vovat | Flowers Everywhere

Beth, her Uncle John, and I went to the Philadelphia Flower Show on Friday. It was our first time going, and it was different from usual this year as it was mostly outside in FDR Park instead of at the convention center. And Beth and I no longer live in the Philadelphia area, although our families still do. I didn't really expect so many shops, but I guess there's no reason there shouldn't have been. They were selling some pretty cool stuff. I'm less keen on the corporate sponsorship, but that might have been necessary to fund the event. Stuff was spread out throughout the park, and one building had recently developed plants and dioramas of a sort that incorporated a lot of plants.

Another area, the Enchanted Forest, had fantastic creatures and scenes made largely out of plant material.

I particularly liked this troll-like entity. I didn't get a picture of the sign, so I don't remember what the official name was.

And there was a tent full of butterflies, where before going in they gave us Q-Tips with sugar water. There were so many people going through that I suspect most of them were already full, so we didn't attract any hungry butterflies. No, we attracted the horny butterflies. There were these two mating ones that landed on Beth and climbed up her blouse and over her head.

Uncle John nudged them with his Q-Tip, and they fluttered over to me instead.

After the show, we ate at Ruby Tuesday. I'm not actually sure about the mask rules for restaurants now; I still try to wear one until I actually get food, but it doesn't seem like most other diners are bothering with that. This was in New Jersey, and I know the rules are different everywhere. I've never liked wearing a mask; it's uncomfortable and an extra thing to worry about. But at the same time I don't trust my own judgment when it comes to medical issues. It's annoying that so much of that is left up to politicians pandering to people who think they know better than pathologists. I've seen articles about public gatherings in New York City basically going back to how they were before the pandemic, yet at the same time you still have to wear a mask on the subway. A little consistency might be nice. I've grown to dislike the term "reopening," both because a lot of stuff never actually closed, and because I've come to think of that as Trumpian rhetoric, the Republican suggestion that the best way to keep small businesses alive was to keep them open with the virus going around rather than to just give them financial assistance while it was too dangerous to operate normally. I kind of liked having an excuse to stay home. I just wish this excuse didn't also lead to a bunch of deaths.

I'm now working in the office every other weekday, and trying to practice guitar and play Animal Crossing every day, at least when I can. I'm still taking guitar lessons once a week, although the schedule is complicated somewhat by work. We've gotten up to power chords in the book I'm working from. I've been trying to branch out a bit into other music, but when only the chords are shown, I'm never really sure what rhythm to play. With my teacher's help and some easy guitar notation on the They Might Be Giants Wiki, I have the beginning of "Ana Ng" written out. I've worked a little on the Monkees' "Listen to the Band," but while most of it is pretty simple chords, there are a few barre chords, and I can't quite manage to get the proper sound out of those.

Flowers Everywhere

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