Saturday Afternoon...

Greeings! um...Greetings!
alas, i pushed my poor camera battery to its limits, and it pooped out on me :) not to worry, i have lashed it to a power strip, where it is dutifully recharging.

So, I took a walk-run today (40 min walking, 10 running...but it was the last 10, so i came home feeling pretty good about myself :) here are some things i saw/observations:

1. a million painted ladies fluttering around on (thank you google) 'butterfly bushes' bordering a park. (at least i'm calling them painted ladies, as that is the only butterfly name besides 'monarch' that i've committed to memory. and they weren't monarchs.) so pretty!

2. it is slightly awkward to walk into a new, densely-populated park for the first time. there were wedding parties, birthday parties, so, sooooo many children clambering around jungle jims...haha, i mean gyms...and (my favorite!) the three-story metal rocket!! this park even has a 'kansas wildlife' cage (great horned owl, vulture, a few turtles--two of which were mating, verrry slooowly ;) anyway, there were so many families and so much running around i felt totally out of place. it was a bit overwhelming. best part is, i got to see the medieval fighting group in action! i had heard that they met in a park somewhere in riverside, but had yet to observe. they divided into two lines that stood across from each other, yelled viciously, ran towards the center, and...kind of stopped. i thought the battle was over before it began, but i guess they were just being cautious. after a couple minutes, they started hitting each other though, whew.

3. a memorial in another, much smaller park for murdered children and other homicide victims :(

4. some nice commercial brick buildings just a block away for rent (coffee roastery hm?!?!?) one of them used to house the 'riverside cup of tea' which i guess existed for twelve years, before closing permanently in january. we just missed it. :(

5. i think i can recognize the scent of sycamore! because i was strolling along and realized that it smelled like my grandparent's yard, and then i looked up and right overhead was a giant sycamore! (once upon a time there was a cute furry little bat clinging to the side of my grandparents' tree! i love bats!)

6. this neighborhood rocks!