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February 20, 2005
When animals amuse
My husband and I have a friend, J., and between the two of them, they have the most insane animal-related stories. So insane, in fact, that I would buy them this, if the CEO of Vermont Teddy Bear didn't have to quit making them and resign.
Here's some of the top stories, recently revisited over homemade mac'n'cheese and ale:
1. Dad's fishing in a small boat, a killer whale bites salmon that's just been hooked, pulls Dad's rowboat on a mad, aquatic spree and almost under water until Dad somehow manages to cut line free. Dad also manages to videotape entire incident.
2. Hibernating bear discovered in the basement of friends' cabin while friend is fumbling around in the dark for circuit breaker. Bear is huge, smelly, and fortunately, a sound sleeper.
3. Drunk friend passes out in yard, awakened by a beaver eating his boot.
4. Drunk husband-to-be walking home from Halloween party dressed as Jerry Lee Lewis. Opossum chases sequined husband-to-be down road, bites heel. Husband-to-be shrieks like a girl in love with her cousin.
5. Dog dressed as hobo discovered in backyard. Dog is rumpled, slyly grinning, and wearing pink fingerless gloves. Backyard searched for empty Dinty Moore cans, none discovered.
Speaking of animals, the Bean and I froze our baboonies off today and went to the zoo for an hour or so, since his new thing is to make the baby sign for monkey at me all the time and I thought he might want to see some real ones. The gorillas looked bored and sad and beautiful and the Bean couldn't stop looking at them.
As far as zoos go, the Woodland Park Zoo is a pretty good one in that they try and make the habitats as natural as possible, they have a breeding program to help endangered animals, and they do lots of fundraising and outreach for animals. The Bean loves going there and seeing all the animals from his books in real life, but it is still pretty heartbreaking to watch three elephants pacing around a dirt cage and looking almost frantic with boredom.
I didn't mean for that to end on a bummer note, so I will close by saying that the Bean is cutely, unnaturally obsessed with...owls. Owl, owl, owl. What kid, I ask you, cares about an owl? The Bean does, that's whooooo.
Posted by Max at 12:31 AM
February 16, 2005
Announcing Elliot!
The Bean is very pleased to announce the arrival of his East coast cousin, Elliot Gardner, born on Friday February 11th. Elliot was kind enough to weigh in at a sensible 7 pounds, 2 ounces as opposed to the freakish, circus sideshow 10.8 pounds that the Bean selected for his birth weight. Well done, Elliot, and welcome to the family!
Posted by Max at 12:32 AM | Comments (0)
February 04, 2005
Blinding Myself with Science
Recently my husband and I took the Bean to the Pacific Science Center. When I was a kid growing up on Cape Cod, MA, one of the highlights of my young life was packing into my dad's custom van and heading up to Boston to the Museum of Science. That is the Mack Daddy of science centers, with (I think) the country's first IMAX theater, baby chicks hatching in a giant, egg-shaped warmer (you could pet them when they were out!), wave machines, static electricity exhibits, dinosaur bones (T-Rex!!) and my favorite: teeny tiny embryos frozen in plastic wombs in the "Cycle of Life" section.
Dammit did I love me some science as a kid, I think due largely to my brother's subscription to Ranger Rick magazine and the fact that we grew up about four steps from the ocean with its endless source of creatures to be caught, analyzed, and carefully released back into the wild. One difference between girl scientists and boy scientists, at least from my own experience: there's a lot less creature death involved when girls are at the helm. However, the same beloved uncle (a teacher; sneaky liberal smartypants!) who got my brother his subscription also got me Cricket, the literary magazine for children, causing me to climb trees and read haiku, short stories and Shel Silverstein in my leafy perch for hours. Thus my fate as an MFA-holding, mommy-blogging* corporate shill was solidified. The uncle himself had a subscription to, ahem, Playboy, so my brother and I also got our introduction to biology thanks to him. Let's hear it for a well-rounded education!
*There's been a lot of brouha in the blogging community recently about mommy-blogging and so, for the record, I would just like to make my stance on the issue clear: who freaking cares what people think. Thank you.
Back to the business of blogging. So we took the Bean to the science center where he played with the water table, checked out animatronic dinosaurs, and bugged out in the insect display. As we were leaving the insect display, my husband, who is usually of the same opinion as me on issues related to child-rearing, says "You know, when the Bean gets older, we should get him a stick insect as a pet." And I am like "Are you fricking kidding me? A stick insect?! Who the hell wants one of those in their house?" He went on to try and convince me how cool they were, and his final line of reasoning went a little something like this "...and they breed really frequently." And I'm like DUDE! If I wanted to watch stick insects breed, I'd check out the Paris Hilton porno movie! Using stick insects' frequent mating habits as a selling point is akin to telling me that tarantulas also make good pets because once a month all their hair falls off and lands in your eyes and mouth.
I told my friend P. from work this story expecting a little "He so crazy" girl-bonding moment and she said "I like stick insects, they're cool. They look like sticks."
Friends, insect fans, would-be scientists and mommybloggers: if I wanted something that looked like a stick, I would get a stick.
Posted by Max at 12:33 AM | Comments (0)