A group of those who got together last week for Christmas dinner reconvened this afternoon at the De Young Museum. Six employed adults all with the simultaneous luxury of free time in the middle of a week-day to view the Yves Saint Laurent posthumous tribute show.
On the down side, about six thousand others had come to San Francisco via bridges and tunnels to do the same exact thing with THEIR idle Tuesday, so the galleries were mobbed. The French clothes remained cool and fragile on their dimly lighted platforms above the heaving, sweating masses.
The talk afterward in the museum cafe revolved around New Year's Eve plans for tomorrow night. Most people at the table seemed to be leaning toward the Make-Out Room in the Mission.
The Make-Out Room
Then some four of us (the most nearly related by blood and/or marriage) drove to the East Bay for dinner, and detoured briefly onto 4th Street in Berkeley to take note of the stylish illuminations there.
After that, it was a hearty, candle-lit dinner, including sauteed garbanzo beans pretending to be croutons with startling success.
My daughter told the story of shaping and glazing and firing this industrial-strength pottery candle-holder when she was in the fifth grade. There is a sea of ancient wax in the bottom of it now.
And there were still a few Christmas cookies left over for dessert.
I ate this small green man.