Surprise day in SF with Mimi

Last Friday Mimi and I had a morning of adventure that wasn't planned. I decided to purchase some Himalayan singing bowls from a fellow in San Francisco who, in a strange twist, is actually a renowned ABM and Feldenkrais practitioner. I found him online when I was looking for bowls and I vaguely recognized his name and face. When I googled a bit further it all made sense since he was, until recently, Anat's assistant and he is in LOTS of the videos of her work with kids. I found bowls that fit my needs for pitches and on a whim I decided to just go and pick them up at the store in SF. We found the place very easily as we have been in that area of SF quite a few times. It is just at the end of Golden Gate Park. We spent quite a bit of time in the store checking the bowls and swapping out one of the ones I had picked out online. It was rather surreal choosing these bowls online! Ancient meets Modern technology.

After we left the store I decided we should check out the Randall Museum which is a place I had on my list of things to see and do! I wondered about waiting to visit there with Ami and Katie but thought it would be quite fun to go to see something by ourselves- a little Mum and Daughter date. Indeed it was fun although I had the feeling that Mimi really likes having Ami around - for interpretation, for giggles, for kid energy. The museum is located on one of the Twin Peaks and it overlooks the city and therefore has marvelous views. The museum specializes in exhibits about local flora and fauna. They had lots of rescued animals there which seemed pretty funny to be there - crows, a squirrel, a toad, a turtle, a king pigeon (rescued from starvation in Golden Gate park). Actually it was neat to see things up close that are usually running away from you. Mimi and I really really liked the California Quail- they looked very prosperous- and we even got to hear the male crowing. Mimi also really liked looking at the bee hive that they had with the little tube so that the bees could go out the window. I thought my Mum would be very excited to see the 3 or 4 owls that were living there. They were up on platforms in the exhibit room. An employee told us that every animal at the Museum is unreleasable. The owls were either blind or injured in some irreparable way. The barn owl was especially cool to see.  They had a nice photo display of images of a coyote seen on the Twin Peaks. Hard to imagine a creature like that in the middle of such a huge city. All of the photos were taken by a regular dog-walker on a point and shoot camera. They were remarkable quality.

One funny thing that happened was I thought I would help out by expressing my concern for the deadish looking upside-down beetle I saw in one vivarium. I couldn't quite believe my ears when the  employee said that "Oh, yeah, I'll go and stand him up again". He then told us was that this beetle only had 3 legs and was about 12 years old!!! Wowzers.

Mimi was really interested in the re-creation of a 1906 earthquake emergency house. It was about the size of our dining room and apparently people lived in them for up to 3 years. It had a little bed and a sewing machine set up in it. What more could you need?!?

After we had finished at the museum we were getting pretty peckish and I decided to continue to use the sage advice of Mighty Girl who writes the blog "Famous Among Dozens". She wrote a column which tells you how to see SF as a local. As a result we went to check out the restaurants at 16th and Valentia and got a super yummy veggie burrito and watermelon juice. We need more time to wander around the area. I'm sure we will go back there. 

We headed home in order to meet Ami at the bus. On the way home I think I saw a roadkill of a coyote on the freeway just off the Bay Bridge. Such a beautiful bushy tail. A very sad testament to the reality of the Bay Area.