The zoo

Master J and I headed to the zoo today for a few hours. I took my fancy new camera and ended up taking 191 photos. Upon arriving home, I immediately deleted 39 of them. And the rest? Well, funny thing is that most of them are either of Master J or flowers. There really weren't a whole lot of pictures of the animals in the zoo. I'm not really sure why that is. It could be because most of the animals weren't doing anything spectacular. It could be because the flowers and Master J were just so much more appealing. Or, it could be that I just really dislike zoos. Don't get me wrong, zoos have come a long way since my visit to the Bronx Zoo in the early 80s. That place was suicidally depressing. Animals in tiny cages, surrounded by cement, going crazy. You know, a typical zoo before zoologists figured out that it wasn't exactly the best environment. I think that experience jaded me though. I can't go to a zoo today without seeing the animal that's suffering. Today it was the maned wolf. Who has paced a path around his enclosure and just walks it repeatedly. Kids and adults yelling at him to get his attention. Yeah, he's happy. I spent most of our time trying to stay away from one particularly obnoxious group of people who's kids were amazingly pushy and rude. And who apparently had a tracking device implanted somewhere on my person because no matter what direction I took, they were right behind us, prepared to invade our space.

For the record, the Phoenix zoo is a pretty cool zoo overall. They have a nice mix of animals that, for the most part, appear to be fairly well adjusted. It's not as nice of a zoo as the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, but it's pretty decent. The important thing is that Master J had fun, and he did. We walked around most of the zoo but somehow managed to miss the lions and tigers. I think we looped around it entirely when we went to see the mountain goats and then got distracted by the search for a place to sit down with our granola bars (because I'm cheap).

After we finished at the zoo, we decided that on our way home we would find a place to eat. I was basically trying to get back to my neck of the woods when I turned onto 7th Street and headed north since I knew I could get to a highway from there. But about two blocks later, we spotted the bright orange sign for MacAlpine's and had to go in for lunch. Master J and I love MacAlpine's. It's good food and fantastic shakes. Master J had his typical hotdog, chips and chocolate shake and I had my typical club sandwich, potato salad and chocolate shake. MMMMMMM! I ate my fill and still brought back 1/2 of the sandwich and potato salad for Mister C. I did not bring him any chocolate shake though. It's not that there wasn't enough, because there's more than enough to share. It's that I don't generally share chocolate shakes with anyone who I haven't given birth to. All things considered, that rule has worked out rather well for me.

So currently, Master J is cleaning his room. Mister C picked up some under bed storage containers for him and we're hoping this helps out with the mess in there. So far he's managed to make more of a mess than he had at the beginning, but as long as it doesn't leak out of his room, I really don't care.