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.

Day 10 - Simply Keeping Up

Work has started again, and so my life is crazy again. This week I'm a little short on hours, but it will give me three days off to enjoy. Tomorrow I'll go museum hopping with friends (#64), and who knows, maybe I'll get to try a new restaurant (#71). And the vitamin thing (#26) is still going strong.

I'm up to page 34 in this week's New Yorker (#10)--I love David Sedaris. Some of his essays are on the short side, but I'm savoring this four page reflection on quitting smoking. The rest of the magazine should go quickly, as I usually skip over the fiction. I want to work in radio and news, and any reading time spent on "fake" stuff kinda feels like wasted time. I aspire to fill my head with facts and true stories, instead.

I've been working on my Japanese 社会 textbook (#48) as well and have now reached page 43. To be fair it was a picture and graph heavy section. Having a Japanese boyfriend is absolutely wonderful when I reach weird parts of the text.

Me: Hey Ken, take a look at this sentence for me. I think it means this, but the way it's written confuses me.
Ken: That's not natural Japanese--it confuses me, too.

I love it when it's not just me.

I leave you with the most beautiful character I've scribbled down in a long time--a hiragana ki. It has the perfect proportions and swish factor. Starred for easy identification and my own amusement. ^_^