I stole art from the SF Museum of Modern Art

Well - before the Feds come knocking at my door - what I really did was take a few photos of some artwork at the MOMA.

I got there just in time for a guided tour of the William Kentridge exhibition. He is a South African artist who is multi-talented. A friend told me that she had heard a definition of a genius as one who looks at things and imagines them for other purposes. In one of Mr. Kentridge's film works his coffee pot turns into a spaceship. He works with a lot of commonplace items that were in his studio.

The museum also has paintings by Klee, Mondrian, Miro, Braques and Picasso. I took photos of Diego Rivera and Frieda Kahlo paintings.


Diego Rivera painting The Flower Carrier


Frieda Kahlo self portrait with her husband Diego Rivera
So I didn't really steal anything - and I paid admission and I bought a couple of things at the gift shop. So please, don't arrest me.

Surprises and disappointments

So much of our happiness in life depends upon our expectations. The Prom is really just a nice dance - but if you stress about making it the most important night of your life - well then you are setting yourself up for failure. A wedding day is hopefully not "the happiest day of a bride's life". And if it is, that is pretty sad.

So yesterday was a day of disappointments for me. Not that I had any big expectations about anything. But as I was leaving the house yesterday I realized that my sunglasses were no where to be found. So I began checking the guy from the SF Band who gave me a ride home. He found sunglasses in his car, but not mine. I wonder what that's about. So I called someone else who had given me a ride to the restaurant and I'm still waiting to hear from her. Today I stopped by the restaurant and they didn't have the glasses. Sigh...

So yesterday I met a new friend who works at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. He showed me a couple of very cool exhibits and told me about his work there. Very ineteresting.

After lunch I took off in search of a couple of Victorian homes that I had read about. My trek - and it was a trek - 20 blocks each direction - took me past the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption. One friend had referred to it as St. Maytag's another called the Agitator. It is a monstrous concrete structure that looks like the agitator from a washing machine. So hideous that it didn't warrant any photos. Suprisingly the interior has an imposing grandeur and allows for some quiet reflection. But they could have accomplished that with a lot less concrete. But it has survived one earthquake so far.

So off I went and found two of the houses that I had read about - neither were open for tours - I missed one by 20 minutes. But I got some good photos.


Atherton House - 1990 California Street


Haas-Lilienthal House - 2007 Franklin Street

The Atherton House is supposed to be haunted - I was hoping to find out if they were friendly spirits.

So minor disappointments that I wasn't able to tour either of the houses. But worse was my poor tired feet.

That evening I met up with fellow librarian Craig Cruz for a delicious dinner at Caffe Delle Stelle at the corner of Hayes and Gough Streets. Craig went off to hear the San Francisco Orchestra perform the Poulenc Organ Concerto. Another friend came by and gave me a ride home, taking me past the Painted Ladies of Nob Hill, through Japan Town, and then to the ocean and Cliff House.

So not a bad day after all.

San Francisco - by the Bay

Greetings all - I am in surprisingly hot San Francisco, California. I arrived on Sunday afternoon and have been playing tourist and generally having fun.

On Sunday after an early flight that took me to Dallas and then over some beautiful desert and the Grand Canyon, I arrived and made my way to my temporary home in SF. The shuttle driver had other people to drop off so I had a scenic tour of SF, including Lombard Street.

Once settled in the Sunset neighborhood - west of downtown, I rested and then ventured out to meet a friend for dinner and we walked around the Castro neighborhood.

After a good night's sleep, I took off on Monday morning for the Mission District to tour the St. Francis Mission and the Basilica. The interior is quite impressive in an understated way.

That was the end of my sightseeing on Monday - the rest of the day I hung out with some friends.

Tuesday was a full day of sightseeing. I walked the Golden Gate Bridge (1.7 miles across). Then, if that wasn't enough, after lunch I walked from Fort Mason all the way up Russian Hill, then down and then up Telegraph Hill to the Coit Tower. Believe me - it didn't look that far on the map - and the map doesn't indicate the scale of the hills. My feet are still sore!

So today is going to be another quiet day!! I also managed to get some sun - thank goodness I bought a hat otherwise my little bald head would be burned!!

I'm a Hero

Last Friday I was a hero. Okay - I didn't rescue a sea captain from pirates and I didn't rescue a baby from a burning building. I didn't even call 911 to report any number of crimes that were probably going on around the city.

I was a hero in the late 20th and early 21st Century sense of the word. Since we're all entitled to our 15 minutes or so of fame - heck if a psychotic woman can be famous for being Octo-Mom then I deserve fame for my heroic act, don't I?

Yet I didn't call a press conference to announce my act of heroism - I'm doing that here now on my blog. I figured I'd wait and let the rapture of Easter pale a little before taking the spotlight for myself.

My act of heroism? The noble deed that I did? I was walking into the Brookland Metro station and saw a cellphone lying on the ground. I picked it up and handed it to the Metro staff person in the kiosk. (I like the word kiosk.) I'm expecting Pat Collins from Channel 4 News to contact me soon for an on-air interview.

Speaking of Octo-Mom -- didn't Spiderman defeat her? Or am I thinking of someone else?

Homily at Diana's Funeral

I was looking around and the Holy Cross Brother, Robert Sevensky, OHC, who preached at my friend Diana's funeral on March 28, 2009, has posted the homily he gave.

It is a thoughtful homily, not a sentimental one. I was most touched by this observation.

Diana was indeed that. An integer. An entity. Complete. No matter how much or little you knew of Diana or about Diana, what you always got was… Diana.

It is worth the reading.

I'm a Libra Man

Last Saturday George and I went to see After the Garden. During the show, Little Edie talks about how she is looking for her Libra Man - her ideal lover. She even searched the audience looking for a Libra Man - I didn't raise my hand in time for her to see me. Whew!

