We're Goin' To The Zoo, The Zoo, The Zoo!

After all the renovation work I've been doing lately,

it was time for a break.

Since my younger nephew was in town,

we headed to the sweet li'l Santa Barbara Zoo.

Unlike the San Diego Zoo,

 its more well-known zoo neighbor to the south,

the Santa Barbara Zoo can be comfortably seen in one afternoon.

In a craaazy turn of events, it rained!

Water came from the sky!

Here, in SoCal, in JULY!!

Although the rain was welcome,

it was also confusing to some of our younger natives.

"What was THAT?!?"

The Girl heard one confused kid holler at the sound of thunder.

Fortunately, since not a one of us brought a rain coat,

the rain held for the afternoon.

We saw animals so cute that The Boy

literally thought until recently that they were

 a Japanese-created, fictional character in a game:

A woman next to us, upon seeing the Fennec Fox,

turned off her punctuation and turned on her caps-lock to shout,

"OMIGOD IT'S SO ADORABLE."

We visited some relatives...

We are family...

I got all my [brothers] with me...

... and rode a wee train.

There are plaques everywhere commemorating donors,

and this one cracked me up so much:

HA!  Ed Birch, I don't know if you're still with us or not,

but I'll bet you were a hoot!

After some obligatory Dippin' Dots,

I snapped a selfie us-ie,

and we headed out.

Once home, I found some old photos taken

at the same zoo, of The Boy...

... and The Girl.

Twenty years later,

and The Boy has the same smile,

and The Girl is still snapping photos.

 (Albeit with a slightly more sophisticated camera.)

***   ***   ***

A few days later, 
spending time with my nephew meant I was able to
fulfill a months-long dream.

Every day when I headed home from school/student teaching,
I would drive by Underwood Family Farms and see the cow trailers.

Man, that looks like fun, I'd think,
but how was I going to get a chance to ride the wild cows?
It would be creepy for me to go solo.



Hello.  I'm not a weirdo.
I just want to ride in the cows.

It turns out, all I needed was
this guy!



Yeah, he's as tall as I am, and technically a teen,
but he was game.

'Sup? Oh, nothing, just chillin' in a cow.

We also saw baby peeeegs so brand-new they still had
their umbilical cords...

Moooom, you're squishing me!

... and we got to brush and pet some pygmy goats.

It was a sweaty, but fun day, and
TRUE FACT:
the best selfies of all selfies are goat selfies.

This goat liked me so much she licked my arm.
Maybe it was my salty sweat, but
Totes Ma Goats, I swear we made a connection.

When A Door Closes, A Closet Opens

The Boy is moving out tomorrow, 

but I don't have designs on his closet space.

Nope, not me.

A Path Not Taken...Because I Am A Melon Head.

So....

Twins.

They've mostly moved in tandem through their milestones,

from crawling to kindergarten,

and college was no exception.

In May The Boy flipped his tassel...

... and in June The Girl, weighed down with honor cords and medals, did too.

While The Boy's ceremony was a smooth (albeit sweaty) affair,

The Girl's did not go off without a hitch.

Unlike the dorm-dwelling, close-living Boy,

 The Girl need to be moved out of an apartment

and into storage 180 miles away from our house.

We arrived the day before the graduation to find that her soon-to-be-ex roommate,

an otherwise delightful, Star Trek-obsessed, cat-loving geek...

...had left behind the detritus of her near-hoarder lifestyle.

As The Girl and I shoveled  cleaned the place,

The Boy and The Sweet Man made trips to the storage locker.

Then...

they returned from the last haul to inform me that the passenger-side window

had evidently decided, "Eff this!" and had slid down into the door,

where it sulked and refused to come back up.

NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Some back story: for the previous four weeks,

we had not had more than two  -- and sometimes only one --

of the three cars at our house running and available at a time.

The repair bills had been mounting at a horrifying rate.

Also, the window had already been repaired on the driver's side of my car,

so I knew the passenger's window would require a trip to the dealer 

and several hundred dollars to fix.

AND...

we were 180 miles away from the dealer...

