2015-12-27

【Aiden in English】

        I’m not the biggest fan of flowers. Every spring, they take me through pollen torture that kills, and hopefully, that’s a good enough reason. Well, after today, it might not be, seeing the Brookside Garden in Silver Spring of MD.

        For the past few days of Christmas, it had been like my math test scores. They sky-rocketed into the seventies, then plummeted down into the forties and thirties. Just that my math scores didn’t go as low. Today was another rise, and the flowers that should bloom in the glorious, warm, sunny days of May were opening their buds at the end of December. Logic just doesn’t apply to Mother Nature, does it? This looked nice at the present. When the creepy-crawlies come out in the spring, however, there will probably be excessive numbers because the weather doesn’t kill off any bugs over the winter. Nevertheless, it also meant the beautiful scenes we had right now. Since we came with mom’s friends, they were locals and understood that the main parking was always full. A visitor center had a few parking spaces, and we took one. It was located on the opposite side of the conservatory, and knowing mom, that’s the one place we had to go.

        It didn’t seem as if the conservatory had some special flower that was unique to this area and all the other botanical gardens we visited didn’t have because of insufficient conditions or anything. Nor did this place have a national reputation. It’s just a nice place to have a stroll and recharge your energy on a warm, winter day. The conservatory featured some cool tropical flowers called a Bird of Paradise that looked like bird heads with splashes on orange and red. The next room over showed a small track for a long, toy train to run around. It was thirty-two carts long, and I’m telling you, every kid under the age of ten was hypnotized by the train. Okay, maybe it’s because it was traveling in a circle, but the kids were staring at it blankly, like I would to an X-box One- no, no, you get the point.

        The Brookside Gardens was actually pretty big, with multiple lakes and trails to walk around.  The trees and plants outside all had lights curled around them, many of which were simply fake plants made up of duct tape and LED bulbs. They weren’t on, and being a lazy bunch, we used that as an excuse and walked maybe a half mile and turned back. On the way, smells of spring, the scent of flowers blotted out of the entire sense of smell. I had a clogged nose since two days ago, and I don’t think it’s the virus. So, I delightfully played to our gracious hosts some honking noises throughout the entire night in bed, sounding like a Donald Trump on caffeine. Without the humor, that is.

        The spring has come three months early, and I don’t like it. My nose hurts from the rubbing against tissues, and everything tastes like boogers. My eyes water to nearly anything, but the idea of actually not wearing a coat outside is quite appealing though. I just hope the bug problem won’t be an issue this coming spring.

【紅霞譯文】

        我可不敢當花痴，每年春暖花開的時候，花粉差點把我折騰死，簡直讓我欲愛不能。今天從馬里蘭州銀泉鎮溪畔植物園參觀歸來，我倒開始喜歡上花草樹木。

        聖誕節這段日子，氣溫猶如本人數學成績忽高忽低，有時狂升至華氏七十多度即攝氏廿一度以上，有時驟降到華氏四十甚至三十幾度，當然我沒得過這麼低的分數。今天喜逢溫暖如春，本應等到陽光明媚的五月方才綻放的蓓蕾紛紛搶在十二月底登上枝頭，大自然毫無邏輯可言，不是嗎？現在看起來不錯，可一旦春天來臨，那些癩了吧唧的爬行類動物就會從地下鑽出來，到時恐怕數量會多得讓人招架不住，因為暖冬沒法殺死昆蟲，不管怎麼說，我們置身於一個田園如畫花草如詩的美妙世界。因為有媽媽的朋友帶路，身為本地人的叔叔阿姨十分清楚停車場常常車滿為患，而遊客中心外偶爾留有少許空位，果真被我們逮個正着，這裡恰好與公園的花房相對，要知道媽媽定會先睹為快。

        溫室本身既沒有什麼獨一無二的特殊品種，又沒有至少我們所參觀過的其它植物園栽培不了的東西，況且名氣不大，充其量只能算作一個在如此愜意的冬天人們放慢腳步仔細品味美好時光的地方。溫室里有個別好看名叫“鶴望蘭”的熱帶花卉，它看上去好像一隻頭戴桔紅色皇冠的小鳥。隔壁還有迷你火車道，玩具火車繞圈行駛，上面掛着多達32節各色車廂。這麼說吧，凡是十歲以下的孩童肯定酷愛火車，得咧，也許因為火車一圈一圈地轉悠，所以圍觀的小朋友們看得相當入迷，如同我見到X-box One微軟視頻遊戲，雖然算不上一碼事，但你明白我想表達的意思。

        實際上溪畔植物園相對較大，內有幾個湖及步行小道，樹木園林周圍布滿彩燈，其中有些用膠帶和節能燈泡纏成植物形狀，燈尚未打開，洋洋灑灑地堆在一旁，我們只漫步行走了大約半里路，乘機找藉口打道回府。一路上花草芬芳，到處洋溢着春天的氣息。兩天前我鼻子堵了，恐怕不是由病毒感染引起的，晚上在主人家睡覺時常打呼嚕，聽起來很像吃過咖啡因的唐納德·川普因呼哧帶喘，我沒開玩笑，事實如此。

        今春足足提前了三個月，我不喜歡季節反常。最近因揉搓鼻子而傷到了粘膜，所以叫我感覺鼻子很痛，吃東西宛若吃鼻妞一般，眼睛看什麼都水汪汪的，好在今天出門不必穿大衣，但願春季別再鬧什麼幺蛾子出來。