365 True Things: 309/Butterflies

This afternoon I arrived in Tucson to visit my old friend Trudy, whom I met decades ago in a book group in San Francisco. We had a nice time touring the small Tucson Botanical Garden, rummaging in a used bookstore (I came away empty-handed, yay me), and then seeing the strange little animated film Animolisa, written by Charlie Kaufman. Haunting and sad. We wrapped things up by picking up her daughter, Sheila, a freshman at the U of A, and going for Japanese. It's been a while since I've spent solid quality time with Trudy, so I'm enjoying catching up.

At the botanical garden, we spent quite a bit of time in the butterfly greenhouse. Oh my! And followed that with an exquisite currant scone topped with quince butter (oh my!) and coffee. Here are some photos I took:

This and the blue one just below are the same butterfly! Amazing!

My true thing for today: I know virtually nothing about butterflies. Except that they are beautiful, they have smooth antennae (vs. moths, with furry ones), their life cycle is amazing, and they are very short lived. And many (maybe most? all?) butterfly species are tied to a single species of plant for their food, which doesn't seem like very good planning, especially with us humans in the picture. Perhaps one day I will learn more about them. But for today, it was enough just to marvel at their beauty as they fluttered around the steamy greenhouse.