My oven mitts now have some homemade hangers

This is one of the many little changes that I am left with after my Mother visits every year. I've had to work really hard at not interpreting my Mom's cleaning of my kitchen the moment she arrives as a implicit disapproval of the cleanliness of my home. It's hard to not hear some hidden meaning in each and every statement and question. I can't say that I was perfect, but at least I'm cognizant of the fact that this is in fact MY ISSUE and my issue alone. Unfortuately, you know how a person can be so unattractive when they aren't completely nice to their mothers? Uhhhh, I was guilty of it at some points during her three day visit.

One thing that Mom did do, purely coincidental, was bring the sun with her. We've been having rain everyday for nearly a month, and she arrived on one of the first sunny days all Spring and the rain has been minimial since. We toured the new deYoung Museum in Golden Gate Park.

Mom posing in front of the deYoung Museum tower. (Dad, I know the composition of this photo leaves a lot to be desired. Guilty)

Since Mom and I were honest about the fact that neither of us was particularly interested in the art and artifacts in the museum itself, we just toured the grounds outside and went up to the top of the tower, all of which was free. Now the tower is the signature component of the deYoung.

At its base, it is a rectangle (an equiangular quadrilateral for those of you who are geometric terminology purists) that is aligned along the axis of museum complex and quadrangle within Golden Gate Park. It twists and at the top, it is in the shape of a parallelogram (a quadrilateral with two sets of congruent and parallel sides) that is aligned along the axis of the North-South streets of the Richmond and Sunset Districts outside the park. The view from the tower is simply gorgeous and shouldn't be missed.

As we walked around the grounds, my mother commented on the fact that every Spring when she comes to SF, she sees the trees pictured below that are all nobby but with one sprout coming out of the end. Anyone who knows what the name of these trees are and what the deal with them is, please email me.

What's the name of these tree's and what's up with the single shoot coming out of the ends?

After we left the park, I took Mom on a stairway walk through the Forest Hill section of San Francisco. It's one of the first neighboorhoods west of Twin Peaks to have been developed because it's right next to the Forest Hill Municipal Railway Station, which is what brought mass transit to the western portion of San Francisco. The houses are all large and have yards. The Pacheco stairway is one of the most elegant stairways in all of San Francisco.

The rest of the weekend was calm except for those times when I had to inform/educate Mom that when I told her that I was thinking about trying something new that if she reacted by laughing at the thought, that it was only going to have me not tell her things. Also, that if I asked to not talk about something, it didn't mean that she could continue to ask about it. We got real and it was hard at times, but what I learned is that the issue I have about asking for what I want is also something that I find my Mom also has. Well, she knows what she wants, it's just that she goes about it (perhaps learned as a way to get stuff from my Dad?) in a not very direct way. Perhaps more analysis and thought needed here.

Lastly, because of Mom, I'm now hooked on Sudoku puzzles. I even went onto my Geometer's Sketchpad program and created blank grids for the two of us.