From Jungle Canopy to Ocean Floor.

This post started in my head with the title "Mothers' Day; It's all about Him!" when I was informed that my Artistic Spouse had colluded with a French friend, to hold a reception for his watercolors this afternoon.
I'm not really overly bound up with the obligation to celebrate my role as a mother. I just felt it was a big mistake to select a day when a huge percentage of the population is off to brunch with Mom and/or Mom-in-Law.
Each country, in which I have lived, has celebrated Mothers' Day on a different date. When my Mother was alive, there were many occasions when I would organize a delivery of flowers via Inter-flora, with a Happy Mothers' Day note attached, only to receive a call that, as pleased as my Mum was to have a house full of freesias and yellow roses, it wasn't Mothers' Day at all in England.
Fast forward to present day and the advent of Mothers' Day celebrations in May each year in the US. It turns out that May is just far enough from my March birthday for Artistic Spouse to realize that he is still in trouble for the lack of a present on that day, and that inviting friends over so that I can cook and clean for them was a really dumb idea.
The fortuitous scheduling of an Indian Pow Wow in the eucalyptus grove on Stanford University grounds, over Mothers' Day weekend each year, has proven time and again the ideal opportunity to select some hand crafted jewelry as a peace offering. Especially as the Artistic One enjoys the colorful gatherings of the Tribes and enjoys the chanting and drums that accompany the dance competitions. I now have quite enough silver, amber and turquoise jewelry, thank you very much!
It was a coincidence yesterday that I had rescheduled a hair appointment from earlier last week and serendipitous that on my way in to be colored and trimmed I saw a sign in the nail salon next door that there was a "special" on a combined mani-pedicure. I am worth it! as I sometimes forget and indulged myself to a full morning of letting others do the grooming.
Continuing my theme of looking after my own needs, I took myself to the Academy of Science in Golden Gate Park this morning; Something that I have wanted to do ever since it reopened after a complete re-do. I've not checked the exact time line, but I suspect that it's been three years since we have had an indoor tropical rain forest in our own back yard.
82 degrees with full-on humidity to nurture the butterflies, birds and orchids that we are close enough to touch from the path that winds up from the forest floor to the canopy. Electric blue seems to be the main color ingredient for those who flutter and soar. The guide who shows us into the elevator, which is our way out at the end of our climb, is armed with something resembling a toilet brush to make sure that no insects are piggy-backing a ride out of there.
The elevator spills us out into the lower level where glass walls and ceiling hold back swamp water, tide pools and coral reefs. We can see sunlight probing the depths from the surface above us and spend as long as we like watching starfish, sea urchins and some surprisingly large fish.
There are a lot of other exhibits but I take my museums in sound-bite rather than books-on-tape mode. I saw what I went to see and was back at the Art Show by early afternoon. My visit there was more of a conciliatory gesture and I surely wasn't needed for crowd control. Discretion won the day, as I escaped with all the negative thoughts kept securely to myself. I stopped off to get some dog food and took myself home to continue my peaceful afternoon.