I Got Off Work Early

Wednesday afternoon the weather was perfectly fabulously fantastic!  Warm and sunny, slight breeze, not hot or cold.  I was supposed to go to a movie in the evening Wednesday with my friend Shamelle.  But I called her at 1:00 pm when I realized I'd be done with work early, because she has the summer off from her teaching/tutoring job.  And instead of a movie in the evening we went for a walk at Parklands in the afternoon.
Here's my favorite tree along the Mackinaw in the part of Parklands I always seem to go to for a walk.

If you've been there you know that tree.  You see it and you think "I'd like to climb out on that limb.  But I'm not 17 and think I'm immortal anymore so I won't."  But the next time you see it you think the same danged thing.  Cause you're still alive and who could resist that branch lazily beckoning the water below?

The river, the Mackinaw of course, was running high from the weekend's rains.  There was enough breeze that the sound of the wind blocked out any other noises.  The wildflowers were rampant.  Here are a few of the flowers we saw:

Spiderwort.

Shooting star.

Columbine.

False Solomon's Seal.

Fleabane.

I looked up all the scientific names but none of them were "porn-star" worthy.  So, I'm not putting them in here.  'Cause I'm all about the star value.

We also some some wildlife.  A few little brown snakes.  Green shiny beetles.  A beautiful bright-blue little bird we couldn't identify.  A woodpecker eating a worm.  And a ham.  Well, it looked like a ham from across the river.  It looked like a ham staked to a little table.   But wild ham are rare in those woods.  So we were probably mistaken.

Shamelle and I went to Schnucks after our lengthy walk.  For my Gentle Readers who do not live in Bloomington-Normal, that's our uppity-scale grocery store here in town.   Seeing that possibly-a-ham made me hungry!   We bought some hummus, of course, and some olives that were so garlicky you should not eat them within one week of having anything to do with smooching.  (Unless you think you might be called upon to smooch someone so boring you would fall asleep on your date and you don't care.)  And some crackers and  Pink Lady apples. 

I also bought a 12-pack of Caffeine Free Diet Coke, which Shamelle did point out is Not Healthy.  I laughed and read the ingredients to her outloud.  Water is number one!  SO how can it be bad?  Also "Natural Flavors"  is like, well, next to last in the list.  I think I made my case, but she remained Unconvinced.

We ate the yummy food on her covered porch, very nice, and I drank a coke and didn't offer her one.  I'm pretty sure she was relieved about that.  I took the extra hummus and left her the extra olives.  Even though she's a lot more likely to smooch someone in the next week than I am!

Just because it's so beautiful there, here's another photo for your visual enjoyment:

You Are Welcome!