We spent a lovely weekend with alumni from Bryn Mawr College Here's the itinery. On Saturday we drove up to Filoli. The last time we visited Filoli was for a bird watching tour, which was early in the morning. Afterwards we had a picnic lunch in the cafe outside. We didn't see much of the house, and it was a self-guided tour.

This time we had a guided tour of the house. We scrambled to catch up with the later Bryn Mawr tour and missed the introduction. The tour guide gave us lots of details about the house and furniture. Some interesting like the person who donated the furniture was more Eastern oriented than the original owners, but he happened to have the owner's favourite knitting chair. Others like where such and such film was shot, not so interesting to me. About halfway through the tour when we met up with the earlier group, one of the alums said "We really want to see the gardens. This is just a house, but the gardens are lovely." So the tour guide started rushing through the house.

We lagged behind and stayed with the other tour group that was lingering in the kitchen. To me kitchens in great houses are always interesting. The hub of a house is always the kitchen. And in old-fashioned children's books, the children always sneak down to the kitchen, where they have a wonderful time. The tour guide showed us the bell system which was state of the art at the time with circuits instead of a system of levers. He also showed us the enormous drawers in a large table. You could pull out the drawer from either side of the table. I thought that was neat.

We finally went outside to the gardens and the gardens were nice, but to me they were just gardens. The owners had tried to imitate French and Italian gardens of the time, but really it reminded me most of English gardens in smaller great houses. I'd seen a lot of them. But there aren't that many old mansions left in California. We had trouble walking along the gravel paths with the double stroller. Sometimes the path was too narrow, but more often there were steps. It was also incredibly hot and Special K got a bit grumpy and insisted on riding in the stroller and eating Cheerios.

Then we drove to the real treat of the day: Green Gables Estate. Green Gables is a private estate designed by Greene and Greene. Delia '52, a Bryn Mawr alumnae grew up there as a child and it's her summer home. She stays the winter in SF. We ate lunch on the veranda outside the house and had a lovely view of the terrace. At the bottom of the terrace was a view of the Roman Garden. I'll have to put up my photos sometime, but here's one for now


I had an interesting chat with Amy Campbell, the Director of Athletics about the Wellness classes they have. They had a class in my day, but I don't remember it, so I guess it wasn't that useful. The health seminar I went to in 2001 was much more useful. And from talking to her, it sounds like they have improved the class a lot to teach women how to take care of themselves.

D also kindly opened up the entire house to us, so we rambled through the house. K loved it so much or perhaps enjoyed its coolness that she kept asking to go back inside and wandered through the numerous bedrooms. Her favourite room was one of the few rooms covered with wallpaper: a green flowery pattern which was continued to the ceiling. An extremely feminine room. D said that was her room as a child. My favourite was the room entirely designed and furnished by Green & Greene. It had cool tiles and a brown ceiling with brown floral motifs. It was also the coolest room in the house, though the house was a lot cooler than the sweltering outdoors.

The roof had just been recovered with individually hand-pressed cedar shingles. They gleamed blond in the sun. D said they'd darken with age. I enjoyed looking at the cedar store room with cedar closets with glass windows. They were carefully labeled and filled with pink towels and white sheets.

I noticed that the electronics were all pretty ancient. I think I have a bigger tv and we bought ours in the early 90's and they only had VCRs. No DVDs in site. Though there was a laptop computer.

The kids fell asleep on the way to Stanford, so C dropped me off. I walked on a short tour around the campus to view the various sculptures, most of which I'd never seen. My favourite was Timetable by Maya Lin. I'm a sucker for anything with water, especially water you can easily touch. I also liked that you could tell the month as well as the time.

Of course we saw the Burghers of Calais by Rodin, and Gay Liberation by George Segal. I've seen that many times before, and I enjoyed seeing them again.

The Stanford Legacy by Don Yeomans was a Haida totem pole that told the story of Stanford. The top was a little boy who represented Leland Jr who died at age 15. He peeked his head out from the crest of the crow of knowledge who joined tongues with the mystical frog. Below them was a crying woman who cried copper tears, Jane Stanford. Then below that was Stanford himself holding a copper of wealth while a student reached up to take the copper.

After the tour I got a ride home with Anna Cusack '04 (no relation to John or Joan who I think said she's going to join the list) and collapsed on the sofa with a headache. It was very hot outside and I find looking at art, examining it closely and thinking about it really tires me out.

The next day C dropped me off near SBC Park in SF. Well he was supposed to drop just me off, but Special K insisted on coming along on the tour. First stop was the Mission Bay visitor center where a representative of the developer waxed on about all the great development plans they have. K wanted to rush around the large building so I followed her around half listening to the lecture. Then we were driven over to the new UCSF building of Sciences with a magnificent set of arches similar to the ones at Green Gables except of course they were made of modern granite and instead of climbing down stairs to see the view, you climbed up stairs and saw a magnificent view of SF.

We were shown around Mission Bay for a little more then were dropped off at the terraced entrance of Yerba Buena Gardens. As our tour guide advertised, it's the best entrance. We walked up the terraces then up the steps over the top of the MLK fountain and saw another good view of the city. Then we walked to the top of Yerba Buena gardens and back down around to SF MOMA.