Last night I was at Urban Outfitters in Gallery Place and I was looking through a horoscope book reading about Libra - my zodiac sign. Amongst the many flattering things that are written about Librans - we are truly wonderful - I read some uncomfortable truths.

One of those is that we need friends and fear being lonely. Okay, I deal with lonely pretty well - but that is part of the problem for us Librans - we cope well enough that we don't tell our friends that we need them. And I have been feeling particularly friendless lately.

Friendless isn't the right term - forgive the hyperbole. I just don't feel very well connected to my friends. And there's what I call the Facebook effect.

This morning on my walk from the Metro I was again thinking about my friends Jack and Lorraine Hall. They moved from Baltimore, Maryland to Berkeley Springs, West Virginia in the mid-1970s. I met them through a church choir. Jack and Lorraine were the same ages as my parents and they were lots of fun.

From the time I knew them I was spending many weekend evenings at their home. There was usually a big group of us - playing games - Jeopardy, Scrabble, etc. and laughing, singing and talking. It was never a big deal party - chips and sodas and cookies.

How does one do that? How do you make yourself open to friends so they want to come and visit? My family home was like that - people would just drop by. I talk with George about this - I want to have people over - but I want it informal - hanging out, playing the piano. Not something that requires three days of shopping and cooking.

Ah the irony - a couple of days ago my daily horoscope said that I should seek isolation. Good thing I don't believe in horoscopes!

After the Garden - and the oddities of life in DC

I won tickets to see After the Garden - based on the one-week performance by Edith Bovier Beale - Little Edie of Grey Gardens fame.

George and I had been to see Grey Gardens, the musical, at Studio Theatre a couple of months ago. It is a good play about an interesting mother and daughter - aunt and cousin of Jackie Kennedy Onassis.

The show was quite entertaining and was performed in a back room at Miss Pinky's 2nd hand furniture store on 14th Street, NW. For starters we ran into someone I know from the band. Secondly - we recognized the accompanist from another musical at Studio Theatre.

But the audience was almost as entertaining and surreal as Little Edie. The seating was all patio furniture (After the Garden...) and George and I seated ourselves on a wicker sofa. Moments before the play started a woman and a large man decided to join us by squeezing onto the sofa. The woman introduced herself and sort of apologized. "I've just come from working out, so I may not smell as fresh as roses."

And then a man, well into his 40's entered wearing jeans and v-neck undershirt. Definitely too old to be dressed like that. He seated himself in the front row and introduced himself to some other men who were seated there. Throughout the show he seemed to mimic the gestures of Little Edie. Maybe he was an understudy or somehow part of the show. Or maybe he had dropped acid before he came in. The show is set on New Year's Eve 1977.

And that was my dose of culture for the weekend.

DC is a small town - lest anyone think otherwise. Prior to the play George and I walked up 14th Street just to kill time before the play started. We ran into Steve Sears, a friend of mine from Library school. I love Steve and wish we did things together. But I enjoyed catching up with him. He had been with some friends up on U Street and was heading...somewhere.

On Sunday evening George and I had plans to meet up with Harry Stubbs, an acquaintance of mine from FDIC days and a friend of Diana Smith's. Anyway we had made plans to meet up and George suggested a Thai restaurant on Connecticut Avenue.

We met at the appointed time and turned around and there was Diana's cousin Pam Smith and her husband Miguel Harvey! In one sense we weren't surprised at all and I decided that this was really supposed to happen. They are a delightful couple and it was a great joy to run into them and share dinner.

Diana had to run a lot of coordination for that one - and thanks!

April Fool's day etc.

Hi friends. Gee several folks are actually reading this so I have to think a bit more carefully about what I write.

Thank heavens March is over! Though that lands us on April Fool's Day. According to Wikipedia the origin of this day lies in the change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar or moving the first of the year or some such thing. I have an inkling it predates that.

On at least one occasion when Good Friday fell on April 1, my friend Diana and I both took it as spiritual sign - the Devil was fooled on Good Friday - seeing Christ on the Cross he was certain that Christ was a fool and that he, Satan, had won! But Easter Sunday proved him wrong. Death was fooled!

Diana enjoyed minor pranks. One year at the FDIC we went in the night before and set up several pranks - only one of which back-fired. We tied some chairs to tables, wrapped a desk in newspaper, strung paper clips together. Oh - and another time Diana made a mock-apple pie - using the recipe on the side of the Ritz Crackers box. Just Ritz crackers and sugar and water and no apples. edible and sweet - but kinda weird.

Diana was invited to dinner on April Fool's Day and brought dessert - a delicious-looking sponge cake. You guessed it. Much to the relief of her hosts' children there was a real cake in the car. We talked about dipping mushrooms in chocolate for people who loved chocolate truffles, but we both hate to waste food.

Now on to the etc. part:

As of today, the Washington Post has finally published Diana's obituary. The link should be good for a few weeks. It includes a photo provided by one of Diana's friends - Pat Petrash. I met Pat the evening before Diana died - again I'm glad that Diana has such wonderful friends. That is the picture posted here.

Finally - I have been thinking about a journey that Diana and I made to New York City in October, 1999 to see Dame Edna on the Royal Tour at the Booth Theatre. We took the bus up and stayed with friends and we had a grand time. Our tickets put us in the first row all the way to the side. But eventually Dame Edna engaged Diana in conversation as she did other members of the audience. At the end of the show the people that Dame Edna had been talking with were invited to take part in the show and Diana dutifully suffered through this and was rewarded with the photo here of herself with Dame Edna. A few years later I was able to get Dame Edna to autograph it for her after a performance in Washington, DC.