Water Jets and Grizzlies

We hadn't been to the "New Zoo" since before the addition of the grizzlies (and sea otters, and wild boar), so I was pleasantly surprised when Eryn and I got there on Labor Day a few hours after Scooter and I put Sandy down - and found a beautifully designed new exhibit. Here is Eryn, clearly not enjoying herself at all, in the "lava tube" inside of which is the grizzly enclosure.































The new water jet/Russian animal sculpture area just before the entrance to the Russian Coast exhibits is the reason she is soaked to the skin:
















































The grizzlies:














When the bears come up to the glass (and they do it often), this is how close you are to the (HUGE) animals - no tricky camera zooming:















Pretty amazing exhibit. Reminder to Self: take Ben up on going Behind The Scenes to take pictures for Rony's room. That has got to be cool.

I Love The Smell of Toast in the Morning (But I'm Confused)

Last night I accidentally set my alarm for 7:55 instead of 6:55, so when I checked the time at 7:47, I hopped out of bed (well, limped) and went straight to wake Eryn, who grumbled at me but understood time was of the essence. We got her to school just as Morning Meeting was beginning, so mission accomplished for her second day of Kindergarten. I was obviously not ready for work, but luckily had no clients until 11:00 (which turned out to be a no-show anyway, but that's a different matter), so I could go home and get myself ready with no problem. Here comes the weird part: when I got out of the car at home around 8:45, the air smelled strongly of toast. It's breakfast time, yeah, but how does one make a neighborhood smell like toast? I had visions of thousands of RAGBRAI breakfast seekers, but to my knowledge, thousands of bicyclists are not descending upon my neighborhood. This evening, will the neighborhood smell of spaghetti?

R.I.P. Sandra Dee

1995-2008.

Scooter already explained.

Here's my other favorite picture of her:



















The stream of water from the squirt bottle never stood a chance.