Barefoot in the Park

Today was a beautiful day, so I wandered over from my neghborhood, to the nearby Palermo section of town, where there are a multitude of parks and plazas and what not. When walking around, I realized what Central Park has over lots of other parks. So far, the BA parks I visited were very pretty, but not so much peaceful. One of the city's main roads -- with TEN lanes -- cuts through the various parks, which leads to lots of traffic noise.

Finally, I decided to walk over to the Botanical Gardens to sit and read my book for a while. The strangest thing about this park -- the biggest attraction was not the foliage, as you'd expect given the name. No -- there were probably several hundred feral cats roaming the grounds, and it's not that big of a park. I've never seen anything like it. Very Grey Gardens. Needless to say, not being a cat person, I was a little creeped out and left. I felt like I had stepped into a crazy sci-fi movie where cats took over the planet, and I figured it was only a matter of time before all of the cats figured out my vehement anti-cat stance and clawed me to my death. I was cursing myself for not bringing my camera to take a picture of the cat park to show everyone. (Sorry -- I doubt I'll be going back.)

Tonight I'm heading out with my friend Barb to a Scandinavian restaurant that apparently serves something other than beef or jamon. This should be exciting. The other night, Barb and I went to an Italian place for dinner and ordered a salad to try to balance out our daily meat intake. What arrived was a plate full of about a half pound of shaved proscuitto and a little bit of arugula on the side. What can I say? Portenos love their jamon.