are you staring at me, or is that just your wing dot?

when i was a kid i had this 'b' book that started out simple like 'big brown bear' and every page added something like 'big brown bear, blue bull, beautiful baboon' until it was 'bicycling backwards and ballerinas and baseballs' and all quite ridiculous but what a crazy and terrific way to learn about the letter b.

only they forgot to include 'butterfly'.

on the way to the cottage jeremy mapped out some cool stops en route because he's wonderful and one such stop was the cambridge butterfly conservatory which, as it turns out, is also wonderful.

it was a little expensive i think as things can be when they're roadside and selling promotional t-shirts but fun and pretty and i recommend you go.

when we bought our tickets the lady was like 'the conservatory is through those doors and the gift shop is through the other doors and down the hall is the cafeteria' and i said 'is that where we get to eat the butterflies' and she laughed and said 'no'.

i liked the ones with the tattered wings. they were still beautiful but i'd imagine much more interesting to talk to at parties. especially when they'd get into tales of their time on the streets.

i really wanted one to land on me so i could secure it to my pashmina as a brooch.

so pretty. and delicate.

i think bugs fall into four universally accepted categories - pretty (butterflies), cool (spiders), potentially painful (wasps and the like) and disgusting (everything else).

if you like bugs from that first category you should go to a butterfly conservatory! and eat all the orange slices they leave out for the butterflies when no one is looking.