Cliff presented a paper at the Forum of European Neuroscience in Geneva, Switzerland, and decided that he might as well stop by the United States on his way back. So he visited Rex in Virginia, then Grandma and me in the Bay Area, then Carol and Peter in Southern California. Fortunately he was able to stay in the Bay Area for a whole week. We did lots of things, such as eating plums, playing Scrabble, playing Talisman, talking about our daydreams of the future, and eating boysenberries. Here are some photos from our more picturesque activities.
Our main reason for going to Golden Gate Park was to see the exhibit of Dale Chihuly's glasswork at the De Young museum. Both Cliff and I had seen Chihuly pieces before and knew we were in for an amazing experience. Fortunately, the museum allowed us to take photographs of the exhibit (although photos don't do it justice).
We went through the exhibit backwards (to avoid a massive guided tour group that had entered at the same time as us). Thus, we got to see the grand finale first! This is the "Millefiori Garden" (Italian for "thousand flowers), a spectacular cornucopia of plants, stems, balls, snakey-looking things, clumps of helical squiggles, and other undersea wonders.
Helical squiggles! (In the Millefiori Garden.)
Snakey-looking things!
This is as close as I could get to capturing the full scope of the Millefiori Garden.
The next exhibit was a collection of colorful glass sea-creatures and other objects trapped above a glass ceiling. If not for limitations of time and neck musculature, we could have spent hours staring up at the ceiling. We estimated that there must have been several thousand individual glass pieces up there. How on earth does one transport an exhibit like that?
Cliff really liked these glass "chandeliers." Using me as a scale bar, you can see that they are rather large.
The boat on the left is filled with (Chihuly's interpretation of) Japanese glass fishing floats, and the boat on the right is filled with what he calls "ikebana" - whimsical flower-like entitites. The boats sat on a highly polished black surface, so that they were nearly outshone by their own reflections.
This sculpture was called "Reeds," but since the purple spires were emerging from birch logs, they made me think of prodigiously large stalks of fungus.
These large clam-like sculptures were called "Macchia," which means "spotted" in Italian. They were glowing with rich blotches of color. Here I am posing next to my favorite one.
These floppy limpet-looking things were called "Persians"...
...and these extravagant vases were called "Venetians."
This is a glass "forest" lit by neon. To create the stalks, which are about six feet high, they climbed a ladder and blew some glass while letting it fall to the floor. The large "bulbs" on the floor are the remnant of this process. Since the structure is all hollow, it can be filled with neon and illuminated.
What do I mean by "they climbed a ladder"? Don't I mean "he," as in Chihuly? Well, after seeing the exhibit, Cliff and I went to a video screening room and saw a documentary of Chihuly Studios behind-the-scenes. It turns out that Dale Chihuly himself hasn't done any glass-blowing since 1976, when a car crash left him blind in one eye. These marvelous sculptures were made not by him, but by a large and dedicated team of artists who he supervises.
And here we are outside the museum! The sign proclaims that the exhibit runs until September 28, 2008, so if you are reading this before then, we highly recommend that you visit if possible.
The last Chihuly sculpture we saw was this one, called "Saffron Tower." Behind it, you can see the iconic and rather ugly observation tower of the De Young Museum.
Next we tried to go to the Conservatory of Flowers, again. (We'd tried to go there on New Year's Eve but it was CLOSED. And then I wanted to go for my birthday but it was CLOSED.) Well, we arrived at 4:31, only to discover that it had closed at 4:30. So we missed it for a third time. Instead we decided to wander around the Dahlia Garden nearby. Unlike a glasshouse, it can't be locked at closing time.
This was Cliff's favorite dahlia. Cute, isn't it?
And here are some peculiar double-layered dahlias. There were many variations on this theme.
I had never before seen a dahlia as big as my head!
We meandered through Golden Gate Park on our way back to catch the MUNI, and found lots of wild blackberries on the way.
Then it was time for dinner. We went to Canto do Brasil, a very pleasant Brazilian restaurant a few blocks from Symphony Hall. Here is Cliff with a caipirinha, a traditional Brazilian drink made with rum; this one had kiwifruit as an added twist.
And here we are at the San Francisco Symphony! I had forgotten to bring a change of clothes, so I am still wearing my jeans. Cliff looks dashing as always. We were treated to some wonderful music (Bizet, Saint-Saens, and Offenbach, among others). Since this concert was part of SF Symphony's "Summer in the City" program, which is designed to be accessible to a wide audience, the pieces were purely enjoyable.
Visiting the cabin at Lake Alta is always a highlight of Cliff's trips to California. Usually we go up to get the Christmas tree, but this time we had a rare opportunity to visit in the summer. The occasion was not entirely carefree because of the disrepair of the cabin and because of doubts over the property's future - but, this brief overnight trip to Alta reaffirmed how much we adore the place.
When we arrived, the Pramuks had us over for dinner - a wonderful dinner, as always. The best part was dessert, which was a Princess Cake: layers of cake, jam, and whipped cream, topped with a layer of marzipan! John dusted the top with cocoa, using a liquidambar leaf to provide a silhouette. We all had seconds and some of us had thirds.
The next morning, Cliff, Jeremy and I took the customary walk around the lake. Here, Jeremy and Cliff inspect a ponderosa pine with white fungi growing out of its trunk. We later saw (from the vantage point of our canoe on the lake) that the entire tree was dead, thus making it an attractive meal for fungi. On the other side of the lake, we passed by the Waste-Babcock house and saw the preparations for a wedding that was to take place later that day.
Later that morning we had the Pramuks over for waffles. Here, Gunda admires Cliff's waffle, which is heaped with whipped cream, fresh blueberries, and fresh pineapple. Two other items of note on the table are (1) a bottle of agave syrup, which John brought over as an interesting honey substitute, and (2) dark brown slices of... meat? No, it's a chocolate date cranberry oatmeal bar that Gunda made as "trail food" for Gabe, who is currently halfway through hiking the Pacific Crest Trail.
Oh boy! We're going to go canoeing!
...as soon as we take a few more pictures, that is!
Gunda said this was the first time in many years that all the houses around the lake had been simultaneously occupied. (We Kerrs have been slacking off lately.)
Our pink waterlily patch is doing quite nicely this year. Grandma planted these several decades ago. The damselflies like to sit on the pads.
Cliff and Jeremy with our trusty blue canoe, which Dad and Clark E. bought as a birthday present for Grandma in the late 1960s. It's still perfectly seaworthy, or lake-worthy, as the case may be.
After our canoe trip, we cleaned the house, said goodbye to the Pramuks, and headed back to the Bay Area (with the obligatory Ikeda's stop on the way). It was a short trip but a lovely one. There's no place quite like Alta in the summer.
I was sorry to see Cliff go, but he had to get back to Sydney, his dissertation, and Karina. If only we lived closer together! The fact that we see each other so rarely makes our visits even more enjoyable.
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Last updated August 26, 2008.