Kat's Butterfly Tattoo
MADAM BUTTERFLY- RENA
NOT IN KANSAS ANY LONGER!
BUTTERFLY RESTING
MY FAVORITE!My massage therapist, Kat, tipped me off to “The Butterfly Place” in Westford, Massachusetts.
I was lamenting the lack of butterflies in my garden this year.
“You won’t see them when it’s cloudy,” says Kat. “They only fly around in bright sunshine.”
“How do you know about butterflies?” I ask.
“I have one tattooed on my shoulder,” replies Kat.
(Sure enough she does. But that as they say is another story.)
That’s a good enough recommendation for me. Taking Kat at her word, I also take a quick snap of her tattoo for blog purposes. Then, I bicycle back to my house, fire up the family Suzuki, load Rena in the front and a couple of beach chairs in the way-back and we’re off – heading West to Westford.
“Nice day,” I exclaim. “Good butterfly weather.”
My wife, who is used to strange utterances about weather conditions as well as spur-of-the-moment travel adventures, doesn’t even ask where we’re going. We plug in Marvin, our GPS. Marvin is a bit temperamental and often refuses to talk if he’s not in the mood. But today is such a bright, sunny wonder of a day that even Marvin cooperates by giving directions. It’s a good thing, because ‘The Butterfly Place’ is not easy to find.
“Here we are,” I exclaim as we pull up to an un-prepossessing suburban ranch house with what looks like a largish detached sunroom on the side. I stop at the stick-your-head-in-the-hole plywood outside the entrance. ”Guess what – it’s a butterfly farm!”
“So the sign says,” agrees Rena, as she sticks her head in the hole and I take a quick blog snap.
We enter and Rena checks out the butterfly gift shop while I buy two adult tickets for $9.50 each. I’m tempted to ask for senior tickets but the old battle-axe behind the counter looks like she could be wise to that canard. I can just see me down at the local constabulary:
“What was his offense officer?” asks the magistrate.
“Impersonating a senior citizen,” replies Officer Krupke. “This cheapskate wanted to ding ‘The Butterfly Place’ $5 off the regular admission by using a fake senior ID.”
“How do you plead, Mr. Cheapskate?”
“Guilty as hell,” I reply.
I pay the $19 and we head for the entrance to the sunroom.
To enter you have to pass through a ‘butterfly trap’. Basically it’s a dark hall with tight doors at both ends to prevent the little guys from escaping – like an airlock into inner space. Emerging from the dark, you reach the inner sanctum. Suddenly it’s a Technicolor world – just like Dorothy after her house fell on the wicked witch. Sunshine and butterflies. Fountains and flowers. Several sculptures and a bench or two. There are feeding stations where butterflies eat mashed bananas and other delicacies.
At first we are like kids in a candy store, fluttering from place to place and exclaiming “Look at that one!” and “Ohmigod look over here”.
Then Butterfly Bob, the sunroom’s naturalist, explains that butterflies spend 90% of their time sitting still and only 10% of their time flitting about. I try sitting still on the bench. Sure enough as my breathing slows and my gaze sharpens, I see nine times as many butterflies in the bushes, up the trees and on the ground. How cool is that? Gradually, I relax into a butterfly trance beside the stream of consciousness. Butter-fly questions flutter-by:
“Don’t we all spend too much time flitting about and not enough time resting?”
“Are all butterflies born free and if so are they born again?”
“If a caterpillar can become a butterfly, then isn’t anything possible?”
“If a caterpillar can become a butterfly, can a doctor become a trapeze artist?”
“What the heck is a moth, anyway?”
Rena breaks into my reverie, “Come on. Time to go. We’re done.”
I rouse myself enough to hear Butterfly Bob explain that a moth has feathery antennae and a butterfly has straight ones. Also butterflies transform via chrysalis while moths prefer cocoons.
“Ready, willing and able,” I exclaim.
“Roger, over and out we go,” asserts my spouse.
We brush off any butterfly hitchhikers and push through the airlock. Surely we can’t be back in Kansas already! It’s a tough transition. I shake my head to clear the lepidoptera from my pre-frontal cortex. I’ve still got butterflies on the brain!
