More on the Gardens

My walk to the Botanical Gardens was approximately 2 miles each way and led me down a very long road with many, many fancy houses. What was probably most impressive about the houses was their respective lawns. Some of the greenest, shortest, most uniformly-trimmed grass I've ever seen! People were loving today. It was gorgeous and sunny and 80 degrees-- which is the perfect kind of day for washing your mercedes, blowing leaves off your lawn, or just driving around with your convertible's top off! Don't forget your perscription sunglasses! Dress your kids in complementing colors and send them out to play!

But even amidst all this suburban splendor, and as there always is, there was weirdness. Three weird things:

1. A deformed-looking [you know, kind of lumpy in places] middle-aged man was casually leaning on a croquette mallet right next to what appeared to be the only wicket set up in the yard, staring off into space. His young child was riding around the family car in circles on a bicycle, and talking to herself.

2. A mother explaining to her son, quite frankly, that "Mister Scarecrow just wasn't meant to last a whole season." The Scarecrow looked just like any other scarecrow.

3. On the way back, a deranged woman was attacking little clusters of day lilies with a weed-whacker, wearing rubber boots and saftey goggles. She didn't stop sending dangerous shards of mulch and stems flying when I walked by, either.

The Botanical Gardens were very nice. My personal favorites were the tragically plump little quails hopping around in the tropical rainforest exhibit. No predators, encouraging words, and lots of cornmeal do worlds of good for quails! They had those precious little single head feathers, too! One of them was roosting in the shade rubbing its fat little bird neck against a tree! And they were SO ROUND! Basically I nearly passed out from the sheer magnitude of quail-induced joy on multiple occasions.

The plants were nice, too. I liked the carnivorous plants and the orchids best. Apparently orchids are supposed to make me go insane and want to go search for them in dangerous and far away lands, like in that movie with Meryl Streep that a few people have called "Adaption." I also saw a special on PBS that documented the pursuits of a crazed orchid hunter, and this man claims that orchids are the most sexy and erotic flowers in the world. Unfortunately, the only things that made me insane were those chubby quails. Sorry, we have to look at some right now:

God. I could have stuffed at least five of those birds in my bag on the way out. Are they flightless? Oh yes they are. In fact, they are defined as "small, plump terrestrial birds."

I'm sorry, I have to stop writing now and try to find out how to get a quail on the internet.