Feast report

Today we went to the zoo. Surprisingly, quite a lot of people seemed to think Black Friday would be a good zoo day, but the weather was perfect as it so rarely is for the zoo, and we did well. We saw a cheetah and the lions, some distant gorillas and a sad orang-utan (do they ever look otherwise), the reptiles and some indolent sea lions. The absolute highlight, however, was the naked mole rats.

Thanks to this book, which we have from the library, the children had heard of naked mole rats. But when I told Dash we could see them at the zoo, he reacted as if I'd just told him the unicorns would be coming up on the left.

"Ha ha."
"No, really. They're in the small mammal house."
"You're just being silly."
"I promise. They exist."
"Really?"
etc.

When we finally got to the small mammals we had to charge past all the (many and various) tamarins, pausing briefly at the two-toed sloth (who looked like nothing so much as a black labrador poking his nose out from under a comatose afghan hound), to get to the perspex tubes (to simulate tunnels) of naked mole rats. They weren't all that exciting in person, but the children were thrilled by their mere existence.

That's a lion in the distance. Left of the tree. See?

*******

But that's not why I'm here, and that's not why you're here either. You came for the food, didn't you? Well, the food is what you're getting. A report on yesterday, that is.

As we had no company for Thanksgiving, and we don't particularly like turkey, and we don't feel any weight of tradition on this culturally-not-ours day, I usually try to do something different. This year I saw a recipe for ribs, and the photo was so enticing that I decided to pull the slow-cooker out of the enforced retirement it's been in since its disastrous maiden voyage in 2004.

I'm here to tell you that it was a roaring success, and I might have to use the crockpot more often than once every eight years now that I've discovered this.

To accompany, we had baked potatoes and lemony green beans, and a nice shiraz which is probably the wrong thing to go with ribs, but we're not fussy.

Of course, I had to make a pie, even if I am anti-tradition. Apple, if you please. It was delish.

Pastry hearts. Because hearts symbolise Thanksgiving, right?

Then I was left with half an hour to spare and some extra pastry, so I took the half-can of pumpkin that was sitting in the fridge, looked up some recipes, and made mini pumpkin pies too. Mostly because Mabel had announced at her school feast on Tuesday that she loved pumpkin pie. She didn't like mine, of course.

Splats of pumpkin

The jury's still out on these, I admit.

Spontanaeity

It's the perfect spring morning here, after last week's excesses and the weekend's grey chilliness (or "normal" weather, as we Irish call it) and my washing line is crying out for some sheets to billow upon it in the mild breeze. White petals are falling from the pear trees, skittering along the road in eddies and waves, looking like a host of tiny racers surging forward at the start of a marathon.

Or maybe that's just the image that comes to mind because B was off running another one of those yesterday. Meanwhile, I stayed at home and forced the kids to watch TV while I made his birthday cake. This one, and I have to admit that I'm very close to getting myself a slice to go with my cup of coffee in a minute. Perilously close.

But, because grey days get me moving, yesterday we went to the zoo. (Hah. You know, I went looking for that post to link to because I remembered the title, but I had no idea that it was also about going to the zoo. Apparently I only have one activity in my repertoire. Maybe there's something hidden in my subconscious that links drizzle with zoo trips. Maybe it always drizzled when I went to Dublin Zoo to see the incongruous flamingoes and the sad polar bear.)

It would be lovely to have arranged to go to the zoo with some friends, taken our picnic lunch, and hung out with other people. But spontaneity is where it's at, when you have kids, and at least with two they can entertain/bug each other. I mean, if we'd arranged to go to the zoo and meet friends, the weather would have been either scorching or pelting, we'd all have slept badly, the Beltway would have been backed up, we'd have arrived late, we'd never have found a parking space, we'd have had to rush home after two barely sighted animals for Mabel's nap.

As it was, we all got up late after a pretty good night. I decided in leisurely fashion that I could probably manage a zoo trip before I mentioned it to the kids at the vital moment to get them enthusiastic - and therefore dressed quickly. We left under surprisingly little stress, in no rush because I knew Mabel would manage without a nap today. It took us one hour to get there, front door to cheetahs, including free parking in the side streets near the zoo (score!). We wandered pretty happily, and despite the sometime drizzle and Mabel's penchant for jumping in puddles wearing non-waterproof shoes, we saw a good selection of animals.

The highlight, again, was the orangutan who came and sat right up against the window to inspect the children ranged in front of her - clearly from her perspective, we bring the human zoo to her house for her entertainment.

Looking at that other post, I find I have to compare and contrast some other aspects of this zoo trip almost a year later:

• Free parking: I have learned and grown as a person, and my parallel parking was awesome.
• Mabel wet her pants in the car before we'd even got there, but luckily I had brought spares, and she did use the zoo bathrooms once, so we managed: surprisingly little progress on that front.
• More reptiles, no lions and tigers this time.
• Requisite fighting over statue to pose on:

We shared a popcorn, found the car again, and drove home basking in the glow of having done something, for once.

