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                              A Walk in the Park

It was such a beautiful day today that Spring [1] and I walked over to a
nearby park to have a look around. Veteran's Park, oddly enough dedicated to
U.S. Veterans of all wars, is at the west end of a shopping center about a
block west of us. Neatly mowed grass and a few token trees surround seven
flag poles, one with the U.S. flag and the remaining six for the various
armed forces. There are also a few benches there to relax on.

[2] [3] Given that there were no signs saying **DO NOT WALK ON THE GRASS**
we did just that. And also given that there were no signs saying **DO NOT
CLIMB ON THE TREES** Spring did just that. She climbed one of the banyan
trees [4] along the edge of the park. They're easy trees to climb, given
their sprawling nature and dozens of small trunks they throw down as they
grow (I've heard a story of one such banyan tree covering nine acres). I
decided to remain safely on the ground least I have an attack of vertigo.
(High Anxiety) [5]

Walking back, we passed a playground where the kids (all kindergarten age)
started asking Spring questions about her hair. I attempted to take a
picture, but Spring stopped me.

“Don't you know it's not safe to take their picture?” she asked.

“What? It's not like I'm stealing their soul or anything,” I said.

“It's not that—it's just that parents get very upset if you take pictures of
their kids. You could be arrested.”

“For taking a picture of some kids?”

“Yes. Parents get very defensive about their kids.” I rolled my eyes as we
kept walking.

[6] We walked behind the the shopping center where we saw some very oddly
marked parking spots. One was marked “SEMOSUMMER RESRYEO” and another one was
similarly marked (although I don't recall exactly what it said as the picture
turned out fuzzy. [7]

[8] [9] We also stopped by to check the mail box and ran into our roommate
Rob [10] who was leaving for fighter training (in swords). We ended up
checking the mail right there in the middle of the parking lot.

[1] http://www.springdew.com/
[2] gopher://gopher.conman.org/IPhlog:2001/11/07/spring.tree.thumb.jpg
[3] gopher://gopher.conman.org/IPhlog:2001/11/07/spring.tree.jpg
[4] http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/7503/banyan.html
[5] http://us.imdb.com/Title?0076141
[6] gopher://gopher.conman.org/IPhlog:2001/11/07/semosummer.jpg
[7] http://www.conman.org/people/spc/about/1998/focus.html
[8] gopher://gopher.conman.org/IPhlog:2001/11/07/mail.check.thumb.jpg
[9] gopher://gopher.conman.org/IPhlog:2001/11/07/mail.check.jpg
[10] http://www.tragic-smurfs.com/

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