024
Auto Body Wall (1 Sept 2024)
I like the column details, too, which unify the series of garage door pieces.
Clarion Alley Murals of the Moment (415)(1 Sept 2024)
Our City motto is in Spanish: Oro en Paz, Fierro en Guerra: gold in peace, iron in war.
415 is our traditional telephone area code.
And yes, it is funny that there are entire states who only have enough people for one area code. No, they shouldn't have electoral college votes out of proportion to their population.
Clarion Alley Murals of the Moment (Freedom for Iran)(1 Sept 2024)
The gate is symbolic of their imprisonment.
Hawk At Work (1 Sept 2024)
I had to look up what the hawk version of a falconer is, since it isn't a hawker. (It should have been, but that word took a weird turn... You expected me to make a tern joke there, but I'm not going to!... Oh, wait...)
It's an "austringer." (Which also took a turn, because most of the results are video-game-weapon-related. I searched for 'is there a hawk equivalent of a falconer' and got to the right word that way).
Our local BART system (regional electric trains) employs austringers to clear stations of pigeons, and it works. I asked the austringer directly, and it takes a while for the pigeons to take a hint. You can see a 'hawks at work' sign in the distance in the upper right corner of the photo, which I think helps commuters not ask silly questions about why austringers are wandering through the stations. Also, there is a BART anime mascot addressing this topic. (No, really.)
This particular austringer is (a) very handsome and (b) also has a hawk on his right arm in a stunningly gorgeous tattoo in the style of a Japanese painting. (I don't post photos of other people's tattoos without their permission, but I made giddy sounds when I reviewed the photo later. Such. Amazing. Ink.)
Bowl with light (31 August 2024)
So glad this art (from the SF Women Artists gallery) survived many years and two moves! The shape and glazes are so gorgeous.
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