San Francisco Vacation Final Day

I promised you tales that show off moments of amusing denseness but you will have to wait until the end for those stories.

I want to start with one of the adventures of the day: a visit to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Admission was not cheap at $18 but I am so happy we went. The visit reminded me that even if you aren't crazy about an exhibit or the art is not to your taste, it's expanding your senses and appreciation. Here are a few of my observations:

Sculptures by Yves Klein

Rothko

• SFMOMA has a beautiful building. My favorite location was the very top floor where the coffee shop is located. Who knew that a hallway could be so lovely?
• Then there was the art! I was very excited to see my first Rothko painting in person. Oh my goodness! I've read about the luminosity of Rothko's colors but could not imagine what the writers meant. The colors glowed. This was one gallery Z. and I came back to a few times to just sit and experience the painting.
• We discovered Yves Klein blue. Neither one of us has stopped talking about this blue. Z. and I ascended to the next floor entering a new gallery. The first thing we spotted in this room was a sculpture a shade of blue I had never seen before. This blue was so saturated and vibrant that I got the same feeling I had eating my first meal at Pambice in Portland.
• My favorite exhibit was the "Selected Histories: 20th-Century Art from the SFMOMA Collection. SFMOMA has works from some of my favorite artists in their collection so I was curious what would be on display. I saw paintings from some of my favorite artists like Matisse, Frieda Kahlo, and Georgia O'Keefe. O'Keefe is my favorite painter. I love her flowers because she takes something that seems so ordinary and makes it extraordinary by giving us an enlarged close-up, giving it an abstract feeling. I wonder if it's anything like a butterfly sees as it approaches a flower. I also love her landscapes, especially her paintings of hills. The simple forms combined with the color and blending are transcendent.

We enjoyed banh mi for lunch at the same nondescript restaurant we visited multiple times during our last visit. These sandwiches are amazing! The earthiness of the pork is balanced by the tangy pickled vegetables, spicy peppers, and bright cilantro. And...it's cheap.

Z.'s grandma likes to send postcards while she is traveling so I thought it would be fun to send her a postcard from our trip. I purchased a postcard at the museum gift shop of one of the paintings we saw. The gift shop did not sell stamps so they directed me to a post office nearby. The post office was located in the Macy's. A post office in Macy's! This sounded like a neat adventure. Z. knew exactly where the department store was located so that was no problem. We begin wandering around not seeing any signs about a post office. I decided to ask an employee, we happened to be near the makeup and perfume counter at the time.

I told the lady I had a very silly question, "I had heard there was a post office here. Where may I find it?"

"Oh, no problem! It's downstairs."

"Right. Uh, but how do you get downstairs." Being in an enormous building and talking to a stranger in a strange city must have evaporated 100 points off my IQ.

 Smiling much more graciously than I would have answered, "There's stairs right behind you."

Blushing, I explained how much more complicated I thought getting to the lower level would be since I hadn't done that yet and hadn't seen the stairs. We had a nice chat on how I wasn't from around there.

I think I made her day by how embarrassed I was at my dumb question.

I've been in department stores many times. They do allow people from Wyoming to shop sometimes but I was still overwhelmed by the size of the store and trying to find the post office. Z. and I wandered the whole level, completing the loop a few times. We found the corner where the post office was supposed to be located but still couldn't see anything. I finally stopped to ask an idle cashier where the post office was. She had never actually been there so she offered to walk us over there.

Ta-dah! Z. and I had walked passed the post office multiple times already. Behind colorful pitchers and piles of plates, demure letters were posted on the wall quietly announcing the presence of the post office. But it looked like a plain old wall. How do you get to the post office? There was small pathway to the side that led into the small room that was the post office. I purchased my stamp and mailed my post card. After about 20 minutes, Z. was free to leave the Macy's.

We made our way back to the Ferry Building to enjoy one last special meal: Boccalone. No description I can come up with will do this charcuterie justice. How can I describe the incredible quality of a little piece of pork that I can see through? The joy of licking your lips and feeling a layer of Boccalone porky fat still glistening? TRY IT!