On a Summer Day I Chanced to Stray

Franklin Park Conservatory in Columbus is a conservatory like most other conservatories.  Glass walls gleam in the sunlight, and while the outside is stark white, on the inside, there's nothing but green.

Each room is set up to resemble a different region of the world.  Theoretically, I suspect the rooms are meant to mimic the climate of the region as well as the landscape, but on this bright summer day, every region of the world it set to "hot."  The Himalayas are mildly uncomfortable.  The Deserts are absolutely stifling.  Even the trees stretch up to tap the ceiling glass, reaching for a bit of fresh air.

Good for the cactus, though.   

Every room features at least one piece of Chihuly glasswork, but that's a story for another day.

This is exciting; in the courtyard, they're preparing to instal their yearly summer exhibit, Savage Gardens, a tribute to the meat-eating plants of the world.  I might have to come back for that.  It might finally help me come to terms with the tragic and dramatic end met by my venus fly-trap (R.I.P Audry III March '02 - March '02).

There are two sets of doors leading in to the Pacific Room, and a sign politely asking that you only open one set of doors at a time.  Past the first set of doors is a mirror, and a notice saying that you should check yourself for visitors before you leave.  Here be Butterflies.  Interestingly, this exhibit, first debuted in 1994, was the first of its kind in America.  Now it seems like everyone's doing it.

There's a different energy in this butterfly room, compared with the last butterfly exhibit I visited.  The room at Krohn was more open, but smaller, and overflowing with visitors.  There was barely enough room to breath, let alone enjoy the butterflies.  Here at Franklin, the air in Pacific Room is heavy and humid, the handful of visitors stroll easily through the exhibit, admiring the colorful plants just as much as the colorful wings.  Where the Krohn butterflies seemed to feed off the frenetic nature of their packed little room, darting here and there almost faster than your eyes can see them, Franklin's butterflies float lazily through the trees, giving you ample time to coo over their brilliant shine.

We can't go into the Palm House, which breaks my heart a little, because we all know how much I love a palm tree, but it's closed for a special event.  A young woman hovers in the doorway, holding the skirts of her wedding dress up off the ground.  It'd be a lovely place to get married.  A destination wedding without the destination.

I can't get inside the Palm House, but I do sneak around the back of the conservatory, where the chairs a neatly aligned on the patio and the rest of the wedding party awaits direction, in order to get a picture.  It's worth it - the Palm House is the oldest part of Franklin, built in 1893 after the Chicago's World Fair.  It's a beautiful building, freshly white in that grand Victorian style this era favored so much.  They used to keep animals in the lower levels in the years before the Columbus Zoo.  Small animals, surely - monkeys, birds.  Nothing that might damage the glass.  Not that I would know; in all of my reading, nothing's ever said what kind of animals they were, just generally animals.  

(Like most things I love, the Palm House, in recognition of it's historic and architectural merit, has been added to the National Register of Historic Places.  I don't know if they have a plaque.)    

Come back tomorrow, and learn the amazing story behind Franklin Park's Chihuly collection!

Having Just a Vision's No Solution; Everything Depends on Execution

In the artist's own words:

"If an artist can pain a picture of a landscape - art mimicking

 nature, then why not a sculptor creating a landscape

 of a work of art - nature mimicking art?"

-James T. Mason

And really, is there a better piece to render in landscape than Seurat's famous A Sunday Afternoon on the Isle of La Grand Jatee?  After all, the evergreen bush is a profoundly pointalist medium.  Stand up close, and it's just fragments of green and lines.  Stand far enough away, it can be anything you want.

This living art exhibit rests at the heart of Columbus' Old Deaf School Park, once the site of the Ohio School for the Deaf, established in 1829.  The school eventually changes locations, but the buildings remained.  Before the city was able to officially claim the location as a historic district in 1981, a fire swept through the park, destroying most of the school buildings and scarring the ground.  A year later, it finally achieved it's historic recognition, even though the reason for the award was now lost to time.  

But why the topiary?  Ask Mr. Mason's wife.  In the late 1980s, Elaine Mason asked her sculptor husband if he would create a topiary garden for their back yard.  But Mason's vision was too big to be contained by their back yard alone.  Now it's one of Columbus' most iconic locations.    

Planted in just 1989, the landscape is a touch under grown.  Wire umbrellas and top hats peek out from the tops of the tallest structures, the evergreen branches having not quiet reached those heights.  I should come back in a few years - I wonder how this park will look when all of it's people are fully grown.

I've never thought about topiary maintenance before. How often does someone have to come out here and trim back the bushes?  Do they have a little boat for the water?  Or do they pull on the galoshes and try to keep the duck poo out of their socks? 

The park is open from dawn to dusk every day.  When I come back (if I come back), I ought to come in the evening, if just to see the sun set on La Grand Jatee.

