Wednesday, November 07, 2001
A Walk in the Park
It was such a beautiful day today that Spring and I walked over to a nearby park to have a look around. Veteran's Park, oddly enough dedicated to U.S. Veterans of all wars, is at the west end of a shopping center about a block west of us. Neatly mowed grass and a few token trees surround seven flag poles, one with the U.S. flag and the remaining six for the various armed forces. There are also a few benches there to relax on.
Given that there were no signs saying DO NOT WALK ON
THE GRASS we did just that. And also given that there were no signs
saying DO NOT CLIMB ON THE TREES Spring did just that. She climbed
one of the banyan trees
along the edge of the park. They're easy trees to climb, given their
sprawling nature and dozens of small trunks they throw down as they grow
(I've heard a story of one such banyan tree covering nine acres). I decided
to remain safely on the ground least I have an attack of vertigo.
Walking back, we passed a playground where the kids (all kindergarten age) started asking Spring questions about her hair. I attempted to take a picture, but Spring stopped me.
“Don't you know it's not safe to take their picture?” she asked.
“What? It's not like I'm stealing their soul or anything,” I said.
“It's not that—it's just that parents get very upset if you take pictures of their kids. You could be arrested.”
“For taking a picture of some kids?”
“Yes. Parents get very defensive about their kids.” I rolled my eyes as we kept walking.
We walked behind the the shopping center where we saw some
very oddly marked parking spots. One was marked “SEMOSUMMER RESRYEO” and
another one was similarly marked (although I don't recall exactly what it
said as the picture
turned out fuzzy.
We also stopped by to check the mail box and ran into
our roommate Rob who was leaving for fighter
training (in swords). We ended up checking the mail right there in the
middle of the parking lot.