Saturday afternoon in Golden Gate Park with the Mongolians

parasol, originally uploaded by camille94019.

I dragged the KB to the park on Saturday to celebrate Genghis Kahn's 847th birthday (or was it his 836th?) with three of the Caballero's friends (including J1). We thought it was going to be a wild festivity of throat singing and manly sports. Sadly, it was not what we had hoped. There were sausages, and barbequed lamb ribs (not sure that I am a fan), lots of modern camping tents, canned music (it sounded like John Williams soundtrack) ankle bone tossing (by invitation only, one of our company tried to participate, but an old man took his bones away before he could toss them), and lots of fiery speeches in Mongol. The KB asked for shade after being stuck in the sun for a long time, and we wandered into an oak glade, and we missed the five minutes of throat singing while we were in the tree, listening to our friend reciting the Jabberwocky in German. The tree was the KB's favorite stop.

To console our dashed expectations, we then headed over to the Conservatory of Flowers. I am not sure the KB was up to appreciating the botanical curiousities, but hopefully the groundwork was laid for future botanical intrigue in her brain. I think she did enjoy the dahlias.

Then we drove over to the Pirate Store and Paxton Gate. She wasn't impressed by the pirate store (hey, these gems are fake!) which was very disappointing, because I think it is a cool place, but she loved Paxton Gate (a twisted store with a Victorian Curiousity Cabinet feel-- with beetles under glass, strange skeletal animals dressed in Rococo and the penis bones of various minks and cats). Maybe she appreciated the fact that the weird things were all real.

I am excited that the KB finally is old enough to drag away from home long enough to do some exploring.