Larz Anderson Park Christmas Day 2011

    Every year sometime on Christmas day I find the time to stop by the top of the hill at Larz Anderson Park in Brookline. It's a nice place to take a contemplative view of the city and the year that has just passed.
    Even tho I had to work at the Booklink bookstore out at Logan Airport today, I still managed to squeeze in a quick visit to one of my favorite places to view the city.

No snow this year, ok actually maybe there was a 15 minute dusting of flakes that never actually hit the ground but no snow that accumulated to add anything to the scenery. I guess instead, this year the powers that be decided to toss a small white dog into my scenery just to shake things up. 

I was driving up the hill and a little white thing came bounding on it's tiny little legs into the roadway. I got out of the car and asked a lady a little further up the hill if it was her dog. She said it wasn't but she thought the owner was nearby as there was a small tied up bag of poop about 5 yards behind her. Obviously someone nearby owned this little ball of love and my over active imagination had that person going wild with worry searching the hill for thier four legged friend. 

So, of course I left my car by the side of the road and chased this happy, foolish, tail wagging, leash dragging snowy mutt up the hill, all around the ice rink and back again in seach of someone also searching. 

   The dog found her first and I came huffing and puffing behind to encounter a totally unconcerned lady holding the leash and yapping into her cell without a care in the world. 

I guess I'd done the same thing with my Lucy many times years in the past but my Lucy was a husky mix who although she was prone to running off in Brighton where we lived, she always stayed on the grassy part of 'Larzzy's' and was unlikely to be found wandering in the road. 

All things said and done tho, I guess there are worse places one could have a carefree frolic, I just wonder if the woman on the phone remembered to go back and pick up her baggie of poop...                      

 

Scenes from Quincy Adams T stop...

I snapped this pic a couple of weeks ago at the Quincy Adams Red Line T stop after hearing for the second time a kid telling his parent how nice the station is.

Quincy Adams is not a nice station, the garage is falling apart one gaping pot hole at a time and I would not be surprised at all if the next time I park on the top at level 5, I return to my car and find it has slipped down through the cracks to level 2.
The station also proudly houses some of the ugliest outdated ceiling art I have ever seen at any public facility,(ever), but somehow, I have witnessed 2 totally unrelated kids on two seperate occasions burst with excitement to tell their parents how beautiful the station is.

The first time I kind of ignored the comment, "This place is fancy!" along with the father who asured his son there was nothing at all "fancy" about the delapitated, seriously outdated cold and drafty station but, the second time I paid attention.

What on earth was it that these kids saw that no one else did?

After the second kid commented on the lovliness of the station, I spared the time to look up, clearly these kids were seeing somthing I was missing.

I finally figured it out, the beauty they saw was what grown ups could only see as a flaw, nature bleedding into the station uninvited, kind of like the way plants decoratively overgrow in nice restuarants.

The kids knew what they were seeing was "pretty" and "fancy" even if the adults had a hard time figuring it out at first glance.
Smart kids for looking up.
I've got to try that point of view more often....