Today, while running around Dreamland (aka Lake View Cemetery), I punctuated my routine and stopped to take the opportunity to meet several of Dreamland’s other ‘regulars’. 

At the top right of my ‘Side Dish’ is Aya.  She’s a Japanese housewife married to a biological researcher at a nearby university.  She revealed to me that she comes almost daily to Dreamland to visit the monument of John D. Rockefeller, the world’s first self-made billionaire.  She says she hopes by honoring him that wealth may luck her way!   How very Japanese!  She also thanked me graciously, as we parted, for just stopping to speak to her.  Hey Aya, the pleasure was all mine!

Aya reminds me of another girl that I met in the cemetery earlier this year.  She said that when she was little, her dad would bring her to Rockefeller’s monument and tell her “If you find money on Rockefeller’s grave, it means you’ll be rich someday.”  Well, unbeknownst to her at that age, her dad would visit the cemetery just shortly before bringing her along and scatter pennies about for her to find.  Damn thing was that after finding those pennies on Rockefeller’s grave, she got emboldened and urged her dad to let her scour the rest of the cemetery for more treasure.  But daddy wasn’t too happy about her insistent pleading, needless to say.

Below Aya is a photo of Rachel and Loren eating their lunch.  Daughter and mother had no qualms about posing for me even though I ran up to them, half out of breath, with sunglasses on, and explained how I’d like to snap their pic so that I could have some fun media-blogging it up onto the internet.  “Media-what?”  Yep, that’s what I said. The monument they’re sitting upon is the same one where I snapped a self-pic about a week ago.  Seeing that as a self-gratuity, I considered promoting them here as only apropos.

And here’s the sunglass angel, ever-vigilant, but mistress of a myriad of moods:

Another crazy warm, sunny 70s day in Northern Ohio.  Where others see beauty, I more often see strength.