I get all proactive on grey days

This morning it was grey and not even 70 degrees out when I got up, with a forecast high of only 80. I decided to leap on opportunity and take the kids to the zoo. (I must have slept extra well last night or something, to be imbued with enough energy to even consider such an undertaking.)

Major animals we saw at the zoo:

• Two tigers, reclining
• Five lions, roaming (one Daddy and four overgrown cubs; Mommy must have been having her nails done or something)
• Four orangutans, climbing, swinging, lounging, and playing a computer game, respectively
• Five gorillas, sitting around with their backs to us
• One panda, sleeping
• One elephant, wandering

 

Minor animals we saw at the zoo:

• Prairie dogs
• Macaque apes

Things that were not animals but had to be examined anyway, despite the fact that I had paid $15 to park at the zoo and we only had till naptime to see as much as possible in the way of real animals, and the traffic was bad, as it always is when you decide to drive to the zoo, but anyone who thinks I'm taking my children to the zoo on public transport has a much higher opinion of me than is warranted by actuality:

• Bamboo: "Is that bamboo? Is this real bamboo? Let me just check that bamboo to see if it's real. It is bamboo!" ... etc. Monkey is obsessed with bamboo.
• Pathways to nowhere: "I just want to go up there." "There's nothing up there. Let's go and see the elephants." "But I reeeeeally want to see what's there." "There's nothing there. Fine. Go. I'll wait here."
• Statues of animals: "I think those apes are dead, Mummy." "They're not dead, they're statues. They're made of metal." "But I think they have real apes underneath, like in that other place." "You mean the natural history museum? No, these ones are just statues, I promise. Let's go inside the ape house and see the real ones." "But I want to climb on these ones."
• Toilets: This one was my fault, but as a result Mabel stayed dry all morning. Then she peed in her jeans when she got up from her nap because she refused to sit on the potty. Have to work on that one.

(Bonus quote of the day (overheard from a school group): "There's the ape store!" "The ape house, Johnny.")

Monkey and an (undead) ape

Hot crossover buns

It's an odd thing, meeting someone whose blog you read. It's kind of like meeting a movie star, because you've been seeing their face for years but they don't know the first thing about you. So when it happens, for the first little while until you get your act together and understand that they're just people, you're somewhat starstruck and wobbly and not at all sure what to say. Or maybe that's just me.

Today I met Secret Agent Josephine (aka Brenda) and Bethany Actually, as well as Carrie of The Queen's Rambles. (And a little later Shanee, who sadly I hardly got to talk to at all, but she had a lovely daughter just a little older than Miss.) I've been reading Brenda's blog since she was pregnant with Bug and I was pregnant with Monkey. I've watched Bug grow and used her milestones to think, "Ooh, he'll be doing that in a couple of months" (completely erroneously, since she's a girl, so when she was turning paper pages by her first birthday, he was still munching on board books, and when she was singing the entire alphabet he was probably still calling me Daddy). I've been impressed by Brenda's lovely graphics and her wonderful art projects and amazing party-throwing skills and sighed over her photos of the beach for a long time, and there I was this afternoon having coffee and hanging out at a playground with her and the others as if I do this sort of thing all the time. And despite children who were constantly on the verge of falling off things that were much too high and hard for them to climb (Miss) and needing to go to the bathroom (the Other One), I had a really nice time, and also got to play pirates/sharks with Bug and Erik and blow giant bubbles with Annalie. Sadly, we had to run off too soon to a prior engagement, and of course it was just five minutes after Monkey had finally started playing with the other children. It is ever thus.

In totally unconnected news, Spring has sprung around here like a rabbit out of a trap. On Friday, to be precise, the blossoms came out and the magnolias bloomed and the daffodils came up, and now the weather is just gorgeous. So everyone went to the zoo yesterday. Everyone, plus us. And the orangutans were inspired by the delightful weather to get a bit frisky. We went into the Think Tank building, where the apes do their clever stuff, and found Mr Orang gyrating rhythmically on top of Mrs Orang, who was lying back and regarding the audience with a long-suffering expression reminiscent of one who thinks the sooner he's finished the sooner she can get back to the ironing, and is that a damp patch on the ceiling or just a shadow? Monkey - my Monkey, I mean - was fascinated to see the apes up so close, and sat and watched for quite a while. Then he asked me if orangutans have to pee, and if they have penises. I replied in the affirmative. After a little longer he said, "Why is that orangutan jumping up and down on that other orangutan?" At this point the male was hanging from a handily placed rope and really getting into it. We told him they were trying to make a baby orangutan. Happily, he didn't ask any more about the mechanics, because I think I might just have fallen down dead if I had had to go into further detail right there.

Then we moved on to the elephants, where Mr Elephant had his very long schlong out for a bit of an airing. Monkey was more interested in demanding ice cream at that point, so we didn't have to deal with that either. Ah, innocence.