Feorlen's Other Blog

We went to the new and improved California Academy of Sciences today, the first day of regular public admission. Yesterday was free and it was a total zoo. But we are members, so this is not a problem. We got there extra early just in case, but it was actually not that bad.

For those who are all about the pictures, here they are.

Someone came out with a Burmese python, so I got to play with the big snake and talk herp so that always makes it a good day. When we finally got in I knew I wanted to see the roof and the rainforest, so with the rainforest exhibit not open until 10:30 I headed up to the roof instead.

The roof looks like a collection of random groundcover plants, pretty much everything was selected to be short. It looks pretty well established and supposedly from here all it will need is maybe the occasional supplemental water when it gets too dry. I know when I tried container gardening my shallow pots dried out really fast, so we’ll see how that goes. But it was damp enough that some mushrooms volunteers have already showed up. There is one patch left unplanted to see who stops by for a visit. It was pretty foggy all day so I don’t know how many people really wanted to go stand on the roof, but I expect I will go back. I’m interested to see how it changes over time.

The big reason I wanted to go opening weekend is that I had heard about the specially formulated glass used in the windows. It’s supposed to be perfectly clear and neutral, so it doesn’t skew the colors of the view outside. I won’t say I couldn’t tell there was glass there, but it was a nice view. I wanted to see it while it was still clean. On a sunny day there will certainly be tons of natural light, although on a typical dreary day there are enormous lights over the rainforest and aquarium tanks to keep everything healthy.

I wandered around randomly exploring the building and taking pictures. I brought my so-so digital camera and used the walking stick as a monopod, one of my favorite features of that particular model. You aren’t going to be using a cable release with it, but it does help in low light. And most exhibits behind glass are not going to work with the flash. This worked surprisingly well, although it’s difficult to position the camera when it’s affixed to a big straight stick. I may borrow Dillo’s little bendy tripod and try it with that.

The big adventure of the day was the rainforest exhibit. First, I had to get in, which was challenge enough. I went to get in line and was offered a timed ticket as a crowd control tactic. But when I arrived back at the appointed hour, all it got me was an invitation to stand in the now-longer line for entry. Just as I got through the containment vestibule (to keep the critters in) Dillo sent me a message asking for the snacks I had in my purse, but once inside I wasn’t coming out until I was done. Not to stand in that line again.

I slowly wandered my way up, looking at all the interesting things, until I got to the canopy exhibit at the very top. There was a huge crowd of people standing around the elevators looking cranky and sweating in the heat. While I was standing there both elevators broke, leaving everyone wondering how we were going to get out of the oppressive heat. (Having lived too long in the southeast, it was warm but hardly a crisis.) Eventually the monitor in charge got permission to let everyone down the emergency exit stairs but this dumped everyone out into the already crowded aquarium rather than the bottom of the rainforest tank where we were supposed to be. It took some hunting to find the way so I could actually see the rest of the exhibit.

I spent some time in the library, which I hadn’t really seen much at the downtown museum. I didn’t know I could get a library card! I of course promptly signed up for one and then looked around at the collection. I sat down to page through Of Pandas and People, a biology textbook written with an Intelligent Design agenda. I’ve heard about it but have been unwilling to buy a copy to see what the fuss was about. The authors are pretty unapologetic in their position that ID is a legitimate contender for explaining the origin of life, claiming that the widely accepted understanding of evolution is merely another theory, among many. Their primary argument is that complex life forms are so well-engineered that they could not possibly have developed incrementally by slow change over time, so there must be an intelligent creator. But it’s not about religion, you know.

I checked out pretty much everything except the planetarium, because I couldn’t get in. There is a lack of physical sciences, which is disappointing but about what I expected. There is a large exhibit on climate change, for some reason collocated with the few dinosaur specimens and other more recently extinct species.

Another big deal about the new green building is the food, not your typical museum dreck but actual recognizable food. It was pretty much like eating at the Ferry Building, in both selection and price, much better than plastic cheese nachos.