Letter to a Baby Tourist 4

September 1, 1987

Dear Sweet Pea,

In the last 21 days you have learned lots of amazing things!  Like going "Br-r-r-r" with your mouth and making bubbles.  When you hold on to my hands you can pull yourself right up to your feet and that always makes you smile, and sometimes laugh.  You do laugh when Daddy dances with you.  And you talk and talk and talk.  To us, to yourself, to the baby you find in Mom's bedroom mirror.  You and I visit with the mirror lots, and you think it's great fun.  You don't like to so much if I leave you alone with the baby, but when I'm there you have lots to tell her.

You are also getting real good at rolling from your tummy to back.  We've never seen you do it, but you are always rolled over now when we get you from your crib.  Most days you wake up and roll over and talk to the elephants on the mobile, or the crib mirror.  You are also busy with your fingers a lot.  This past week you have gotten good at catching your foot in your hand and holding it while you look at your wiggly toes.  You often play quietly by yourself for about half an hour (as long as you don't see or hear me).  I can always tell when you are ready to get out because you will yell for me.  You don't cry, you just say "AH!"  Real loud.  If we don't come right away, you try again.  "AH AH AH AH!"  When it's early in the morning, you seem to know that you have to give us time to wake up and get you, but during the daytime, if we haven't responded to the 3rd set of "AH's," then you being to whimper.

Your little head will be held up (if you are on your tummy) looking for us with your big blue eyes.  Once you see us, you break into your gooey little grin and start Br-r-r-ring and talking and blowing bubbles.

I think you are more aware that we belong to you.  You are still accepting of other people and don't cry when others hold you.  But when we get you now at the baby sitter's, you seem to be excited about seeing us.  

You smile and bob and lean towards us.  You are also more aware of being alone in a room.  If you look around and don't see us, you yell.

You can see and follow things really well now.  Trees continue to fascinate you.  And you like watching the colors and motion on the television.  The ceiling fan is still a favorite of yours!

You have begun to reach out to things that catch your eyes.  You can't yet bring them to back to yourself at will, but you can grab hold sometimes.  If both Mom and Dad talk to you, you very carefully watch both of us as we speak until you get confused.

Some days you are crabbier than others, but the majority of the time, you are still our sweet happy girl.

I must get some of my house chores done, that then you and I must go pay the mortgage and buy birthday cards for cousin Mike, Uncle George, Grandpa P and Grandpa M.

Love you Baby P!

Mom. 

Weekend Round-Up

Welcome, New Readers!  And welcome back, Old Friends.

Did you happen to stop by Tacky Tourist Photos this week?  If you haven't, you might want to give it a look - if only to see a familiar face.   

Kate the Beer Babe - When I first moved to my current small town, I was amazed at all the funny little quirks it held.  Sometimes it pays to play the tourist in your own home town!  I hope your car feels better soon - the sunsets on Lake Michigan aren't going to photograph themselves.  (And between you and me, how big is my head now that you've said I've inspired you [even if it's just in a small way]?  I can barely fit my hat on anymore.)

Purple Cow - Truth be told, along with going to Japan the year before, that Europe trip opened my eyes to just how vast world culture is, how we've all come to essentially the same place using extremely different roads.  If your daughters ever get the chance, I hope they enjoy it as much as I did.  As for keeping them out of trouble, well... :).  My mother always told me that she trusted me to know better and make good decisions, and somehow, that seemed to do the trick.  But then, I was born an Old Lady already, so I may just not have been able to keep up with those crazy kids.

Sarah - I think a fortune cookie a day is a lovely idea!  I've passed those big boxes of fortune cookies in the grocery store, and have thought to myself, "Surely they can't all be different."  But what a delightful thing if it turns out to be true!  I'll be following your fortunes with interest.

I've just come back from an instructive day surrounded by Chihuly glass, tropical fauna, butterflies, and pointillist landscaping, so look forward to those write ups later this week!

Thank you for reading.  Come back soon!  (And bring a friend!)

Signs: Hawai'i (Oahu)

More signs and lables from Hawai'i, mostly from the surrounding Honolulu area, but occasionally not.

It's Time to Go; I Hate to Leave-I Have to, Though.

It's almost the beginning of every teen slasher flick ever made.

We've just come from Mauthausen, and some of us haven't quite recovered from the experience, and when the bus stops in the city center of this tiny Austrian town, we'll be shuffled out of our seats and into the cars of complete strangers and expected to spend two nights in a foreign house, totally isolated from everyone we've come to know in the previous two weeks.  It's just a home stay, nothing to be scared about (I did two weeks of home stays when I went to Japan, so I have a little experience in that area), but it's been an emotional day, and the last thing anyone wants is to be away from their friends tonight.  I've lucked out - there are more kids than host families, and I end up sharing a family with another girl, Erica.  I think she's more relieved than I am.

