San Francisco I Have Arrived!

 

After an early morning flight we arrived in SF, last week ( I promise to make it up to you and write lots more throughout the summer). Our apartment is beautiful and the view is great but the artwork and furniture is so absurd.We have a creepy wooden monkey statue next to a Native American drum that has been turned into a table. Large gold lamps are everywhere and the art work looks like a drunk Matisse cut out figures and them vomited them up into shadow boxes. The prize piece is an enormous print from a 1996 exhibition of Picasso right over the kitchen table. It really is pretty wonderful, although the weather is going to take a bit of getting used to.

June 11th, Friday, was my first Cultural Encounters evening working at the de Young Museum and I was in charge of the "hands-on art making," which means that I made flower leis with tons of tiny children. It was actually lots of fun: I made lots of flowers, masks, and learned about the World Cup for an 8 year old boy. Apparently it was King Kamehameha Day, which celebrates the great warrior and monarch who established the kingdom of Hawai'i in 1810, uniting all the Hawaiian islands. 

Ilya and I spent the weekend with my brother and his girlfriend in Forestville with my parents. My mom made such an excellent bbq and I stuffed myself with shrimp, 2 types of steak, tofu, chicken, ribs, and corn. Delicious! The afternoon was spent swimming in the dirty Russian River with the fishes and dogs.