Phat Loots

Yesterday I went nature-romping to gather inspiration for my next series.  I saw these pitcher plants at The Garden in the Woods in Framingham:I also saw a very majestic-looking frog and several painted turtles in the lily pond there, all of whom made me wish (once again) that I had a zoom lens, or at least a pair of waders.  I do, however, finally have a UV filter on my 28mm, so that removing my lens cap no longer feels so dangerous.  

I also bought 45 yards of ribbon at Playtime in Arlington.  I have a plan for all of this ribbon, which will reveal itself over the course of the next few weeks.  But right now it's time for a little tangent about Playtime.  Cue music.

I love Playtime.  They have the best, strangest, most disorganized array (is that an oxymoron, and can disarray be used as a noun?) of art supplies, craft supplies, party supplies, coloring books, and of course Queen Elizabeth paper dolls, this side of the Mississip.  Playtime is also fodder for excellent, quirky anecdotes.  The ladies who work there are very nice, but sometimes they don't know a lot about the fine art supplies that they carry.  I once plunked a big roll of drawing paper up on the counter to pay, and was met with a great deal of confusion.  "What is this?  Where did you find it?  Was there a price on it?  I've never seen this before."  But the ladies are quite helpful in other ways.  Not overly helpful, like "Overly Helpful Librarian" in the Wellesley College science center (a story for another day), but helpful in an even more surprising way.  You know when you go to a car dealership,  or a mattress store, and the sales person makes you squirm with the feeling that you're about to be sold up against you're will?  You know that you don't want to buy the all-season super-deluxe car mats, or the special, $70 mattress cover.  But the salesperson tries so hard and with so many different (albeit transparent) sales tactics, that you have to bring out your inner jerk-face in order to successfully shut him/her down?  Well that never happens at Playtime.  The ladies who work at Playtime check prices with disapproving clucks and raised eyebrows.  At the register, the cost of each paintbrush is reported to the customer in a skeptical tone, suggesting that no one in her right mind should pay $5 for such a little brush.  I was once seduced, while wandering through the aisles, by a gorgeous, super-soft, super-deluxe $65 sable brush.  This was too much for the lady behind the counter.  She flat out refused to sell it to me.  "Oh my God, this is $65!  Oh, noooo.  You don't want this!"  

Oh, Playtime, I do love you.

End tangent.

Yesterday I also snapped a whole bunch of pictures of my mom and stepdad's garden to tide me over with garden/nature imagery until next spring.  

I also made off with some more phat loots:

And look at the view we discovered this past weekend, just a little uphill walk from our own backyard in the Waltham Highlands: