Someone remind me how to take it easy, please

I really needed to work out--aside from what it does for my muscles and general physical health, my mood needed it. I'd been missing exercise while I was still in Montreal, but this was the first practical day on which to do so. So I dashed out with cattitude, and did a more-or-less-usual collection of exercises.

The other thing I'd thought of doing yesterday, and didn't, was go to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden to look at the cherry blossoms. It's supposed to be a very wet weekend, so putting that off also seemed impractical. I took the Brighton Line out there, so I came in at the end away from the Brooklyn Museum. Lots of lawns and crabapples and violets and redbud and such before I got to the center of things. Outside the greenhouses, the water lilies are sprouting, but not yet in bloom. (It is only April, despite what some of the plants were doing.)

The Japanese garden felt odd, because they're repairing the torii at the center. I walked most of the way around the pond, then out the back gate and up to the Cherry Esplanade. The cherries were at or near peak, lots of blossoms on most of them, and some on the ground. I suspect there won't be much left by the time of the garden's Cherry Blossom Festival, which is the 28th to 30th.

Fortunately, there should be plenty of lilacs to console people. There were quite a few already, enough for me to do my annual drifting from bush to bush, sniffing and comparing. cattitude says I'm acting like a bumblebee. I'll probably want to visit the N.Y. [Bronx] Botanical Garden next week, for more lilacs. The rose garden was shut, which is reasonable at this time of year.

I was far from the only person who thought this was the right day for cherry blossoms--there were many of us, sitting, looking at trees, lying or sitting on the grass under the trees, and taking photos.

On the way home, despite a sore left knee and right heel, I stopped off at Jefferson Market Library, where I returned a book and consulted the Peterson guide to wildflowers. I think those tiny blue flowers I've been trying to identify, lurking in the lawn (there were a lot in the Botanic Garden) are blue field madder, Sherardia arvensis . [I did take 2 ibuprofen en route, and am now sitting down, drinking tea, and doing Web stuff.]

( gym numbers, as usual )

[It's not easy to type with julian_tiger licking my forearm.]

Someone remind me how to take it easy, please

I really needed to work out--aside from what it does for my muscles and general physical health, my mood needed it. I'd been missing exercise while I was still in Montreal, but this was the first practical day on which to do so. So I dashed out with cattitude, and did a more-or-less-usual collection of exercises.

The other thing I'd thought of doing yesterday, and didn't, was go to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden to look at the cherry blossoms. It's supposed to be a very wet weekend, so putting that off also seemed impractical. I took the Brighton Line out there, so I came in at the end away from the Brooklyn Museum. Lots of lawns and crabapples and violets and redbud and such before I got to the center of things. Outside the greenhouses, the water lilies are sprouting, but not yet in bloom. (It is only April, despite what some of the plants were doing.)

The Japanese garden felt odd, because they're repairing the torii at the center. I walked most of the way around the pond, then out the back gate and up to the Cherry Esplanade. The cherries were at or near peak, lots of blossoms on most of them, and some on the ground. I suspect there won't be much left by the time of the garden's Cherry Blossom Festival, which is the 28th to 30th.

Fortunately, there should be plenty of lilacs to console people. There were quite a few already, enough for me to do my annual drifting from bush to bush, sniffing and comparing. cattitude says I'm acting like a bumblebee. I'll probably want to visit the N.Y. [Bronx] Botanical Garden next week, for more lilacs. The rose garden was shut, which is reasonable at this time of year.

I was far from the only person who thought this was the right day for cherry blossoms--there were many of us, sitting, looking at trees, lying or sitting on the grass under the trees, and taking photos.

On the way home, despite a sore left knee and right heel, I stopped off at Jefferson Market Library, where I returned a book and consulted the Peterson guide to wildflowers. I think those tiny blue flowers I've been trying to identify, lurking in the lawn (there were a lot in the Botanic Garden) are blue field madder, Sherardia arvensis . [I did take 2 ibuprofen en route, and am now sitting down, drinking tea, and doing Web stuff.]

( gym numbers, as usual )

[It's not easy to type with julian_tiger licking my forearm.]