A Reprise

  Today we had lunch at the HG SPLY CO in WestBend, Fort Worth. It was amazing as always. I got beans and rice side dishes, both of which were huge portions, plus we shared chips and salsa which also had great flavor. The restaurant is right off the Trinity River, with a view of the skyline. After lunch, we went to the Botanic Garden. It was a little different in that we had to pay to enter the entire garden, and the Japanese Garden could be entered at will, with no separate entrance fee. The Zen Garden in the Fort Worth Japanese Garden is one of my favorite places on earth. I've taken so many photos of the Zen Garden over the years, with so many different cameras. It was exciting to use my keychain camera today. The Suzuki Garden is one of my favorite places in the Japanese Garden. All of the above pictures were edited with the keychain cam's bundled software (Arcsoft PhotoImpression 4). I edited them a little further in Adobe Lightroom just to see the difference. I prefer the...

 

My favorite animals to see at the zoo are the primates. I went around to the back of this exhibit to get a better look and one of the gorillas was lying beneath the plexi-glass window. I made eye contact with her, and she glanced away uneasily and rolled to her other side. I could tell I made her uncomfortable and felt bad. Their facial expressions are so similar to humans'. The bonobos are another primate that are very human-like. They and chimpanzees seem to be tied as far as being genetically similar to us. I read that bonobos are fifty times as violent as humans and chimpanzees are one hundred times as violent as humans. However, I think, in general, our entire group is incredibly violent compared to other animals.  The flamingos appeared to be roosting and hatching eggs when we visited. There were many baby flamingos around. We happened to visit at a time when the tortoises were much more active, it being relatively early in the morning, and we able to watch them move around q...

I went on two excursions to Parks Mall last week: a solo walk, and a venture with my husband. On my solo walk, I noticed that Regis Salon had closed down. I had not had any plans to return; however, seeing the shuttered building felt like another sign of the end of an era. I spent many hours in Regis, got some of my best looks from their stylists, and found some of my signature nail polish colors (in particular, O.P.I.'s "Suzi Sells Sushi by the Seashore"). Sears was going out of business and as such, they were selling all mannequins and fixtures. On my second excursion with my husband, I bought some deeply discounted clothing at Sears. Afterward, we had dinner at Piranha Ramen on the patio. It was beautiful, but windy. Apparently, we are having a massive haze from an unusually large Saharan dust cloud this summer. I can't believe I've lived here so long and never knew that Saharan dust covered the east coast. However, after eating outside, I found particles in my...

I got the buttermilk one, white chocolate dip and espresso dusting.