There were mustard-colored mushrooms, delicate lavender-hued mushrooms, itty-bitty mushrooms, slime molds, lichens, disgusting delicacies... and a lady with a huge black pet rabbit in a baby carrier strapped to her person. i shit you not. We later saw this woman on the trolley on our way out of the park. She is 100% for fucking real.
Afterward, i spent $1.50 (well, a fiver, actually, but the rest was a donation) on 3 books at a rummage sale: a children's book called Mirette on the High Wire (featuring coolio Degas-meets-Monet watercolor illustrations), Susan Minot's Folly (because i really liked Evening), and a little paperback called Mansion in Miniature, which i am sure will be the gem of the bunch. Here is the recap from the back cover:
The dollhouse was a Georgian mansion in miniature, breathtakingly realistic, as lovely and fragile as Crystal Fairchild herself. And Crystal's pretty sister Karen was delighted at the chance to visit isolated Fair Island and help put the finishing touches on this doll-sized wonderland.
(Whoa, they are playing "Big Bottom" by Spinal Tap on KALX right now.... wow. Just, wow. Sorry for this interjection, but i am blazed right now.)
So, continuing on:
But when Karen arrived at her sister's home, Crystal greeted her not with friendship but with fear, muttering that her dead husband's family was holding her prisoner and they'd never let her escape. Poor mad Crystal, seeing villains everywhere but in her little dollhouse world. Karen could easily tell that the Fairchilds were only trying to help Crystal. Certainly handsome Paul Fairchild–who had swiftly captured Karen's heart–would protect Crystal from any harm. But Karen was wrong, and for once only Crystal perceived the truth and recognized the horror which was reaching out to engulf them both– a horror that could find them anywhere, that could pursue them even into Crystal's dollhouse sanctuary, claiming its two helpless victims and leaving their precious creation tainted by an overpowering legacy of fear. . . .
Thank you, 1977.
We then walked around to the cactus garden in Balboa Park, which is one of my fave places for black and white photos around these parts. Please go, if you haven't been. It's pretty stunning. Also, there was a giant "Z" on the slope across the canyon nearby: a jogging path, i think.
Headed back into the park, and stopped at a gathering crowd to watch a magic show on our way out. Put a(nother) fiver in the guy's hat at the end, because he was pretty hilarious. i'm such a kid when it comes to slight of hand and cheap magic wands... pretty sure i said "whoa!" more times than all of the six-year-olds around me combined. How embarrassing.
Walked up to Hillcrest to get Indian food (Paneer, how do i love thee? Let me count the ways...), hopped on the bus to get home, home, home. Nat had never seen Dead Poet's Society (!) before, so we started to watch it on YouTube before i lost it and decided that we needed to watch it on a proper television. Netflix'd it. So excited! Oh Neil, Knox... i will see you soon.
Other highlights of this day included: Butterflies. There were scads of them, flitting along on the air. Painted Ladies, methinks. So beautiful to see every year.
Not as lovely, but almost as colorful, was the painted bathroom we came home to that evening. As we were rushing to leave earlier that day, Nat had knocked over a burning candle from the back of the toilet. We didn't have time to clean it up, so it was left 'til later. Arriving home, it looked like someone had snuck into our bathroom to have a bout of explosive diarrhea. The upside? The entire house smelled like Espresso. The downside? Brown drips and smears all over the wall, the floor... it was a soy candle, and i will just say that soy wax is somewhat, erm, runnier than paraffin. Hooray! Used my good spatula to scrape it all off. Whaddya gonna do?
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