I ask the gift-shop clerk where I might find a beach. We follow her directions but no beach is in sight. Marvin isn’t much help. He seems dazed by the butterfly experience. We stop at a donut shop for more directions. Eventually we stumble on a small deserted strand of sand behind the water treatment plant in Westford. We haul out the beach chairs but only stay for a short time. It seems that swimming in the water supply is frowned upon by town ordinance. Or so a large, red sign says. Officer Krupke might well throw the book at me, if the same wannabee senior scofflaw attracts his attention for the second time in one day! We load our beach chairs back in the car and head for home.
As we tool down the highway, I still have my butterfly buzz.
“Maybe I have been a caterpillar too long. Maybe I should seek personal transformation. Me and all the other baby boom caterpillars.” I feel like Winnie-the-Pooh daydreaming about honey.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see a woman in a white Toyota making a rude gesture.
My head swivels and I realize that she is not flipping me the bird – which is something your average Boston driver is wont to do more frequently then your average Kansas driver. Instead she is pointing and gesticulating toward the rear of my car.
“Your trunk is open!” she yells.
“Holy Hatchback,” she’s right!
“Ohmigod,” yells Rena. “My purse is in the back.”
I pull off the highway at the next exit. Sure enough, on closer inspection the hatch is wide open and the beach chairs are dangling precariously in the breeze. But the pocketbook is heavy enough that it's still inside and the contents are intact. Nothing seems to be missing.
“Now why in the heck ….”, Rena starts to admonish. There’s a slight menacing tone in her voice and I suspect that the blame will fall on me if I don’t think of something quickly.
“The butterflies made me do it!” I spontaneously blurt out.
Now, that’s a conversation stopper. Rena raises one eyebrow quizzically and gives me the stink eye. I quickly batten all hatches and clear for take-off.
“Butterflies made me do it.”
What kind of a psychotic lame excuse is that? Pretty soon I won’t need a fake senior ID. They’ll know I’m old enough for reduced admission by just checking out the way I drive and the weird excuses coming out of my mouth. As the Dunlops direct me into my driveway, the car radio is playing Paul Simon’s ‘Still Crazy after all Those Years.’
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46bkXgxb66E on YouTube)
"I'm ready, I guess," I muse to myself. "Just send for the men in white coats. Only be sure they’re the traditional ones carrying the big butterfly nets on long poles.”
Daktari
I was lamenting the lack of butterflies in my garden this year.
“You won’t see them when it’s cloudy,” says Kat. “They only fly around in bright sunshine.”
“How do you know about butterflies?” I ask.
“I have one tattooed on my shoulder,” replies Kat.
(Sure enough she does. But that as they say is another story.)
That’s a good enough recommendation for me. Taking Kat at her word, I also take a quick snap of her tattoo for blog purposes. Then, I bicycle back to my house, fire up the family Suzuki, load Rena in the front and a couple of beach chairs in the way-back and we’re off – heading West to Westford.
“Nice day,” I exclaim. “Good butterfly weather.”
My wife, who is used to strange utterances about weather conditions as well as spur-of-the-moment travel adventures, doesn’t even ask where we’re going. We plug in Marvin, our GPS. Marvin is a bit temperamental and often refuses to talk if he’s not in the mood. But today is such a bright, sunny wonder of a day that even Marvin cooperates by giving directions. It’s a good thing, because ‘The Butterfly Place’ is not easy to find.
“Here we are,” I exclaim as we pull up to an un-prepossessing suburban ranch house with what looks like a largish detached sunroom on the side. I stop at the stick-your-head-in-the-hole plywood outside the entrance. ”Guess what – it’s a butterfly farm!”
“So the sign says,” agrees Rena, as she sticks her head in the hole and I take a quick blog snap.
We enter and Rena checks out the butterfly gift shop while I buy two adult tickets for $9.50 each. I’m tempted to ask for senior tickets but the old battle-axe behind the counter looks like she could be wise to that canard. I can just see me down at the local constabulary:
“What was his offense officer?” asks the magistrate.
“Impersonating a senior citizen,” replies Officer Krupke. “This cheapskate wanted to ding ‘The Butterfly Place’ $5 off the regular admission by using a fake senior ID.”
“How do you plead, Mr. Cheapskate?”
“Guilty as hell,” I reply.
I pay the $19 and we head for the entrance to the sunroom.
