the Gardens

I don’t work on Fridays. I spend the day doing laundry or errands so that I will have my weekends free. To do what specifically, don't know. But as luck would have it, my friend Kathy was also off today and so we decided to put this sweltering summertime Friday to good use. No air conditioned mall where all we would do is spend money that neither of us particularly have right now. No boring lunch at the local air conditioned diner. No air conditioned theatre with overpriced, over-sized popcorn piqued our interest. What to do, what to do? Then Kathy came up with an idea. The Botanical Gardens in Brooklyn and then on to the Brooklyn Museum where they have an artic exhibit which I found quite fitting since it was a steamy 90 plus degrees outside. Now keep in mind I have central air conditioning. What does that mean? It means that I basically live in the Bio-Dome. I have no idea how hot it is outside unless I happen to see my dog keel over in the yard. So as I dressed for our outing, I had no idea what I was in for. Kathy arrived, we sucked down a cup of coffee, emptied our bladders and headed for my car. 16 steps from front door to car door, and I was sweating. This wasn’t gonna be pretty. After navigating Flatbush Avenue's road construction, dollar vans, delivery trucks and jaywalkers we arrived at the Botanical Gardens and began the daunting task of finding a parking spot. Pump, bus stop, no standing, no parking, pump, SPOT! Only three gi-normous blocks from the entrance. I can do this, I am a trooper. (I did Washington with 103 degree fever, give or take a degree) By the time I shut the car, pushed in the collapsible mirror and beeped the alarm I was soaked with sweat. (So much for 'take a picture of me near the magnolias') The Gardens only cost $8...a steal as entrance fees go. For your reading pleasure here is a virtual step by step of our two hour trek through the gardens. Plants, trees, gardens, kids garden, spice garden, frangrance garden, rose garden, rock garden, handicapped garden, (yes you read that right!) seat with spiders, stagnant water, dragonflies, garden, another garden, more trees, a bush, plants, seat with bees, prickly things, stagnant water with fish, stagnant water with flowers, bugs, bees, big bees, more trees and the Wicked Plants exhibit! Now if there is one thing I immediately picked up on is that where there is an exhibit, there is air conditioning. Sold! Wicked Plants it is! The exhibit had two redeeming qualities....the bathroom and the air conditioning, three if you count the bug free, creepy-crawly free seating. But the exhibit had NO plants, they had pictures of plants. And not just zoom, click, print pictures, they had drawings of pictures of plants. On the wall. In frames. For sale. (don't ask!) Just as my heart rate returned to normal and my glasses stopped fogging up from the heat we see that there are doors to rooms that are....temperature controlled! No such luck that the controlled temperature was a refreshing 27 degrees. Nope, we had the WARM, the TROPICAL and the drop dead the minute you enter and breath in the kiln-like temperatures. We walked through them all, calling out names of the plants we recognized, pretending we really gave a shit where the prickly ass cacti came from as we struggled to stay alive. The exhibit over, we breathed a few minutes of the air conditioning before we braved the outdoors once more. On to the Japanese exhibit complete with a murky pond with something akin to the loch ness monster swimming bravely in the muck. Two wrong turns afforded us the cherry trees, a kindergarten class in matching shirts running mindlessly from the heat, two nannys with their long haired yuppie spawn, and thank God, Flatbush Avenue. We were almost at the end of our journey...........through HELL! (If hell had trees.) We made our way down Flatbush Avenue, me having to stop twice to.....well quite frankly, breathe....then past the zoo, over the discarded condoms, around the downed tree limbs and finally to the car. My Dodge had become our oasis on Flatbush Avenue. Once inside with the air conditioning on super throttle, we planned the next part of our outing. Alcohol! Cold and icy and in a really big glass with something over 1200 calories with cheese…. as a chaser! Friday’s here we come! Gee Kathy has off next Wednesday, I wonder what she has planned for us??