Finding one's inner riparian
Jun. 22nd, 2003 12:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gurdonarkToday I worked until the middle of the afternoon. I stopped at a dollar store, and picked up a throwaway camera. I then headed onto the President George Bush Tollway back towards Allen. I stopped at Breckinridge Park, a wonderful large expanse which rarely seems crowded. When I arrived, a father and his small son were flying a dragon kite in the parking lot--the kite's tail must have been 45 feet long. Two retirement-age gentlemen stood beside the large pond, guiding radio controlled sailboats through the calm waters.
I plunged into the woodland, by Rowlett Creek:
The creek ran wide for this time of year. I soon veered off the concrete walkway onto little cut-paths. I wished I had my little dogs along, until I saw row upon row of foxtails amid the weeds. Foxtails and dogs do not mix well together.
Most of the creek rolled along at a pleasant pace, but sometimes the creek ran a bit faster over the limestone.
Outside the woods, the pond is a picturesque little space in a field, with a gazebo-type pavilion:
But I like the dark, quiet look of deep, green woodlands around a flowing creek.
I saw a nest of "waxworms", small moth caterpillars, which build an almost webbed looking nest, in which crawl dozens of "waxworms" at a time:
I also saw giant swallowtail and sagebrush butterflies.
I was a participant in this hike, of course, walking through the woods and in the open, snapping madly, searching out butterflies, listening to singing birds. I saw a bluebird fly into a tree. I stepped gingerly around poison oak. I kept my eyes peeled for snakes in the trail, but I didn't see any.
I decided to add myself to this record, as follows:
We went down the street to the Persian restaurant, where our waitperson, a Malay woman we always like served us. She may be the most charming and attractive industrial engineering student we have ever met (although I suppose that all IEs must be charming and attractive, speaking inductively). She told us about the challenges of studying differential equations (which we called "Diff E" when I was in school, but now has the somewhat cuter name "DiffyQ"). We talked a long time about industrial engineers and job markets and regions of the country. Her fiance is also an IE, so they'll no doubt produce well-engineered progeny.
We came home and watched "Frida" on the DVD, which captured both our hearts. I knew it would be good,but I thought that the watering down of the tragic elements of the story would badly damage the movie. But the movie worked in the way old time Hollywood movies did--an entertainment about a serious life.
Tomorrow I must travel again. I am glad I got a moment to stand in the shade today.
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Date: 2003-06-21 11:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-22 04:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-22 12:09 am (UTC)HOWDY-DO to you, Bob!
I am just grinnin' ear to ear, jubilant that you are sharing your face.
Thinking this (tetting to 'meet' you) is a wonderful (most fitting) treat to a day already filled with glorious, glorious experiences!
*ahem*
Date: 2003-06-22 12:10 am (UTC)"(getting to 'meet' you)"
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Date: 2003-06-22 04:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-22 03:08 am (UTC)I loved Frida. I liked the creative way they shared her art.
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Date: 2003-06-22 04:52 am (UTC)This part of north Texas is called "prairie transition zone", because it is neither quite prairie nor full woodlands. Instead, the creeks all have stands of trees but there are lots of open spaces. I grew up in south Arkansas, with dense forests, but the closest I can come to duplicating that here is to head for the creeks and walk among the trees that line them.
I'm in my mid-40s, so to my way of thinking I'm pretty much just middle-aged. Thanks for the kind words.
When "Frida" came out, the cinematic "staging" of her paintings in the plot was controversial, but I think it really worked. Although I knew dozens of her work, I was surprised at how much more prolific she seemed to be than I realized.
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Date: 2003-06-22 04:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-22 05:00 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2003-06-22 05:08 am (UTC)I wrote this poem about him:
A Poem For Walt McDonald
I'm writing you because I miss my father
because Texas is close to Kansas
because your eyebrows are thick like the wool Army
blanket he brought home before I was born
I'm writing because you wrote your hands into
a poem and you love your wife
because at night his absence is absurd
because you might be up sitting in the dark, writing
because we are both writers
because we fill holes with what happened and what didn't
because you're afraid of dying before all the words fill all the holes
and because you keep one lamp burning,
always burning
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Date: 2003-06-22 05:22 am (UTC)I like his stuff--it has a freedom from show-off wordplay I find appealing. Imagine being the poet laureate of Lubbock--where they make great red wines, but the trees are few and far between!
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Date: 2003-06-22 05:13 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2003-06-22 10:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-22 04:36 am (UTC)persian food? spiced rice dishes and yogurt? hmmmm. i will go googling...
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Date: 2003-06-22 04:53 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2003-06-22 05:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-22 05:08 am (UTC)My wife, a year younger than I am, always looks a fair bit younger than you are, so I worry that someday I'll be mistaken for her father!
Thanks for the kind words on the photo. I like that idea of having a kind face.
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Date: 2003-06-22 05:43 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2003-06-22 05:41 am (UTC)Re:
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Date: 2003-06-22 07:19 am (UTC)Re:
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Date: 2003-06-22 07:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-22 07:47 am (UTC)The forest pics are lovely but if you want to see real forest you should come to B.C. :-D. That's the thing that I love most about living here...... the trees, mountains and lakes.
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Date: 2003-06-22 07:50 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2003-06-22 07:55 am (UTC)I'm glad you've had a B.C. experience. It truly is a beautiful place :-).
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Date: 2003-06-22 12:36 pm (UTC)I hadn't given much thought to what you looked like, but I think the mental picture of you I had in my head was of a vaguely pixellated yellow-and-black diurnal Lepidoptera in mid-flight against an aquamarine sky.
I was a little off.
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Date: 2003-06-23 07:27 am (UTC)