Question: What’s better than 3-D Imax movies?
Answer: Life.
Sometimes I encounter something in this town that completely flummoxes me, interrupting my day, my thoughts, my mundane activities with its complete deliciousness.
If you read this blog, you know I’m generally talking about food…
But last weekend, I was overwhelmed by the gorgeousness of the cottony fluff floating off of the cottonwood trees that line the Willamette River. The seeds, encased in a thumbs-width of feathery down, have been floating through the air and gathering at the edges of the paths in Riverfront Park.
If you sit there long enough facing the river, and the wind catches just right, it will start floating directly at your face in almost slow-motion grace.
I’ve read that the result is sometimes a “blizzard of cotton,” but lately, with the sun shining so bright and the wind just kind of fingering through the trees, the result has been this amazing cosmic display of minutely slow-floating fuzz that makes me question my consumption of media and wish I had become a park ranger.
We scooped up some balls of these cotton seeds and rubbed it on each others’ clothing before walking through town. I like seedy hangers-on. I like helping these guys get where they need to go.
Achoooo! It’s pretty, but boy am I allergic!! So stay far away from me, woman!
It riles up my allergies, too. It gathers in the parking structure where I work, and looks like snow. Summer snow! Hey, if we call rain “liquid sunshine” why can’t we call this “summer snow?”
I read this through my RSS feed, which I don’t check too regularly so I just read this today. I love the cottonwood in the spring. I remember going to Waldsee during spring weekends or the very beginning of summer and it looked as if it was snowing in May or June!!
Waldsee, for all of you yet to be introduced, is where I met my husband, a German immersion summer camp in Bemidji, MN. I also met Holly there! It is indeed a magical place, though I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting it in any season other than summer…
Synchronicity. I heard “Bemidji, MN” last night while watching a Tivo’d episode of How I Met Your Mother.
I don’t think I’ve EVER heard of that town, but to hear of it twice now in less than 24 hours…
The universe has a great sense of humor.