Butter Me Up

While my parents were visiting over the holidays and in between my father taking us all out to eat and my mother teaching the puppy the rules (there aren't any), to something called "Treat Game", we managed to get to the Tucson Botanical Gardens to see the butterfly exhibit.

I don't know how many pictures I'll be able to upload before I have a coronary as a direct result of all the waiting, but here goes:


It is, by the way, if anyone's interested, 53.1 degrees right now in Tucson. According to Weatherbug. And I am wearing a thermal inside my casita.


Seriously, people, you may not get any pictures today.


Oh, look. A picture loaded. It's not even a butterfly. It's a fern.


Let's have an actual butterfly, shall we? And then we'll return the phone line to its proper function.


Has anyone ever actually seen raised hackles on a dog, by the way? Because I just did and I can't recall ever being prepared for what they were really going to look like. My dog's hackles just raised in a primal doggie response to a bunch of sirens out in the street. She looked like a fluffy stegosaurus. I did not feel frightened, but I guess she did.


Look, a butterfly!











Keep in mind that their controlled tropical environment was hot and much wetter than anything Weatherbug's ever been obliged to predict for this area - hence the misty photo. I like to call it artsy.