Pom-Pom Topiary

Our five-day trip to Madison, Wisconsin, was filled with friends, brew pubs (Great Dane!), Taliesin (in Spring Green), and squeaky cheese curds (in Arena)! But the best part, no lie, the part that made me oblivious to ravenous mosquitoes, the part that made me thank my lucky stars and my horoscope and any other random harbinger of luck, was the topiary at the Olbrich Botanical Gardens. Not so much the cute little bear (and his mother obscured by tourists) which I saw on the way out and which anyone could love despite the lighting quality of my iPhone's picture, but the other one that I call the pom-pom topiary. Something about the off-center and imbalanced nature of all the pom poms, and the way all six line up so nicely in the shadow. Also, the fact that the topiary balls remind me of polka dots, which I have a mild obsession over.