Antidote to grey

Perhaps its an exercise in expanding my aesthetic vision or maybe it's a way to cope with my low motivation on days like today; in the past few weeks, I've been trying to see the beauty of grey weather. I'm not sure how successful I've been. Even my houseplants seem sluggish and unmotivated to grow. Yesterday, as a way of coping with the grey, Dale and I headed to Detroit to explore some things we'd not seen before: Grosse Pointe, The Eastern Market, and the Belle Isle conservatory. In our drive, we drove through a few zip codes of Detroit. You can really see why the US is such a complex nation and so difficult to comprehend. In a matter of a mile or sometimes even a few blocks, you can go from seeing whole blocks of abandoned buildings, homes and businesses to bustling blocks of Starbucks, Ann Taylor stores and twitchy Italian Greyhounds in little Burberry coats. We poked around the Eastern Market(founded 1841) for a bit and bought a massive amount of cheese for less than $5. We now have a block of brie that seems to weigh more than our Lily cat. From there we went to Grosse Pointe (of Grosse Pointe Blank fame) and had some lunch. I don't think I've ever seen so many purebred dogs in designer clothes in one place before. From there, we went to Belle Isle which, like much of Detroit, has seen grander days but, also like much of Detroit, is still really cool. Interestingly, Belle Isle was designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, who also designed Central Park. The conservatory is really lovely and instantly became one of my favourite places in Detroit. We were lucky to visit when we did since there were hundreds of orchids in bloom; orchids never cease to astound me. See my flickr site for more pictures.