K rushed around and chased pigeons. Unfortunately she tripped and fell abrading her lip. Pools of blood gushed out of her mouth and she started screaming. Fortunately I could see that the cut wasn't serious. Lip cuts always bleed terribly. I picked her up and got blood on my cheek, neck and shirt and K got blood on her dress and hands, but after a few minutes she stopped crying. Putting a wet tissue on her lip seemed to help. I wasn't sure if it was the coolness of the tissue that soothed or just having something to do. Her lip swelled up nice and fat. Fortunately a pediatrician was among the party and she suggested ice. Kind alums helped carry my bag and find ice. K made some effort to put ice on her lip, but it was clear she found the request slightly baffling. After another hour her lip looked a lot better.

We met C and Little T at Market Bar where a lunch was served to all the alums. I liked the stuffed eggs topped with crab, and roast chicken. My parents and Saskia also arrived and had lunch at a separate table. Little T loved being dangled on S's knee and laughed and smiled.

Then Kate '75 kindly gave me ride to a tea. K wanted to go too, but she seemed tired and there was the issue of the car seat. The tea was hosted by Emily Murase '87, and Caroline Marks '53 who said her husband had been 30 years in the state senate. She's a grand old lady. She has photos signed by various dignitaries including Bill Clinton. She has a lovely tea set that reminded me of my grandmother. I had a great time talking to alums from '48 down to '04. Then Kate gave me a ride to the Presidio and met up with my parents, my husband and my kids. We walked around a bit. It's a lovely campus with little artificial streams and a huge fountain. Then finally it was time to go home. We took part of the scenic 49 mile drive, so we didn't get home until after 8pm.

My father's in England right now and the times didn't sync up for me to call him. But I thought of him yesterday and what he's given me. He gave me vivid memories of his own childhood. He shared his sense of childlike wonder and showed me how to keep that wonder into adulthood. He still yells with excitement. He still enjoys a slow walk with Kerensa to examine the rocks in someone's garden. He literally showed me the world. He took me all over the world from the slums of Calcutta to Machu Picchu and many many museums. He explained to me the mythology depicted in art. He always listens intently to me and asks lots of questions. Even the smallest things I do interest him. At my best, I listen to people like him. He's willing to try almost anything once, which has led to lots of interesting adventures. He's both an inspiration and a cautionary tale.

On Fathers' Day, we drove down to SF. Both kids fell asleep on the way down. We put them both in the stroller and walked to the SFMOMA. We found out it was Family Day, so we only paid $2 each. We walked to an arts and crafts activity where you were supposed to add rooms to the Winchester Mystery House using cardboard and fabrics. K slept on, so we just ate the chips and salsa that was provided. Then we went up to the fifth floor and looked at some conceptual art including a DVD montage of altered photographs of the Winchester Mystery House.

The most interesting piece I saw was a room painted with a paint-by number mural of the forest. The sound of flowing water filled the room, but instead of a beautiful fountain, it was a plain utility sink with the taps left on. Underneath was a box of rat bait. Piles of newspapers were scattered throughout the room with various articles on top about freedom and the lack of it. High up was a small window with prison bars. It was both a celebration of nature and a parody of how we celebrate nature.

Then we drove to Ethan's place for a tea tasting. Ethan ordered three tea sampler packs from Les Palais Des Thes a French tea company. The teas came complete with a little booklet that described all the teas. The booklet was the same size and general format of little French guidebooks. It appealed to me, because it fit comfortably in my hand and contained lots of glossy photos of tea. It gave the tea an added air of importance.

The teas had a surprising variety of flavours if you paid close attention. One had the aftertaste of scallions; Sarah said onions. I loved their Grand Lapsang Souchong tea. I hadn't realised Lapsang could be delicate. Everyone else but Simon thought I was crazy. Ethan gave me the tea. I'll try my best to save it until my parents return from overseas. Jasmine Pearls with its fragant delicate scent and taste was a lovely soothing way to end the tasting. After 8 teas, we were all exhausted from tasting and smelling so intently.

We walked a circutious route to avoid the hills over to Tangerine, another Asian-Fusion restaurant. One the way in we ran into Bill a college friend of C's. And he joined us for most of the meal. The food worked a lot better than at Sauce. I had a tender roast duck with delicious yellow curry sauce. It was very much like the Straits dish we used to have before the chef left for another Straits restaurant and things went down hill. C generously traded his duck dish for my rib dish. The waitress said the pork ribs weren't sweet, but in fact they were quite sweet.

We took the tram back to Ethan's house. K exclaimed with excitement at the twists and turns of the tram as it climbed the hill. Of course both kids fell asleep on the way home.

We didn't get back until after 10pm. And we still had a lot to do. We had to change Little T's Broviac dressing, change his tube dressing, insert a new tube, and prepare his formula for his night pump feeding. We also had to take out the garbage and recycling. We weren't finished until just after midnight. Even so C said "It was a good Fathers' Day." I'm so glad.