Life Is What Happens When You're Making Plans...

or something like that. I can't remember if that's exactly the wise old adage, or what, but it fits in this particular case.

Today, after our morning sojourn to Jamba Juice (for E) and Starbucks (for me), Husband took Ethan to the park so I could spend some quality time with a bottle of clairol hair dye (please see tiny post below about said quality time. bah). After that disappointment, we decided to check out a kid's museum in Pasadena.

See, when I first moved here I joined an online Meetup group in what I thought would be an attempt to make friends. Turns out, I've only been to one actual meetup, what with the Playground Preschool and all, but every third email that comes to my box is some invitation to meet somewhere new and exciting. So while I don't necessarily time it to go when this random group of women goes, I save the information and use it to plan my own little outings for a later date. This little outing was supposed to be to the Kidspace Museum. Lots of fun, interactive exhibits and all that kind of fun family stuff.

Well, turns out that the Kidspace Museum is next door neighbors with the Rose Bowl. On a Saturday. So it was Husband, Ethan, me, and a Rose Bowl's worth of cars filled with USC fans on their way to the game. Duh. After sitting in enough traffic to turn the hair that did take the dye BACK to gray, we decided to U-turn and find lunch, instead of lots of fun, interactive exhibits and all that kind of family fun.

We found ourselves in Old Town Pasadena. Eating burgers and dogs at a Johnny Rockets. And because we had absolutely nothing to do afterwards, we decided to wander around. Our wandering took us out the back door of Johnny Rockets and into the court yard of the wishing trees.

I had no idea what they were, or that they were a Yoko Ono exhibit, when we first found them. I was just completely in awe of these 21 crepe myrtles with literally thousands of pieces of paper hanging off of them, filled with the random wishes of passers-by.

Husband and I read dozens of wishes while Ethan ran around, throwing coins into the wishing fountain and climbing up little step stools to play with the wishes hanging from the lowest branches. It was bizarrely voyeuristic, but also incredibly comforting to see so many private wishes and thoughts, laid out there anonymously, but in each person's individual hand writing and voice.

There were wishes for the recovery of loved ones. Wishes for peace. Wishes for true love. Wishes for people to find Jesus. One child's scrawling penmanship revealed, "I wish I could be spiderman."

We meandered through the trees for probably close to an hour before deciding to tear ourselves away for some gelato. Of course, we left some wishes ourselves.

I wish I could read...

I wish I didn't have this rather large woman growing out of my shoulder...

I wish I'd written this one myself...

I wish I could freeze time and keep him like this forever...

I wish the crazy lady would stop taking pictures of me...

I wish I'd calculated the size of my mouth a bit better...

I wish I were at home in bed instead of being dragging to Target...