Pretty flowers.

If you've known me since childhood, you probably know that I love lilacs. A lot. I had a lilac bush in my backyard as a child, and I swear to you that thing was my best friend. Which may sound sad, but I spent hours playing around that bush. I hid things in its branches and made up games, and pretended all sorts of things, many of them I can't even remember because when you're a child there's this whole other world going on inside of your head that you can't tap into as an adult.

One thing I do remember is that when I went through my Xena obsession stage, and started "training" with a quarter staff in my backyard, no tree or bush was safe except for my lilac. I beat the shit out of every other thing in our backyard except that.

So when I found out that there was an entire garden of lilac bushes in Manito Park here in Spokane, I became a giddy little girl again. I was eagerly waiting for when they would come into bloom, and today was the day. I caught them at the perfect time, when the trees are half budded and half bloomed out. It smelled like heaven and I took, um, a lot of pictures. Like over fifty. I LIKE LILACS, SHUT UP! Here are some of my favorites...

Sore all over, but happy!

We just got back from a weekend in San Francisco last night, which means I'll be feeling the effects of walking miles up and down hills for a few days. It was a great time, we met up with old friends, and had some amazing food. If anyone reading this is ever in SF, I highly recommend eating at Pesce. Some of the best food I've had at a restaurant in a long time. I could eat their swordfish until I pop!

While walking on Pier 39, we saw a tattoo parlor with big picture windows where you could watch the artists at work. I have an 11-year-old rose on my right foot that is badly faded and in need of a touch up. It looked like this...

 
So we stopped in. They had a digital portfolio for each artist, and I began flipping through, and wound up lingering on one artist, Chris's page. He'd done a couple of pieces with dew drops that looked startlingly 3D. As though if you touched them you'd get your finger wet. I mentioned to my husband that if I decided to have anything done, that was the guy I wanted.

Well, as it turned out, he happened to be standing right there when I said it. He introduced himself and said that he specializes in photo realism, and asked what I wanted done. I showed him my tattoo and he grimaced and said with something so faded, he would just cover it instead of touching it up. That's when he said, "We could do another rose, a different flower, or you could choose something else." That really piqued my interest! I had never considered getting something else over the old tattoo. Because, let's be honest, I got it when I was 18 years old and had no real personalty or interest in anything, so I got a flower because it was pretty. Nowadays, I don't really resonate with red roses anymore. So I told him, "I want a gecko!"

We flipped through photos online until we found a few that I liked, and then worked on the stencil to combine features here and there until we had the perfect tattoo. I have to say, I am thrilled with the result. It's so pretty!

Eeeeeee! I LOVE IT!

And I have to throw an additional photo in, because while I love reptiles, my mother hates snakes. HI MOM!

Me with Pascal, a ball python in the reptile collection at my husband's museum.