Thirteen Things I Loved About Sleeping at the Zoo

My little Girl Scout and I spent the night at the Oregon Zoo awhile back — they have these overnighters called “Zoo Snoozes.” There were a few things I didn’t like. Sleeping in a conference room, aka Cold Concrete Bunker, with a bunch of Girl Scouts and their mommies who we didn’t know from Adam; the cold (it was early February), the rain (this being Portland). The “continental breakfast” — fruit loops and donuts. Yick. But mostly? It was a blast.

1) We got to walk around. In the dark. And say hi to the animals.

2) The giraffe? The giraffe is such a sweetheart. They let us go into the keeper’s room — he stuck his head through an open window so he was eye-level with us. Big purple tongue, big sweetie of a beast. He is lonely for attention — he lost his partner and doesn’t have a friend anymore. He seemed to really like the kids, and the company.

3) We made “cookies” out of meat for the Sun Bears.

4) We went into the icy-cold freezer to see all the zoo food, and they gave us a nutrition lesson in the zoo kitchen. Monkey chow? Zebra chow? Lorikeet nibbles? I had no idea how much prep time went into feeding the staff’s “babies.” (And they really do consider the animals to be family. I was impressed with their courtesy, their respect for the animals, their enthusiasm in talking with the kids about their jobs. A couple of them said, “When I was a kid, I always wanted to work with animals — and now I do!”)

5) We learned a lot about elephants. Elephants, one of the most popular zoo animals, are the one animal you should truly not, never ever, cage. (Ditto jaguars and cheetahs.) They need to walk for miles and miles to keep their feet and legs healthy, and what zoos — even the best zoos — do to elephants is criminal. (Also monkeys. Monkeys at the zoo break my heart.) (I don’t really do so well at the zoo — I want to free all the animals.) (Except the snakes.) (Sorry, snakes.) (And I would probably leave the tarantulas and hissing cockroaches alone.)

6) The kids got to carry around clipboards and do “research” — it was educational for them, observing the animals, trying to guess what they were thinking, about to do next, wanting, etc.

7) The farm animals were fun, especially the little goats and bunnies.

8) I liked having some time alone with my daughter. We try to do one-on-one with the kids as much as we can. It was fun staying up late in our sleeping bags, after a late-night snack of hot cocoa and popcorn, working on our knitting, giggling. She had a lot of fun, and appreciated doing something completely out of the ordinary.

9) The guides (teenagers) were goofy and thoughtful and knew lots of facts. They were great with the little kids.

10) The zoo at night is the perfect place to let your imagination run wild. I jotted some things down in my journal — observations, ideas — it was good.

11) I wanted to bring a hedgehog or monkey in to sleep with us, but no go.

12) In the morning, we found out it had snowed overnight. It was fantastic. The kids were giddy and the grown-ups were, too.

13) We hiked up and out of the zoo, and along the way saw a peacock, feathers out, happy and proud, strutting along the main path. Then we got to see one of the Siberian tigers we hadn’t seen the night before. They like the snow — it’s in their blood. He was so gorgeous and quiet — he lay staring at us for the longest time, as if to say, “Beautiful day here, isn’t it?” It was perfect. I’ve never had eye contact with a tiger before. (I was glad he was waaaaaaaaaay over there and not, you know, right up close.)

Happy Thursday, everyone!

love,

WM

That’s right, they haven’t come back yet
But when they do, they say they are
Going to free all the animals from their cages
No matter how new or modern
Even some pets, too
So if on your way home today
You happen to find…

Joshua Giraffe, Joshua, Joshua
Joshua Giraffe, Joshua, Joshua
(woo hoo!)

— Raffi

suspire (suh-SPYR) verb tr., intr.

[From Latin suspirare (to breathe up), from spirare (to breathe).]

(Thanks, Anu.)

I don’t really like being wide awake at 3:30 a.m., the cat pressing on my leg, a kid snoring in my ear. I like my kid — I like both of ’em, thank God — and I like my cats — all three of them, but at 3:30 a.m.? What I really like is sleep.

I’m running the dishwasher (finally), blogging, catching up on work e-mails. Yeah, baby.

You?

wm

“It’s poison! I tell you, it’s poison! I know you feel bad… and…”

— George Bailey

Yes, people, It’s A Wonderful Life over here. And also, it’s poison when your pharmacist constantly makes mistakes on your RXs. It’s always the same damn pharmacist, four times in a row. If you live in Portland, e-mail me if you are so inclined and I will happily share her name so she doesn’t do you in, or your preshus chillen.

Why do I keep going back? Well, we’re not talking Hillbilly Heroin subbed for the amoxicillin or something drastic. We’re talking kids’ multi-vits, with the fluoride but not the iron; birth control pills which I had to pay Cash Money for because she couldn’t figure out how to bill my insurance, then insisted, “They don’t pay for these!” (yes, they do, thanks to the hard work of my lobbying sisters)… but the thyroid? Don’t mess with my thyroid RX or you will have hell to pay.

