our week in San Francisco

We came to celebrate my mother's recuperation after her chemotherapy and the fact that her tests show that there is no cancer activity for now. If her tests continue to be clear, they'll officially say she's in remission after five years, but what is most important is that her strength is returning, the pain in her legs is leaving, and she feels happy and full of life!

We also celebrated a cluster of birthdays.
Some of the highlights of our trip? walking, walking, walking and family times.
We saw the Birth of Impressionism show of works on loan from the Musée d'Orsay at the De Young museum in Golden Gate Park, and ate at Delfina Pizza: the food is absolutely great, the servers are lovely, but the manager on duty that day was so absolutely hateful that I will never go there again.

The other art pilgrimage was to the SFMOMA show "Calder to Warhol" with a small part of the huge art collection donated by Gap founders Doris and Donald Fischer; my sister used to work in their headquarters and saw a lot of this art when it was displayed there. She has some stories to tell. We had lovely lunch at their Caffe Museo and artist-inspired desserts up on the roof.
It was great fun to acquaint my daughter with Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance at the Lamplighters (I have just discovered that there is a filmed version of the show with Kevin Kline as The Pirate King, Angela Lansbury and Linda Ronstadt! Must watch!)



I was incredibly excited to see fledgling seagulls at the Yerba Buena Center, still not able to fly, but learning to hop up and down on the garden wall. Where was there nest?

Other excursions included the Farmer's Market at Fort Mason and the lovely, lovely Bay, wading in the Pacific at Ocean Beach, trekking Chinatown and North Beach (cannoli at Stella's and pork buns at that one place on Stockton which actually has a name but which we always find by accident)

We ate breakfast twice at Out The Doorbecause they make the best pancakes in the world.

Much time was spent combing the stores of Japantown for the perfect bento box and bento prep gear. We plan to try out lots of recipes this fall, and I'm so happy to have found Biggie's Lunch in a Box site!

We also spent time lovingly touching all the stuff at the New People store (where we also made some purchases) and the Viz Theater where we saw Seven Samurai (Shichinin no samurai, 1954) directed by Akira Kurosawa and starring the incomparable Toshiro Mifune.

And now we are home again, home again, jiggity jig.