Days 10, 11, and 12 - Ups and Downs

I get my New Yorker on Thursday or Friday, always. In Albany I got it on Monday or Tuesday, but I'm on the West Coast now. It takes longer to mail things out here. Then why oh why did my New Yorker come on Tuesday this week?? I was only half finished with last week's. #10 has been reset. Simply opening my mailbox made for an insta-fail.

Tuesday was a great day otherwise--free museum day! Two friends and I went out for some free culture. We started the day at the Conservatory of Flowers, which is like a greenhouse on steroids. They have different rooms for different climates--tropical, mountain highlands--that are brimming with flowers.



Their special exhibit was about butterflies, which is a yearly thing, apparently. The coolest thing is that they're not in cages--they just flutter around the room as they please. You can watch them feed from pretty flowers and feeders or just plain ol' hang out.



This guy might have been my favorite.

Then we went to the de Young Museum and went up it's observation tower to get a look at the city and the bay. Didn't go through the exhibits, though. We took our time walking about of the park, and found this lake while we were at it:



It was huge. There were people in rowboats and peddleboats enjoying the weather. Really neat. Then it was off to the Legion of Honor. We arrived about an hour before close and realized that the Annie Leibovitz exhibit was there. We only had to pay five dollars to get into the special exhibit and man, it was amazing. We spent most of that hour in awe. So cool. We bought our postcards in the museum shop and were greeted by this happy sculpture on our way out:



First of all, San Francisco is one of the few places you could have this thing outside. (There was another one inside.) Number two... how cool is that?



After that we headed back to more familiar territory for dinner. It did end up being a new-to-me restaurant, though. I don't know the name, but it's the Thai place kitty corner from the coffeeshop in the Richmond. (It means something to me, trust me.) The pineapple fried rice was amazing. Definitely will be heading back.

So, in all that, what list items did I accomplish? While it looks like I went to three museums... I didn't. First of all, the Convervatory of Flowers is not a museum. Second of all, we didn't see any of the de Young past the observatory. And third of all, we only saw the special exhibit at the Legion of Honor. So... no checks for #64. The new restaurant counts as #71. #10 got put back to square one. And I did take my vitamins for #26. ...let's just called it a mixed day.