Since we moved to the new apartment about two and a half years ago, I’ve been making do with one improvised workspace after another. Couch, bed, kitchen table, anything. I had a desk before, but it was a re-purposed shelf that ended up reverting to its original function. I haven’t just gone out and gotten some $25 Ikea thing because I need to be able to adjust the height down so I can actually type. This weekend I finally got it all together:

I started pulling out boxes I haven’t looked in for years and moving things from overstuffed shelves into my new space. I’m only half done but just getting all the scattered desk items to one location has improved the place. I can have both current computers available and the motley assortment of gizmos (do any of these PCMCIA ethernet dongles actually work?) are all in one place.

In the process I cleared out two file boxes of junk, mainly old magazines. I opened up dozens of unread CDs and DVDs from old Apple mailings — I think I have enough coasters for party drinks for years to come. Panther developer seed, anyone?

I went to see the Slow Food market and demonstration garden, in front of City Hall. I pretty much walk past there on the way to the gym, so it’s hard to miss. I hadn’t gone to look at the garden yet, construction started right after Pride cleared out and it will be there a few more weeks. The garden is nice, with raised beds of both native plants and home garden staples done as dense companion plantings. I believe it was all done with organic techniques.

There was a small stage for presentations, where I heard about the group that built the demonstration garden and are also installing home backyard gardens in San Francisco neighborhoods as a pilot program. I asked how they intend to make their program accessible to the rest of the city who, like me, don’t have a yard of any sort. The suggestion was find a neighbor who would let you garden in their backyard, which was less than helpful a suggestion. They want to eventually move on to productive gardens on public land and I can support that. But right now it’s more like publicly funded nice backyards for San Francisco property owners, already an elite group in a city where very few people can have a garden. I’d like to see what they are able to accomplish.

The market is a collection of stalls with local food products, mainly fresh produce, each with one or at most a handful of items. Yesterday I bought some dry farmed tomatoes, which were gone when I came back today. I didn’t get to sample the prepared foods because I was there too early, and by the time I got back today the ones I was interested in were gone. There were a lot of empty stalls, although still plenty of people.

I like the idea of slow food, and sustainability generally, although I get irritated at the excess attitude that sometimes comes with it. For example, to discourage buying bottled water there were filtered water stations. If you didn’t have (or buy) a reusable bottle you could get water in a biodegradable cup (with the admonition to save it for refills.) As I was getting my bottle filled I heard someone behind me, obviously unaware of what was going on, loudly announce her disgust at the water station handing out “plastic” cups. Because no real environmentally aware person would ever use plastic. For anything.

After my visit I went around the corner to the nearest Subway and got myself a fast-food sandwich. Because it was reasonably healthy (compared to the Burger King down the street) and the right amount of food for a reasonable price. I wasn’t interested in standing in line for twenty minutes for what was basically a fancy organic version of festival food, anything I actually wanted to try being no longer available.

I don’t have a lot of patience for attitude from those who try to convince me I’m a Bad Person for not agreeing 100% with their vision of how things should be done. I drink city tap water and like it, I don’t need expensive bottled water or fancy filter systems. San Francisco tap water is damn good and I grew up with some horrid stuff in Florida.

When I did have a garden I used a combination of techniques including chemical fertilizer, because that’s what worked for me. One of my neighbors quite pointedly turned her nose up at an offer of fresh herbs because they weren’t all organically grown. Another claimed that feeding your family non-organic food was child abuse. I’d love to cook everything from fresh produce bought from the farmers market, but I can’t and still maintain a professional job. When I did, it was because I didn’t have a choice. I baked all my own bread too, with a sourdough starter because flour and water are cheap and packaged yeast is not.

I’m all for showing the best of what you have to offer, but I don’t need to be dragged into another political fight over ideology. I would like to see Slow Food be more approachable for normal people who just want to learn something and try a few different things without having to sign up for the whole activist lifestyle. The market was a good start at that but there is still a ways to go.

