Birds, Museums and Fruit

what's going on in my life for the start of July

What if slowing down long enough to notice fog rolling across the city could change how you see your entire week? From a spontaneous museum visit to discovering bird-friendly glass designs, these are the small revelations that made my week lovely.

A cheerful area of Golden Gate Park in the summer

I was invited for a playdate/mom date to Golden Gate Park this week. It was a rare opportunity where I had most of the day open, so it was a pleasant change of pace to go out and explore instead of my normal drive-boy-to-camp and park in a coffee shop or work from home summer routine.

I went to the top of the de Young with a friend and we looked out at all the different neighborhoods of San Francisco from a bird’s eye vantage point. The fog was rolling in from the West and blanketed any view of the Golden Gate Bridge from our view. The clouds and fog—so dynamic and beautiful—kept rolling and then started to dissipate about halfway across the city, to the point where out where I live in Potrero looked sunny and full of blue skies. We admired a Church painting (long live the double rainbow!). We walked and talked.

This morning while getting ready for my coffee I opened up the latest issue of Interior Design magazine, and read a bit about an arts/industrial designer Jill Malek. Her work is simply beautiful (and practical!) for its ability to get crafted in various transparencies and colors. She even has a line of bird friendly glass with patterns on it so that our fine feathers friends don’t bang up on our buildings that give us so much inspiration.

Finally it’s the beginning of overwhelmingly delicious fruit season. It’s such a familiar thing to eat Rainier cherries when we lived in Seattle, but of course with modern shipping we’re able to enjoy fresh Rainier cherries here in the Bay area too. I only baked with these deliciously delicate cherries once, when I made a small pie that was amazingly sweet and fresh. But the best way to eat them is like this:

The best way to eat Rainier cherries is straight from the bowl.

Have a Happy 4th!