Hanami

As a reward for my dogged efforts to produce a manly feast for the manly men watching the manly NFL Draft, Josh took me to view the cherry blossoms at Brooklyn Botanic Garden as I've never seen a lot of them at once. It was so crowded because of the Sakura Matsuri (Cherry Blossom Festival).

After my lost Friday night and Saturday, I expected him to follow through on his promise to take me to view cherry blossoms. I thought it was going to be a romantic outing for the two of us, as spare time is rare for Josh as a teacher, and when he has any, he's usually spending it as he wishes to relax. I'm used to it now, but it doesn't result in fantastic weekends. So when Josh said today that we'd be attending the festival, I was so excited. Before we left, Josh made his weekly call to his parents so they'd know he hadn't died on the job, and to fill them in on our planned visit to the BBG, only to find out that they were already at the cherry blossom festival! Fantastic. My first romantic outing with my boyfriend in goodness only knows how long, and his parents and little brother are also present. They'd already been at the BBG since 10:00, so we figured that they'd be gone by the time we got there at 1:00 (a couple hours away), but they said they'd hang around to see us in person.

We met up with them after making our way to the main tent, where performers displayed various Japanese arts. I avoid those kinds of things because it's usually a lot of gawking by people who remind me of a woman I used to work with who asked me, "What do Chinese people eat for breakfast?" Anyways, as Josh's parents (excluded from my generalization about gawkers, at least, I hope) wanted to stay and watch the performances, so Josh and I were free to roam. I was blown away by how many people were crowding into the gardens, and not so surprised by the number of couples I caught making out in secluded areas (i.e. underneath the branches of a weeping willow). I guess they got the spring (mating season) fever. The clouds even broke after a while, making the visit even better.

In front of the conservatory, we found a large pool inhabited by a few ducks. We were privy to a territory dispute when a third male flew into the pond and the already-present males chased him out with much flapping and splashing of BBG visitors. It lasted about 5 minutes, with the interloper flying away with his feathers ruffled. There was also a wedding reception taking place in the conservatory, and while I was admiring the centerpieces, Josh pointed out that it wasn't a traditional wedding, as the groom and groom were enjoying their first dance. Traditional or not, it was so sweet and made me tear up, while Josh was saying that he'd never seen two men dance together like that in real life.

I also saw some lovely spring green tulips, my favorite tulip (and that's saying a lot as I don't relaly care for tulips). But eventually, we made our way back to the main tent so Josh could talk to his parents and let them know that all was well in his life and they had nothing to fret about in their stereotypically Jewish fashion. If Josh's mother is afraid I'm not feeding her baby properly, he'll be home next weekend for her to fatten up with horse-sized portions of salad and fiber. I tuned out for most of that conversation, and we left soon after that for our apartment and our own dose of Japanese culture, which consisted of several episodes of Bleach. We were in good spirits until Josh started grading American History essays and got frustrated with his students and their lack of ability to construct sentences, let alone cohesive essays.

And that was the end of a weekend that went by far too quickly.