Blossoms, Dearie?

A drive through San Francisco recently on the way to Golden Gate Park offered these views from the back seat of a friend's car.  In case you're wondering where you are, the sign on the window above will tell you.  Did that help?

Speaking of windows, there are lots of them in these downtown high rises, allowing workers in them to watch others working too.  They can't shout greetings to each other though, as few of the windows actually open. The bay windows of the classic Edwardians on the flank of Nob Hill do open and I have to think it's a lot more pleasant, even if what they open to is the noise and exhaust fumes of the cars working their way uphill. 

The buildings are not more than ten minutes drive from each other and similarly hued but more than a century separates them.

We were going to Golden Gate Park after a dim sum lunch downtown to visit "Bouquets to Art" at the DeYoung Museum, an annual fundraising event for which entrants design floral arrangements "inspired" by the art at the museum.

I had been under the mistaken impression that it was held at the Legion of Honor Museum and that the flower arrangements were meant to be copies of those found in the paintings.  This might have made sense if it had in fact been at the Legion, where there are more still life paintings than you can shake a flower stalk at.  At the DeYoung however these are far fewer and the collection is heavily weighted to more modern work.

The crowd, and it was an enormous crowd, was heavily weighted toward the elderly and female, and much more interested in the flowers than the art.  Luckily, I'd say, because the art wasn't much enhanced by the flowers.