Often (in fact, almost always) I arrive early when invited for an after-nap playtime visit with Mabel Watson Payne. When that happens, I settle in at a nearby sidewalk cafe and read a book or fiddle with the camera adjustments until the appointed hour. On the most recent such occasion I made several tentative pictures of brickwork and other architectural details (probably dating back to about the 1920s) on the buildings immediately facing the spot where I sat with my nonfat double latte. The trees helped a lot – for visual interest. But now that they are getting full and mature, the City of San Francisco (in its bureaucratic wisdom) will almost certainly be coming along to label them as hazards or nuisances and cut them down. A state of affairs that all the more obliged us to preserve the evidence of their happy (if brief) union with traditional urban domestic architecture here.
