Purple Time at the Arboretum's Lily Pond

In which the best-laid plans of mice and men go awry. . . .

Just another adventure with my ride-or-die gals!

It is a surprise to me sometimes how little my current life resembles the one I had before. There are things I used to do all the time, places I used to go, that I hardly get to now, for one reason or another. You can see one of those places in this photo: the lily pond at the Arboretum, which I finally got to visit on this day.

I had not been to the Arboretum since late March, and I can't believe I missed April and May in the gardens, but I did. They used to have amazing tulip displays, but I heard from a friend who went that this year's bulb show was no great shakes. So I missed it, but I may not have missed much!

I had a lunch date in Boalsburg with girlfriends that had been rescheduled from last week. My husband had some things he wanted to do, so he volunteered to drive me. "Hey, how would you like to be dropped off at the Arboretum for an hour before lunch?" he asked. Well, heck, yeah! "Just trying to think of ways to make my wife happy!" he said, with a grin.

So we set off for the Arboretum, where he dropped me off and went to run some errands that should have included a blood test that our doctor recommended for him. Except that the blood test place was unexpectedly closed, with a weird note on the door. Foiled! He was not at all happy about that, having finally decided to do the blood test after putting it off a while, but he got some other things done.

He picked me up from the Arboretum about 10 minutes later than expected, and we headed for Boalsburg. We somehow ended up there a bit early, and I can't explain the physics behind this! We left late but arrived early. There's a story for the record books. We must have been traveling at warp speed!

I was the first of my friends to arrive, and it looked like nobody was around. Great, we'd have first dibs on the outdoor seating! As my husband pulled up to the curb to drop me off, he promised he'd show up for me around 1:15 in the church parking lot by the big cemetery nearby. Then one of my friends came and it was bye-bye time, as I started chatting it up with my friend.

A second friend showed up, and SHE is the one who actually found the weird sign on the door (well after my husband had gone) saying that Duffy's would not be opening until 4 p.m.! There would be NO Duffy's lunch for us on this day!

Our third friend showed up with her husband just as we were trying to decide what to do. "How about Gigi's?" somebody said. But I told them I needed to be in Boalsburg at 1:15 for pick-up by my ride. So we decided to go to nearby Angelo's instead, a place where I've had takeout hoagies, but never a sit-down meal.

That is how it came to be that we four friends hopped in our cars (I rode with Cindy, who'd never been to Angelo's before) and ended up at Angelo's instead, for three chef salads (the Wednesday special) and an order of fried mozzarella sticks. My friend Judy got two cannoli to go, and I got to say, "Leave the gun; TAKE the cannoli!" Which was awfully fun indeed!

At the end of my meal, I decided to stand up and take some photos of the place, and I wanted a picture of the pretty window with green plants; it just so happens that those are my three friends sitting in front of it! I hope these three wonderful ladies do not mind that I snapped their photo and included it here.

But Blip is where I put everything that is dearest to me. And so here is where they go, for posterity. (See the extra photos.) On the left, Judy is the one near the window and Gina is closer to me; on the right is my friend Cindy, who worked with my husband in Bellefonte, many years before he met me!

Before we left, Judy handed me a hippopotamus about the size of my hand, with a red bow on it. Yes, you heard that right. A hippopotamus. "I have a hippopotamus collection," she said, "And I've decided I'm giving it to you! Every time I see you now, I'm going to give you a HIPPOPOTAMUS!" Ahem.

Now, I do not know if this collection includes 10 hippopotami, or 100. But we have incoming hippopotami, or so I've been warned. I guess I'll find out! And yes, for the record, promising (or perhaps threatening!) to shower me with hippopotami, one at a time, like Chinese hippopotamus torture, is indeed one of the strangest things anyone has ever said to me!

Our bills paid, Judy and I hopped in her car and she took me back over to the cemetery, where I had about 15 minutes for photos before my husband showed up to get me. "Guess where I DIDN'T eat lunch!" I exclaimed. Boy, was he surprised where I ended up! Then he gave me a strange look: "Where'd you get the hippopotamus?" I just shook my head.

My husband and I had one last errand, which was to go back to Kohl's and get a couple of dollars back that I'd been overcharged the last time I was there. I am sorry to say it was an odyssey for them just to figure out what they owed me (as I'd used a coupon for $10 off $25 last time I was there, oy vey!).

They tried about six different ways to do it (most of which involved refunding the two items to me at the cheaper price with the coupon and selling them back to me again at a higher price, which was NOT the right answer!), but we finally worked it out.

I think we are square now, so WHEW! Oh, and the bonus is this: I found a pair of pants on the clearance rack for $6 and used an additional Kohl's $5 bonus coupon we'd received on email and printed out at home to get them for $1. Now THAT is the price I want to pay!

It is my custom to include a soundtrack song, and here is one that fits this day of changes. Here's David Bowie, with Changes.