She has twice now filled the old RX — the one from a year ago, which was based on my old bloodwork — and claimed it is my current RX. No, my current RX is the “real” one; the old one is a mere imposter. (No one but Y is going to read this post.) (This may all change, yet again, after I get my bloodwork redone. But for now, we are going with the “real” RX.) Even though I call in with the right prescription number, somehow she is convinced that Her Way is Right and Mine (and my doctor’s) is Wrong. Why do I keep going back, you ask? Because the “real” pharmacist, the one who is there five days a week and fills the prescriptions ninety percent of the time, is an angel. She is. She’s magical, this girl, and will happily discuss my child’s fever (see: How High Can It Go?); my daughter’s need for iron, etc.; my hormonal upheaval; and then whew! everything’s okay then, ha! ha! (the story of this month) nothing is fine at all, more tests for you!

(Internets, please do not worry. It will all be fine. Just more tests, which apparently are so pressing that we will do half tomorrow and half in June! “Doctor is very busy!” (direct quote from Doctor’s Scheduler.)

My point, and I do have one: That is why I keep going back to that same pharmacy. The one pharmacist is just the best; her counterpart is just the worst. I already know what you’re going to say and yes, I am transferring as many prescriptions as I can (allergy RX, kids’ vitamins, thyroid medicine) to prescriptions-by-mail and the rest?

Fred G. Meyer, where they have a drive-through pharmacy.

hugs and kisses, little fishes,

WM

Steve, I love you a lot. Nancy

(ps I swiped this list from the cutest newlywed on the Internet, Diamond in the Rough.)

1. The bonds of matrimony are like any other bonds – they mature slowly. ~Peter De Vries

2. I love being married. It’s so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life. ~Rita Rudner

3. Marriage is an alliance entered into by a man who can’t sleep with the window shut, and a woman who can’t sleep with the window open. ~George Bernard Shaw

4. Newlyweds become oldyweds, and oldyweds are the reasons that families work. ~Author Unknown

5. Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads which sew people together through the years. ~Simone Signoret

6. Success in marriage does not come merely through finding the right mate, but through being the right mate. ~Barnett R. Brickner

7. Never get married in the morning, because you never know who you’ll meet that night. ~Paul Hornung

8. Divorce: The past tense of marriage. ~Author Unknown

9. The sum which two married people owe to one another defies calculation. It is an infinite debt, which can only be discharged through eternity. ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

10. Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight. ~Phyllis Diller, Phyllis Diller’s Housekeeping Hints, 1966

11. In a time when nothing is more certain than change, the commitment of two people to one another has become difficult and rare. Yet, by its scarcity, the beauty and value of this exchange have only been enhanced. ~Robert Sexton

12. English Law prohibits a man from marrying his mother-in-law. This is our idea of useless legislation. ~Author Unknown

13. Wedding rings: the world’s smallest handcuffs. ~Author Unknown

I love doing book reviews, you all know this. But sometimes a few books in a row land on my desk, and I think to myself, “Self, where are you going to go with these ones?” Then later — they turn out to be something I really do need to write about.

First off: (more…)

It’s Portland. It’s April 19th. Why wouldn’t it be snowing?

Happy (early) birthday, Wacky Nekkid Mini-Neighbor! Thanks for the bowling, pizza and cake!

Love,

Wacky Family

We love chickens around here. We don’t have our own, mind you, but the neighbors do. They have three (per city ordinance: three chickens allowed, no roosters). We love other people’s chickens, would be a better way of putting it. The cats? The chickens are bigger than any of our neighborhood cats. And we have some big scrappers over here, so that is saying something. They are free-range chickens, in the truest sense. They go for several strolls every day, and they have their boundaries. Our driveway is their eastern border; the neighbor directly across the street from us is their southern border. A half-block north is their northern border. The edge of their own yard is their western border. So I wasn’t surprised this morning to hear my son ask:

“Dad, you know chickens?”

“Sure, I know chickens. What about ’em?”

“Well, one time, at Grandma’s work, this guy brought in chickens!…” Long, rambling story about chickens follows.

Now I’m thinking — Denver grandma? Iowa grandma? Portland grandma? Hmm. Who knows?

Here’s a joke from Julia Roberts — she told it to David Letterman when I saw her on his show one time. She sez: “Actually, it’s just the punchline — You have to come up with the joke.” Ready?

“You might be living off love, but you’re killing the chickens.”

happy Saturday, all of youse.

wm

“Without coffee he could not work, or at least he could not have worked in the way he did. In addition to paper and pens, he took with him everywhere as an indispensable article of equipment the coffee machine, which was no less important to him than his table or his white robe.”

— Stefan Zweigs, Biography of Balzac

“Let me say, with the risk of appearing ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by strong feelings of love.” — Che Guevara

FURIOUS nads! by One True b!x

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