We are in Seattle this weekend, staying in a hotel downtown, so of course I had to go check out Pike Place Market. I can do without the craft bazzar lower floors, but the market stalls are great. Not so perfectly turned out as the manicured Ferry Building but many great things. Sadly we couldn’t get a hotel with a kitchen so I had to pass on a lot of stuff, but there was salami. Creminelli is a small sausage and salami company in Utah and they just opened this little shop at Pike Place a couple months ago. Saturday was absurdly hot in Seattle but fortunately salami is designed to keep. I’m debating heading back down the hill before we leave to pick up some more.

Someone actually stopped me this morning to say that I was “an inspiration” for walking all the time. Apparently he’s seen me every day for a long time and was impressed that I’ve kept it up. Wild. I guess I can hope it will inspire him to not drive to work every day, stopping at Starbucks on the way. (I walk past four Starbucks outlets every day, which by itself is a little disturbing.)

Normally the people I run into as I get close to Caltrain (this is before 7 am mind you) are either bleary-eyed Adobe employees or whacked-out homeless.

I got some paper spam the other day, an advertisement for a fancy hotel chain showing an assortment of people in what is presumed to be a hotel lobby. It immediately struck me as familiar, and although it took me a few minutes to recall the details of the original piece I recognized the source immediately. Raphael’s The School of Athens. This work, a fresco, is by far the best known from the Room of the Segnatura, commissioned by Julius II for his private library at the Vatican.

Here’s the original, from wikipedia:

And here’s the one from the advertisement:

There are so many things here that mimic the original, from Diogenes sitting on the steps to the tile pattern on the floor. Is the dark-haired woman with the violin case to the left representing Hypatia? Euclid and his pupils appear to be replaced by a pair who look to be perusing a map of for all we know is Hollywood Homes of the Stars. Who knows. I would hope this would suggest that somewhere there is an advertising agency that employs those with an actual knowledge of classical antiquity and Renaissance art. Of course, they did leave out Plato and Aristotle.

I thought to get a picture of the amazing cured pork things I had for lunch at the Ferrry Building last week. I was bad and bought a boxed lunch at Boccalone:

There was paté, lonza (bacon looking stuff) and I think the other thing was soppressata but I’m not sure. Some bread from Acme down the hall and I was all set.

One interesting development of losing weight (aside from the justification to buy fabric for the replacement wardrobe) is that I get a lot more unsolicited attention in public. I’m going to assume that this is fairly typical, although I haven’t had to deal with it in a long time. (I am back to my high school weight, for what that’s worth. Still not small.)

I came home the other night to the neighbors hanging around drinking, being the primary male recreational activity around here. I don’t talk to them much because I usually have something to do and I’m not into beer and cigarettes. Or loud Spanish covers of 70s Top-40. But I digress.

So one neighbor guy said hi as I walked up and clearly it had just hit him that I was, umm, “Hot” may be a word. Ok, I was wearing gym clothes that leave little to the imagination. He’s far too polite to say anything obvious (my being “somebody else’s woman” and all) but was clearly taken aback at the realization and stammered through a compliment on my new-found healthy lifestyle.

Now Dillo has long commented on the gloriousness that is my Oakland booty but aside from a few fat admirers (and, strangely, a gaggle of boys on Market Street one afternoon who clearly didn’t recognize I’m old enough to be their mother) I have mainly not thought much about it.

When I was younger, being overweight was still thought a horrendous curse and mostly I got the “maybe I’ll hit on the desperate fat chick” kind of crap. Now the way things have gone, I’m pretty small compared to a lot of American women. Fortunately I’m now dealing with middle-aged adults who have less awkward brain-addling hormones and a better command of the English language (umm, mostly.) At the risk of sounding like some airhead twit, I guess I should start getting used to it.