The Girl didn't have a garage...

and the car was filled with The Girl's belongings.

NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

But The Girl said we should at least try to call the local Honda dealer.

And while it was closing in ten minutes, the repair guy, a grease monkey with a halo, 

explained how this...

this...

and this...

...would be a temporary fix until I was back in my own zip code.

The Sweet Man and The Boy set off to Home Depot in one car,

 while I followed, sourly, in my Element.

We got to the street in front of Home Depot, 

but The Sweet Man, inexplicably, burned a u instead of turning into the parking lot. 

I followed, thinking he wanted to go into a different driveway,

but then saw he was driving past Home Depot.

I began making the "What the?" gesture to him...

...but kept going, because there must be a reason, right?

But once the car got on the freeway, I realized I was following the wrong car!

!!!

I am famous in my family for having no sense of direction,

but this is the first time I managed to get lost while following my own personal Sherpa. 

However, instead of becoming even more of a grumpy-pants, 

I began to laugh.

And laugh. 

And laugh so hard I was crying.

Every time I started to calm down,

 I thought of the Sweet Man and Boy scanning the parking lot, bewildered,

 and I laughed even harder.

Ten minutes later, I pulled into the parking lot and explained what had happened.

 Now, I know I will be teased about this 

until my kids are clutching my feeble, wrinkled hand for the last time...

 "Mom!  Don't follow the WRONG LIGHT!!"

... but it was worth it for the way it turned my mood around.

We gathered our supplies at Home Depot and as a team wrestled that window up.

After invoking one of the patron saints of this blog...

...the Sweet Man bent a wire, slipped it down into the door, and hooked the window.

The Boy grabbed the window when it poked out of the door,

and because the inner mechanism was frozen, I jittered the window button,

working it while hollering "Up!  Down!" like a demented coxswain.

Once up, we jammed in two door stops and duct-taped the top closed for good measure.

My heros!

The repair job held through the weekend,

The Girl graduated the next day...

...and the ceremony ended with

the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey and the releasing of white doves.

Why doves?

Because doves make you look like a bad-a**, that's why!

I Got A Pink Slip On One Kid!

Who's having a special day?

Grumpy Cat?

No, 

Grumpy Grad!

Congratulations to The Boy,

who graduates from college today.

You did good.

The (Hopefully Not) Last Bookstore

The Boy and I made a pilgrimage last week...

To this place!

The Last Bookstore is a "mostly used" bookstore with a twist.

You can read more about it in this article.

Simply put, downstairs is a pretty-cool, but not-unique collection of used books...

but upstairs?

It's craaazy.

The aptly-named Labyrinth is a collection of art and used books,

with the books only a dollar 

but shelved with...let's call it whimsy.

Searching through them means accepting you will not be able to easily put your hands on,

for example, the second book in the trilogy you're reading.

Most books are grouped together with brethren they would not usually share space with,

but there are a few pockets of say, kids' books, or tech books,

or a whole collection of what looked to be books in some Slavic language.

This little room, for example, was filled with Sci-Fi books.

There was also a little yarn shop right inside!

Go with the flow and you'll enjoy yourself;

The Boy finally came up to me,

arms aching, and whimpered,

"We have to go!  I can't carry any more!" 

Once we made it to the register, I asked the all-important question:

"Could I use the bathroom?"

(I had read on Yelp that the bathroom was guarded by a veritable troll of an employee.) 

"I'm sorry, it's out of order," the cheerful young man said.

To which I thought, "Liar!!" because I heard some other folks discussing

 the very-much-in-use bathroom.

But!

This turned out to be fortuitous, since it meant we stopped in at the nearby

Groundfloor Cafe to "buy a drink" (and use their bathroom.)

However, once we were there we realized this tasty joint served crepes!! 

a favorite of both The Boy and me.

When The Boy was younger his sister had Girls' Scouts,

and during her meetings 

we would head to the mall to load up on manga and crepes.

So it was a sweet and nostalgic way for us to finish out our afternoon at

The Last Bookstore.