Captain Caterpillar Saves the Day
Previously, I only knew one Captain. Good ol' Captain Starlight. But today, I met another Captain. Captain Caterpillar. Yes, I am serious. I went with my parents and my grandmother to Deerfield Massachusetts'
MagicWings Butterfly Conservatory & Gardens. It's only about a 45 minute drive from Springfield. So, off we went to what seemed like it would be a nice, relaxing day. But of course, could anything really be nice and relaxing with my family?
We got there, and of course we had to eat first, as anything food/eating related takes priority over, well, anything in my family. Not that I was complaining, I was hungry too. Then we headed straight for the conservatory. Now, I warned everyone that butterflies would be flying freely all over the place...i.e. potentially all over us. My mother listened. My grandmother listened, but was a bit freaked out when all the butterflies kept flittering past her face and landing on her. Daddy Dearest did
not listen. My dad had a big butterfly on his calf and made a move to smack it. "DAD!" I yelled. "Oh, right," he said. Yeah, they tend to look down upon smacking, hitting, touching, scaring, killing the butterflies. Go figure. :-) It is a conservatory after all.
What followed was a very immature argument with my father over who would take photos of the butterflies. It's nice to know that some things just never change. Give my dad and I two minutes. We
will find something to argue about, guaranteed. My dad chided me for not bringing my own camera to take pictures with. I pointed out that my camera had no film, and more importantly, the lens was dirty, so what was the point of taking photos that would be destined to be covered in spots due to crap on my lens? My dad gave me, "Well, that's too bad for you, isn't it!" and I gave him, The Look. This particular withering glance was supposed to convey, "Um, hi, remember me? I am the butterfly freak here, not you, this is
my thing,
I wanted to come here, so can I please please please take photos?" Plus, my father has a tendancy to take unintended photos of the tops of trees, the ground, the sky, basically anything but the intended object. In the photographic world of hit or miss, he can be mostly miss. Which is not to say he hasn't taken some lovely photos in his day, but if you count the number of "ooops, the subject of this photograph seems to be missing" compared to actual "thumbs up" shots, the ratio speaks for itself.
My dad ignored my Look and proceeded to walk around the place taking photos that may turn out as leaves, with butterflies mysteriously missing. My mother and I exchanged looks of, "Is he really going to be a pain and not let Lori take the photos?" Eventually, my father gave me back the camera, with the threat that he would be taking it back before too long. And he began to walk 2 inches behind me, practically on top of me. "Why don't you walk ahead of me?" I suggested. Alas, no. I somehow managed to sneak away. When he found me again, he called out my name and I gave him an exasperated "What???" and my father told me, three times, to "watch my tone." I smiled at the lucky strangers who happened to witness this event. They had no idea I was actually 25, and not 15. Sigh.
Once I was finally "free" I had a grand ol' time. I love these things. I love just walking around and watching them zoom and fly and flitter and dangle and hover and flap and twirl and chase each other and feed and dance, and all that fun stuff. So many beautiful colours, sizes, shapes, designs. I do enjoy the challenge of taking photos of butterflies, but it's a lot more fun to put the damn camera down and just sit quietly and watch. (I ended up getting a disposable camera as my parents' camera was pissing me off. It only took a photo about 1 out of every 12 times I pressed the button....ooops!) Very soon after I started walking around, I was approached by Captain Caterpillar. And for the next two hours, he appeared by my side about every ten minutes to give me a new little factoid or bit of butterfly trivia. I "wowed" him with my knowledge of the Ulysses Blue, my favourite butterfly from Kuranda, Queensland, in Australia. Captain Caterpillar reminded me a bit of Mr. Rogers, only without the sweater, and he looked at me and said, "Wow. I think if I ever went to Australia, I wouldn't want to come back." :-) When my mother and grandmother came over and saw Captain C talking my ear off, they just gave me that, "Strangers sure do love you!" look.
Anyhoo, Captain C was very nice. He insisted on trying to get me a photo of the gorgeous blue butterflies, and I think I actually got one or two good ones. He helpfully pointed out a couple of spots where I could snag a good shot. So, I'd just wander around, looking everywhere, in awe, just staring, and Captain Caterpillar would pass by, every 5-10 minutes, distributing a fun fact. This went on for quite a while. I walked by a bench and saw the blue butterfly I'd photographed laying on the ground. I thought it was dead. : ( I alerted one of the "flight attendants" and she came and picked it up and gave it some food. It was still alive, but not looking too good. Then I found a gorgeous green butterfly that looked like it had lost one of its wings. My pal Captain Caterpillar was coming over for my next factoid and I pointed out the injured fella to him. (And to think I was never a Girl Scout!) As it turned out, the other wing was just wet and plastered to the ground, but it was still attached to the butterfly. Yay. So Captain C picked him up and placed him down on the bench next to me, to let his wings dry. I sat guard, making sure no dumbass came and sat their dumb ass down on the hurt butterfly.
I spent a good half hour just taking in the view, watching and observing the other butterflies, and protecting the green one from unobservant bums. Captain Caterpillar came over and asked me what I was thinking about, he said I looked too serious. I told him not to worry. Apparently he saw my mother about 10 minutes later and went up to her and said he was concerned that I was too serious a person - he told her I should be smiling and enjoying the other butterflies instead of taking care of the injured ones. My mother was like, "Who are you talking about?" and he said, "Your daughter." Hahahahahaha - Captain C is just as smart as a whip. So all was well until my mother found me and told me my father was close to having a conniption fit. He wanted to leave. Apparently the butterflies freaked him out and he wanted to go home. Pronto. My father is not a patient man, and I could feel that vein throbbing in his temple the total of 5 minutes I spent in the butterfly gift shop. Let me tell you, 5 minutes is a miracle for me. When I went to the Butterfly Sanctuary in Kuranda, QLD, they actually waived the $10 entry fee and let me in for free. I'm guessing this is because they took one look at me and realised they were going to make a hell of a lot of money out of me in the gift shop. I arrived wearing a butterfly shirt, butterfly earrings, butterfly necklace, butterfly rings, etc. (standard fare for me!) They could reconignise a sucker when they saw one....and I did buy out their giftshop, they were right.
On the way home we passed a farm and got some sweet corn, tomatoes, string beans, squash, blueberries and raspberries. Yum....nothing like farm fresh fruits and veggies. We also stopped to drop off two more rolls of film and to pick up my remaining 3 rolls. Guess what? They've lost one of my rolls of film from Europe. Nice one! They're now putting a 'trace' on it. Here's hoping it works! :-)
