tree swing

The moon is so full right now it's ridiculous. I guess it's only as full as it ever is, although the weatherman said it's the "full flower moon" tomorrow night, whatever that means. (maybe if you look through a telescope there's a long multi-colored silk scarf from here to there, and when you get to the end it changes into flowers and a dove flies out of the moon's top hat carrying a little banner that says "tah-dah!"? I think that's probably it. Why don't they just say so?) Anyway, I think it looks extra full to me tonight because the sky is clear and there are no clouds to hide behind. I guess that's good news for advertising the underground (outer space) magic club going on up there. Astronomy is confusing but strangely exciting! (Remember, on the moon it is necessary to say space abracadabra -- plain old abracadabra won't do. It's like Simon Says or something. Don't ask me why, it's just one of those things you can either learn the easy way or the hard way.)


SPEAKING OF SPACE: Apparently Harrison Ford was all over my park. I knew he was in the movie that was filming, but I didn't know he was there, if that makes any sense. One of the other regular park people was telling me all about it the other day -- I now know her name and the name of her dog. (I'm friendly in the smile and wave kind of way at the park, not really chatty -- but there were extenuating circumstances here -- she had to tell me about Harrison Ford, and I had to find out if she knew anything about THE SWING!) But first, Mr. Ford: I didn't see him (or anybody but security, really), but she said that he was there and walked all around to check things out. Had coffee and read his paper at one of the tables. She said that someone was telling her that she should go and talk to him, but she didn't because she figured that he probably really treasures his privacy. I also got the unsolicited 411 that he's a lot more (no words here, just hunched her shoulders and leaned forward a little bit) than she expected. But then she said "but what did I expect! He's not still Han Solo, for god's sake!"


I was interested to hear this, but what I really wanted to know about was this FANTASTIC swing that appeared out of nowhere. Obviously not nowhere, but it was a mystery to me. It was well made out of rope and boards and bolts, hanging on a very long drop from one of my favorite trees. (I know I say "my favorite tree" about 12 times per blog post, but this one is so great!) It was all tied with rope and fancy knots -- no bolting it to the tree or anything. I have NO IDEA how whoever got up there and did it, but MAN it was so cool and I'm glad that they did. (obviously not officially sanctioned because there is a standard issue safety swing set right nearby.)

I asked Connie (park lady pseudonym) if she knew anything about it. She was still Solo-struck and wondered if the film crew had left it -- I say no since it appeared after they were gone. MYSTERIOUS. She agreed and said she thought it was "very romantic" and that everyone should have their picture taken on it, although it was so wide it would be hard to get your arms around it. I figured it was probably built for more than one person, we looked at it for a minute or two more, both wished aloud that the park people would just leave it up and then went on our respective merry ways.


(right after I took the picture of the fancy rope knot, this song came up on my ipod.)
This swing was so cool! But I knew it couldn't last -- sure enough, two days later I got there to see that the ropes had been cut about 7-8 feet off the ground. (high enough that would be Tarzans (drunk and/or juvenile) wouldn't get any ideas.) The following day (today) all traces of it were gone. But it was there and I saw it!

(puddle view)