San Diego Zoo

The day that I found out I'd be going to San Diego, I was really excited.  That night, when I remembered that the San Diego Zoo is in San Diego, I became insanely excited--fixated, if you will.  I cared more about going to the zoo than I cared about anything else.

So, Friday, I skipped out on conference sessions and caught a cab to the zoo.  Shoot yeah I did!  (Also, I am a child who cannot sit in conference sessions for any length of time without throwing my head back in extreme boredom.  Also, zoos are way better than conference sessions.)

And I saw all kinds of awesome animals, and I wanted to steal a few.  There were monkeys, and elephants, and polar bears, and capybaras (which are basically like the cutest rodent you ever will see), and POLAR BEARS!, and gazelles, and spiky things, and furry things, and lots of sleepy animals, and meerkats, too!

There was even a New Guinea Singing Dog.

The San Diego Zoo was beautiful, and mostly shaded (though I did somehow manage to get a sunburn out of the deal), and all either uphill walking or downhill walking.  Except for when I went on my new favorite mode of transportation, the Skyfari.  I would like to have a Skyfari to take me from home to work, from work to Target, and then from Target back home again.  (Totes need to get on winning the lottery.)

Oh, also, there was this awesome elephant trainer guy who had been working with the same two elephants for TWENTY YEARS!  Also, I would like to build a time machine and go back in time and then go to school to become a zookeeper.  (Better be a big lotto jackpot.)

And although the zoo was nice, it seemed that there were a few places where the staff had neglected the animals.

Oh well.  What can you do?

Then I was going to get my face painted, but I already did that once at Dollywood.  I'm too old and too mature for that now.  But let's be honest: I'd have been the belle of the BlogHer ball had I shown up at the remaining conference sessions decked out like a jungle cat.

Anyway, my wonderful zoo visit was punctuated by what I believed to be an inappropriate comment from my thick-accented cab driver, who had asked how I liked the zoo.

 "It was great!"

"A lot uv volking?"

"Uh, yeah."

For the next five minutes or so I was convinced that the driver was interested in the mating habits of the animals.  Later I realized that he was saying walking.  That made a lot more sense.

Bored and want to see all of my millions of zoo pictures?  Have at it, comrade.

A Perfect Day

What a week it's been!  This time last week I was frantically cleaning the house and running errands so that I could relax and enjoy birthday/spring break.  And after an incredible birthday celebration I got to hang out with Caitie and her daughter Phebe for a few days (and now we're relaxing at Matt's parents' lake house--more on that later). 

I hadn't had that much time to just hang out with Caitie--stress free--since we were roommates in college.  Those days were pretty glorious: roller skating around Harrisonburg, stalking professors, ganging up on our other roommates, sitting on the sidewalk waiting for cute boys to ride past on bicycles, eating freez-e-pops, skipping class, and lying on her ridiculously comfortable bed watching the "I'm so excited, I'm so excited, I'm so--scared" episode of Saved by the Bell.  You get the picture. 

But we're grown-ups now, and being a grown-up is sometimes less fun than roller skating past a professor's house trying to catch a glimpse of her new Chinese baby.  Now we have real responsibilites and slower metabolism and stressors and bills, and even though life is still good, it's rarely as carefree as it used to be.  But this week?  This week has been like those days on Grattan Street. 

After waging war on pollen and these supposed allergies, I woke up yesterday able to breathe through my nose.  I took a bath, painted my toenails, cleaned the house, blogged, and waited for Caitie to get up.  Then we shopped and lunched and shopped some more.  I bought my one millionth hoodie:

And then we went to Forsyth Park on what might have been the most beautiful afternoon of the year.  Phebe came, too.  And I took 600 pictures of her.

Look at that FACE!

After people-watching and Phebe-watching, we met up with Matt and got ice cream at the Forsyth Park Cafe. 

And then?  Then what did we do?

UNIVERSOUL CIRCUS!

We had really good seats--so good that I was kind of hoping that one of the tigers would attack the trainer, because I could get good pictures of it.  But we don't always get what we want.  (I felt really bad for the tigers and elephants in the show.  I did not feel bad for the troupe of trickster poodles, which was probably Caitie's favorite part of the whole circus, because it was really obvious that their trainer loved them.) 

Meow!

The only disappointing part of UniverSoul was that the cage of death jumper guys from last year weren't part of the show. Good thing there's YouTube.

 When I called Matt during intermisison to tell him that we hadn't seen them, he responded, "Yeah, because they probably died."  Hopefully not.  (They're not being mean to tigers, so I'm more worried about their safety.)

When we returned home, Matt had dinner ready (we use chicken instead of shrimp), and then we all ate and talked and drank too much.

To sum up:  baths, beautification, shopping, lunching, parks, pups, pictures, ice cream, circus, pasta, wine, friends, and husbands.  It doesn't get much better than that.