Brigitte is a year ahead of us in school.  Tomorrow is her last day in class (all she has to do is pick up her grades), and tells us that she and her classmates are having a party tonight to celebrate.  It's been a long day, Erica and I are exhausted, but we pretend to be excited.  

We stop at the house long enough to put our suitcases in our room and use the facilities before we're back in the car.  Brigitte's mom is driving, which I don't understand until later in the evening when Brigitte starts drinking.  She tells us that the party is at her friend's "little house," but the street lights of the town are melting away in the rearview mirror as we drive deeper and deeper into the woods.  I almost lean over to Erica to say "This is the part where we all get killed," but by the look of her face in the dashboard lights, I don't think she'd find it funny.

There's a light up ahead, flickering between the trees.  The little house turns out to be a two-room wooden cabin ten miles outside of town, and there are close to twenty of Brigitte's friends packed into the tiny great room.  Her mom drives away; Brigitte promises to call her when we're ready to come home.  I'm amazed she can get cell phone reception out here.

There's a boy at the door handing out bottles of beer.  He tries to press a bottle into my hand, but I politely wave him off.  I never could get a taste for alcohol.  Erica shyly takes the offered bottle, looking around as if she thinks someone's waiting to bust her for underage drinking.  She forgets that we're miles from the nearest chaperone, and everyone in the cabin is legally allowed to drink.  A chorus of excited squeals sings out from the long table in the corner - a handful of girls from our group are also at this party, and they also have a growing collection of bottles and plastic cups spread out in front of them.  They wave when they catch our eyes, and we slide down the bench next to them. 

When I go with to school with Brigitte tomorrow to get her final grades while Erica stays behind sleeping off her first hangover, these girls will corner me in the back of the classroom with worry in their eyes.  They want to know if I'm going to rat them our to the chaperones when the group comes back together.  We did all sign the agreement not to drink on the trip, but I won't tell.  If someone had gotten hurt that'd be a different story, but hangovers notwithstanding, everyone woke up fine this morning, so their secret is safe with me.  

Later, riding the bus across the boarder into Italy, the line of gossip up the aisle reveals that everyone went to a bar with their host family, and nearly everyone spent at least one evening drunk off their asses.  My Morman friend practically glows when she describes her first taste of Red Bull and Vodka.  One boy ended up in Hungary, and has no idea how he got there without his passport.  When we ask about it, he just shakes his head and smiles wryly - clearly, we don't want to know.  

I'm sure the chaperones knew - I don't know how they couldn't.  Or if they didn't know for sure, they must have suspected that a group of unsupervised American teenagers would relish the opportunity to bend the rules a little.  They must feel the same way about this sort of thing as I do - out of sight, out of mind, and as long as everyone stays safe, there's no harm in turning a blind eye.  

Back in the cabin, there's a fairly drinking game working it's way around the table, and the American girls excitedly take sip after sip.  I feel like an old duck when I think, "They'll regret that in the morning." A young man and woman duck into the side bedroom; as he pulls the wood paneled sliding door shut, I see her reach for the top button on her pants, and in a stunning moment of naivete, I assume they're getting changed for school tomorrow.  (Seriously, it was at least three years later when I finally realized that Oh My God, they were having sex back there.  I don't have a good reason for being this dense.  Sorry.)  

One of Brigitte's friends squeezes onto the bench next to me.  I don't remember her name any more - I don't know if she ever gave it to me.  She offers me a cigarette.

"I don't smoke."

"I should quit," she says, and takes another drag.  She starts to ask me about America, about Indiana, my school, my friends, my family.  Everything I tell her is pretty commonplace, there's nothing particularly exciting about my small town home, but she hangs of my every word.  She tells me about how hard she's studying her English, because she wants to move to American to work someday.

"What do you want to do?"

"I have no idea," she says brightly, waving cigarette smoke away with her hand.  "I just want to be there." It's a familiar feeling.

It's past midnight now, and while there are no official classes tomorrow, everyone still has to be up early tomorrow for grades.  Brigitte's mom is on her way.  Something quiet and contemplative falls over the party, and a girl in the farthest corner begins to sing.

"Life!"  She calls, and the boys and girls around her join in the chorus.  "Life is life!  Bam ba, ba da daaaaa..."  They're all a bit drunk and charmingly off-key.  It's the beginning of a different type of teen movie now, the kind that starts off too maudlin and ends with lots of tears and feelings.  I know this song, but I don't remember why.  It's not my place to sing, but I hum along on my own.    

Into the woods, and out of the woods, and home before dawn.

Boats at Sunset on Lake Michigan