
Our dear friend Diane von Austinburg blew into town Sunday and we had a most charming time together. Diane always longs for the chilly, foggy embrace of San Francisco’s normal weather, perversely, the weather almost always turns sunny and warm the day she gets here and doesn’t break into the gloomy norm until she leaves. One of the things I like about her visits is that she brings such beautiful weather with her, even if she doesn’t like it.
This time though, the rain came down in buckets most of the time she was here. The one notable lovely day was Thursday when we took advantage of the sunny skies to go visit the botanical garden in Golden Gate Park. I usually make a point of going this time of year just to go see the wildflowers there; I haven’t felt much like doing it of late, but this year my new pain medicine is so much less sedative that I was able to get up and head out. Yay.
There’s been tons of news stories about the super bloom of California’s wildflowers this year so I had high hopes. Hopes which were crushed when we got there and not a single wildflower was an evidence. How many? Zee row. It didn’t really matter, the park is gorgeous anyway and it had been so long since I was out there I had a wonderful time just walking around. Photographic proof follows:


The bamboo collection is always worth a look-see.

Stylish succulents.

Ceanothus is one of my favorite California native plants.

Gazania is a great flower, I think originally from South Africa, which does really well here.

Camellias love San Francisco too.

There used to be a wonderful collection of Asian magnolias in one corner of the botanical garden. This is pretty much all that’s left of them, I was griping about their disappearance to Diane when I realized I was remembering them from visits 30 years ago. Time marches on.

One recent improvement; in the 1930s, William Hearst bought a medieval castle in Spain, took it apart and shipped it here where he stored it in a barn until he could get around to reassembling it, but the barn and the plans for the castle burned and they couldn’t put it back together. Hearst then “donated” the stones to the park (in reality, he just dumped them because he couldn’t use them) and they sat in a pile in a little used corner. Recently though, the park has started using them as hardscape in various gardens.

Like this.

A beautiful day in the park.
Naked guys:

Red in the bed.

Ooh, arty.

Poolside.

Tall, skinny white boy with big dick. Sounds familiar.

I love the way your turquoise boudoir goes with your Fleshlight collection.

I’m thinking Photoshop.

I love those porny sunglasses.

How romantic.
