For starters, the weather was indecently beautiful today. 75º, a light breeze, sunny. The leaves have turned. It's the most wonderful time of the year.
Which was reason enough to (predictable, I know) launch rockets. Which we did. Including Wildcat, a purple spiral striped mini-A rocket, Candycane, which had an unfortunate flight and is likely retired after one go. And The Great Pumpkin rose, of course, and Scribble III and Dudley, and Marty Graw. We launched a lot of rockets.
With Candycane, I learned that it's as absurd (and dangerous) to underpower a rocket as overpower it. I've lost plenty launching on C engines first time out. But like with Queen Izen, if the rocket doesn't go high enough when it's under thrust to make up the time falling during the recovery fuse, you have a problem. This one didn't blow after impact, but rather right before. Still, the airframe is crumpled and it's at best, a rocket to be salvaged for scrap.
The Zoo was on the menu from the forecast alone. When I saw what the weather was going to be like, I said to myself, 'Self, you bought a membership to the Zoo, isn't it about time you went when it wasn't 90º?'
We got out there and there were cars. To many cars. Is something going on at Starlight? Is there some festival I didn't know aobut in Swope Park? Then I saw the costumes.
Boo Bash. An event the Zoo puts on. We weren't in costume, since we were just there for the weather and the animals, but they gave us bags for the candy begathon, and onward we went.
On our way in, we saw those two-wheeled platforms for riding about. What, a self-balancing scooter or whatever? Segway® I think officially.
I could undstand the helmets if you're riding in traffic, but if you're among the pedestrians (like, at the Zoo?) why would you wear a helmet for a device that is basically like walking without moving your feet? You don't wear a helmet in case you slip and fall when just walking around on sneakers, right?
We saw parts of the Zoo we've never seen. We caught a bird show, too. Complete with an African Fish Eagle who was not so keen on the herds of costumed kids. The trainer was carrying her out on one of those silly falconer's gloves, and the bird flapped like to beat the shit out of her, then flew up to the top of a utility pole. They tried for the next fifteen minutes to bait her back down, but she wasn't having it. When we left the bird show, she was still up there, and I swear she said (in African Fish Eaglease, of course), 'I'll come down when you get rid of those damn children.'
Who could blame her?
We finally saw the gorillas. Well, a gorilla. His girlfriend or wife or whatever was laying low. Very low, as in she might not really exist.
They did find a use for the old monkey house that the gorillas don't have to put up with anymore: they filled it with skeletons and converted it into a ghost/pirate ship. When we saw the skeletons where the chimps used to throw fecal grenades from, I said, 'Oh no! They killed the monkeys!' The kids didn't think I was very funny just then.
We also saw a 500 pound turtle walk! He’s so freaking big you can hardly get him in frame for a photo, but I’ve never seen him move more than his head before. Lots of the animals were doing more than we’ve typically seen. I don’t know if it was time of day or the better temperatures or what. We saw two lionesses play briefly (before resuming their usual laying about watching the idiot humans). The hippos were playing. The meerkats were so crazy I couldn’t get them on video, they were too quick for me to time out the button.
The chimps were having a riot but way off at the edge where you couldn’t see what they were shrieking about. Then, when we were leaving their area, a couple of them came shrieking at each other over near us. When they retreated, I shrieked in, I hoped, a faithful mimic of their calls. The idea was not to make them think I was one of them, but to maybe get them to try and see what this goofball chimp wannabe was hollering about. Instead, I scared hell out of Em, who is still furious with me and says she will run away from home or something.
Em was getting cranky by the time we were done with ‘Africa.’ She was tired and hungry and in general need of a butt-pickle extraction. I got the girls strawberry frozen lemonades (their pick) and a soda for me. Mo drank most of my soda after pronouncing the strawberry frozen lemonade ‘boring.’
But when we finally made it up to the front area (I’d spent the tram money on the aforementioned refreshments, so we hoofed it up the rather steep and long hill), she spotted a sign for the Jolly Rogers performing at 5:30. This is half an hour after the Zoo normally closes, but it’s Boo Bash.
I then noticed that after 5:00, the train was free. Mo loves trains, I can prove it. When I ask her yes-or-no questions she always says no. Even when it’s ridunculously obvious that the answer is yes.
‘Is your Daddy crazy, yes or no?’ ‘No!’
‘Do you love the Zoo, yes or no?’ ‘No!’
‘Is that the sky up there, yes or no?’ ‘No!’
Our latest joke is if I know she loves something, and I’m just asking for the affirmation of it, I say (for instance), ‘Do you love Oreos, yes or yes.’ ‘YES!’
But when I said, ‘You wanna ride the train, yes or no?’ ‘YES!!’ Okay, there’s a line but she was willing to wait.
So we rode the train, which conveniently dropped us just in time for the Jolly Rogers. Em had made a full time job out of fretting about whether we’d miss the Jolly Rogers trying to do the train. I asked her, ‘Do you realize you’ve spent all that energy worrying about it for nothing?’ She was still mad about the chimp scream, so I could take my Daddy Zen and shove it.
The Jolly Rogers did some material I hadn’t heard in a while. Gray Funnel Line, from their first CD, William Bloat, etc. And they did Itches In Me Britches, which Em jammed to in particular because if it wasn’t for that song, she’d have died as an infant. She would not eat unless we played that song. The Jolly Rogers have a similar effect on me, except the bottle in my case is filled with beer.
2 comments:
Man oh man THAT is a huge turtle!
You know Mark, right? In the Jolly Rogers? I think when he and I both lived in Hashinger Hall, he mentioned that he knew you.
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