One Birthday, Two Museums

Our younger granddaughter celebrated her eighteenth birthday yesterday. We took her and her sister to visit two museums in San Francisco, the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, and the De Young in Golden Gate Park.

At the Legion of Honor here the big attraction is, and will be until September 21, 2008, the paintings of Women Impressionists -- Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, Eva Gonzalès, and Marie Bracquemond. It is a fabulous show, and definitely worth seeing.

The De Young here is featuring until September 28, 2008, the brilliant glass works of Dale Chihuly. Another worthwhile visit.

Shows such as these only come around once in a great while, and we must take them in while we have the opportunity.

Later there was a fine birthday dinner at a Peninsula restaurant, followed by a delicious Princess birthday cake at home afterwards.

Concours d'Elegance

A display of cars, classic as well as current, in a Palo Alto meadow near the Stanford University provided an opportunity for me to do some videotaping. I was testing my new high-definition camcorder, a Canon HV20, and the results have just been uploaded to YouTube.

(The hi-def version of the clip can be viewed here. Just click on 'Watch in high quality'.)

Deposit

With an air of utter boredom the clerk at the window accepts the deposit. He does not look up at the depositor. He licks his right forefinger and reaches for a slip of paper from one of two stacks in a nearby tray. He places this receipt form, along with the deposit ticket, into a slot in a small machine the size of a stick of margarine. The machine makes a noise. The clerk takes out both pieces of paper and arranges them side-by-side on the green blotter in front of him. With his left hand he picks up a rubber stamp, taps it a couple of times on the inkpad, and stamps both slips of paper. With his right hand he picks up a stubby pencil, licks it, and makes a mark on the deposit receipt.

It is only when he pushes the receipt across his blotter towards the customer that he looks up.

"Have a nice day," he says, and leans his head to one side to look around the customer for the next one in line.

In Trutina

Charlotte Church sings this beautiful piece from Carmina Burana by Carl Orff.

Recycle

No, really. It's not that. Not laziness, or procrastination. Those links toYouTube of musical items? Well, they were simply put here to fill a gap while I had to attend to other matters away from the computer. I'm back, even though I have to limit my time sitting in front of this monitor. There are still a few kinks to be ironed out in the joints, but hey, none of us is getting any younger, y'know?

* * *

I feel pretty good after having spent a morning driving back and forth to deliver our old computers and monitors to the green recycling service set up by our community.

You should see the stuff that was out there. The items, some looking like they were still pretty new, lay on wooden pallets waiting to be forklifted onto trucks to be taken Heaven knows where, probably some container terminal, to be shipped as scrap plastic or metal over to China or Korea, to be returned ultimately to the U.S. as new computers and flat screen tv's and MP3 players and iPhones for re-consumption by a public hungry for newer and ever faster items with more gigabytes and gigaherz and whatever but are smaller and lighter and, in the end, more numerous than the ones they replaced.

And so the world turns.

September of My Years - by Frank Sinatra

One day you turn around, and it's summer
Next day you turn around, and it's fall
And the springs and the winters of a lifetime
Whatever happened to them all

As a man, who has always had the wandering ways
now I'm reaching back for yesterday
'til a long forgotten love appears

And I find that I'm sighing softly as I near
September, the warm September of my years

As a man, who has never paused at wishing wells
Now I'm watching children's carousels
And their laughter's music to my ears

And I find, that I'm smiling gently as I near
September, the warm September of my years
- the golden warm September of my years