To enter you have to pass through a ‘butterfly trap’. Basically it’s a dark hall with tight doors at both ends to prevent the little guys from escaping – like an airlock into inner space. Emerging from the dark, you reach the inner sanctum. Suddenly it’s a Technicolor world – just like Dorothy after her house fell on the wicked witch. Sunshine and butterflies. Fountains and flowers. Several sculptures and a bench or two. There are feeding stations where butterflies eat mashed bananas and other delicacies.
At first we are like kids in a candy store, fluttering from place to place and exclaiming “Look at that one!” and “Ohmigod look over here”.
Then Butterfly Bob, the sunroom’s naturalist, explains that butterflies spend 90% of their time sitting still and only 10% of their time flitting about. I try sitting still on the bench. Sure enough as my breathing slows and my gaze sharpens, I see nine times as many butterflies in the bushes, up the trees and on the ground. How cool is that? Gradually, I relax into a butterfly trance beside the stream of consciousness. Butter-fly questions flutter-by:
“Don’t we all spend too much time flitting about and not enough time resting?”
“Are all butterflies born free and if so are they born again?”
“If a caterpillar can become a butterfly, then isn’t anything possible?”
“If a caterpillar can become a butterfly, can a doctor become a trapeze artist?”
“What the heck is a moth, anyway?”
Rena breaks into my reverie, “Come on. Time to go. We’re done.”
I rouse myself enough to hear Butterfly Bob explain that a moth has feathery antennae and a butterfly has straight ones. Also butterflies transform via chrysalis while moths prefer cocoons.
“Ready, willing and able,” I exclaim.
“Roger, over and out we go,” asserts my spouse.
We brush off any butterfly hitchhikers and push through the airlock. Surely we can’t be back in Kansas already! It’s a tough transition. I shake my head to clear the lepidoptera from my pre-frontal cortex. I’ve still got butterflies on the brain!
I ask the gift-shop clerk where I might find a beach. We follow her directions but no beach is in sight. Marvin isn’t much help. He seems dazed by the butterfly experience. We stop at a donut shop for more directions. Eventually we stumble on a small deserted strand of sand behind the water treatment plant in Westford. We haul out the beach chairs but only stay for a short time. It seems that swimming in the water supply is frowned upon by town ordinance. Or so a large, red sign says. Officer Krupke might well throw the book at me, if the same wannabee senior scofflaw attracts his attention for the second time in one day! We load our beach chairs back in the car and head for home.
As we tool down the highway, I still have my butterfly buzz.
“Maybe I have been a caterpillar too long. Maybe I should seek personal transformation. Me and all the other baby boom caterpillars.” I feel like Winnie-the-Pooh daydreaming about honey.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see a woman in a white Toyota making a rude gesture.
My head swivels and I realize that she is not flipping me the bird – which is something your average Boston driver is wont to do more frequently then your average Kansas driver. Instead she is pointing and gesticulating toward the rear of my car.
“Your trunk is open!” she yells.
“Holy Hatchback,” she’s right!
“Ohmigod,” yells Rena. “My purse is in the back.”
I pull off the highway at the next exit. Sure enough, on closer inspection the hatch is wide open and the beach chairs are dangling precariously in the breeze. But the pocketbook is heavy enough that it's still inside and the contents are intact. Nothing seems to be missing.
“Now why in the heck ….”, Rena starts to admonish. There’s a slight menacing tone in her voice and I suspect that the blame will fall on me if I don’t think of something quickly.
“The butterflies made me do it!” I spontaneously blurt out.
Now, that’s a conversation stopper. Rena raises one eyebrow quizzically and gives me the stink eye. I quickly batten all hatches and clear for take-off.
“Butterflies made me do it.”
What kind of a psychotic lame excuse is that? Pretty soon I won’t need a fake senior ID. They’ll know I’m old enough for reduced admission by just checking out the way I drive and the weird excuses coming out of my mouth. As the Dunlops direct me into my driveway, the car radio is playing Paul Simon’s ‘Still Crazy after all Those Years.’
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46bkXgxb66E on YouTube)
"I'm ready, I guess," I muse to myself. "Just send for the men in white coats. Only be sure they’re the traditional ones carrying the big butterfly nets on long poles.”
Daktari
2 comments:
our role as (cute) men is to come up with totally lame but amusing excuses for mistakes. Good one, Mark!
I've been to the butterfly place but failed to adjust to butterfly time, as you suggest, and hence missed out on the stilled majority, I fear. I'd like to make a return visit with Sophie on the lookout!
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