A stroll through the lady garden.

On Wednesday, after waking up exhausted/hung over/high on my newfound Love of Country, I headed to the Bronx to spend the day at the New York Botanical Garden with my mom.

For those of you who don't know my mother, I should mention that visiting a garden with her is much like visiting a SciFi convention with these guys:




Namely, it'll make you feel like you know absolutely nothing about the subject at hand, while your companion happily offers a stream-of-consciousness-esque knowledgeable commentary on everything you see... or, in my mom's case, will arbitrarily break off from conversation with you in order to talk to the plants.

Mom: So, the other day, your father told me-- OOOOOH! (sees plant, runs to it) What ARE YOU?!
Me: Um?
Mom: Oh, of course, it's [unintelligible stream of latin words], and that's [other unintelligible stream of latin words]. And of course you remember this one, it's [something that sounds like "cockblock moose dice"].
Me: Er... yes! Of course! And here's a flower that looks like a peanut!


At this point, I pretty much gave up on pretending to know anything about flowers, and just started taking pictures.





Once we started walking around, we also discovered that the NYBG is hosting 20 Henry Moore pieces, all colossal, gestural sculptures that look beautifully at home in the garden. Like this one...

and this one...

and this one, which.... um... yeah.

Me: Wow, look. It's a giant bronze vagina.
Mom: Huh. Oh, but wait -- according to the plaque here, this sculpture is called "Large Totem Head".
Me: Yeah, fine, whatever. I can call my vagina a Large Totem Head too. It doesn't change the fact that it's a vagina.
Mom: ...The bronze certainly is a lovely color.

(pause)

Me: VAGINA.


And, just so the last word in this post isn't "vagina", here's a picture of me smelling a flower.

P.S. The rose garden is in bloom and the Moore sculptures are fabulous -- if you're in the NYC area, go.