NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Amongst our weaponry are such diverse elements as: fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope, and nice red uniforms… — Monty Python skit
a long winded way to note how this day simply didn’t go off without a single hitch. i mean, it just simply wasn’t possible to write this day as a scene from a movie. every critic would point and note how contrived it all would sound.
it started with a promise to a little boy. see, tuesdays are the days when jools and i hang out. when i worked, i always had a schedule where i could take tuesdays off and hang with BC, so it stood to reason that hellboy and i should have some quality time together, too. and we do. he loves gardening and playing and basically anything that doesn’t involve getting his hair washed. realizing that i will be unable to trot around for a few weeks after surgery, i figured the time was now to visit the zoo. nevermind the fact that my leg is generally held together these days with a massive leg brace and some chewing gum; a promise is a promise and we were going to the zoo, come hell or massive diplomatic traffic snarl.
so we dropped off a very bitter BC (who, ear still hurting, went to school to deliver her science fair project, a teddybear sunflower seed that is growing like crazy and a display board that includes a really lovely painting of said sunflower) and joined the legions fighting their way onto the roosevelt bridge. only, too bad for me (as junie b. jones would say), as i forgot that the independence avenue exit closes off the wonderful, magical rock creek parkway entrance on weekday mornings. so jools and i took a wild ride around the tidal basin, making our way up toward the south side of the washington monument, then tearing our way up 14th street, sneering in the general direction of the white house, and making an insane left above farragut square to get to 15th — only to realize that i need to be over a lot more to get to connecticut ave. i found my beloved m street, travelled a few blocks, and did what any self-respecting jerseygirl driver would do: i made a right onto connecticut from m. only, apparently, that’s verboten. nowhere did i see a sign that said no right turn; but apparently, i scared the bejeezus out of the person making a right off this tiny little road that fell into m street.
“wow, mommy,” peeped little jools. “are we going in the right direction yet? why is that man beeping at us?”
i assured little ‘do we were on our way; and we were. we drove right up to the zoo, parked in the A section, and made our way out of the parking lot. jools started to bark loudly, “i stamp on cigarettes. i stamp on them; they’re bad!”
hoping i’ve discovered a teachable moment, i start to say, ” yes, jools, cigarettes are bad. you smoke them and then you die! don’t ever start smoking cigarettes; they will kill you.” and then i look over to see why this all started; there is a woman standing by the entrance, smoking away and shooting eye-daggers at me and my child. oops. after taking a shaky breath, i decide that the teachable lesson is more important than being polite to a stranger who will likely die soon due to her drug habit, and off we go.
we visited the pandas, who were quite frisky today. (the big news today was that zoofolks are planning to artificially inseminate Mei Xiang with semen from Gao Gao, San Diego Zoo’s adult male panda. i decided to postpone that teachable lesson for now.) jools fell while walking near the salamander non-exhibit near the pandas. i walked him through the panda indoor exhibit and asked one of the people standing in the panda cam booth where the nearest first aid place was. they kindly got him ice, a band aid, and let him sit in the panda cam booth while he convalesced. (lucky dude. i’ve never gotten in there before.)
but, to borrow from monty python again, it was only a flesh wound, so off we went soon thereafter. of course, jools wanted to go to the furthest end of the zoo to play at the pizza play area. not so bad walking downhill; but the trip uphill was not exactly a joy. a woman sitting on a bench with her family stopped me as i slowly made my way. she asked me why i was doing this, seeing that i wasn’t exactly in fighting form. i explained that a promise is a promise. she told me i should take a picture of jools and me and show it to him when he’s 21 so that he remembers that his mom keeps her word. i think he’ll know that by then, but it made me laugh all the same.
and watching jools watch the prairie dogs was priceless. he loved them so much that we visited them twice. take that, you poxy pandas!
we went home, ate lunch, relaxed a little, and then decided that we had some seeds to plant in the garden. gardening with a torn meniscus and pcl isn’t actually a cakewalk, but it was doable (when my helper wasn’t squirting me with the water in a spray bottle, that is.) i maniacally checked the door each time i was sent in to fill up said spray bottle, making sure that the door stayed unlocked. jools has a habit of playing with doors and locks, you see. so of course, the one time i didn’t check — we ended up locked out. fortunately, a neighbor let us hang out in her house for awhile, use her phone, and play with her dog; and a dear friend picked up BC at school and brought her home. BS, bless his pointed little head, came home from work a little early to rescue us. so it all ended well, i suppose.
of course, now BC wants to visit the zoo next week.
