Sakura time

V, D, and I went to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens on Saturday to see the cherry blossoms before they receded back into their dormant state. Not sure how long our ride would take, we tried to make the free admission window--which ended at 12. Unfortunately we missed it by 2 minutes, but a young couple ahead of us, who we followed because we weren't sure of where to go, ran ahead and managed to zoom in just in time. Well, technically, the girl did and the guy kind of slouchly walked at his own pace but somehow they ended up at the gate at the same time. The cherry blossom field was filled with people--particularly Asian people--and not just Asian people, but Korean and Cantonese speaking people. D mentioned how she felt like she was in Asia, which I think it made her uncomfortable. There were also couples and babies everywhere. It got to a point where if a baby wasn't making some kind of physical contact with his/her parent you really couldn't tell who he/she belonged to. V, D, and I attempted to take glamor shots, noticing how so many people were posing was tufts of flowers adjacent to their faces from the lower branches, but failed. My photo looked like I had fallen asleep standing instead of the serenity that I had attempted to affect. Others were shaking the tree so that there would be some kinetic component to the images--petals like snow.

We met up with J. Lee and her beau and the girls tried to climb this denuded, gnarled-looking willow tree. The lower grooves were smooth from so many children rubbing and unknowingly polishing it after thousands of momentary points of contact, and it had innumerable carvings declaring all different kinds of relationships on its surface like some unfortunate victim of an over zealous tattoo artist. V was the first to successfully attempt but just as I was scaling up the tree, a security guard came in a golf cart-esque vehicle to reprimand us. He even waited until we were a significant distance away before he drove off--as if he were afraid we'd just run back to the willow once he was gone.

Tired and all allergy-y we went back home.