ALL the Creatures
Baa, so I am in epic sleep deprived stupor, and Andres is in for one of his neverending showers, so I guess now's a decent time to chronicle a few of the things that have happened recently.
First off, Maria had come back to Tucson this past week to say goodbye to people (before shipping off to Canadaland forever), and Friday was her last day. Luckily she found some time to have lunch to me. :D We went to a nice restaurant I'd never been to and I ordered a portabella mushroom sandwich that ended up looking looking like a burger patty. <3 And we caught up a bit. Afterwards we went onto campus briefly--and naturally, yet also bizarrely, I didn't recognize anyone. It was kind of a sad reminder that most people I went to school with are graduated and gone now, and nothing will be the same as it was, but that's okay too. I wouldn't want to be in college forever, I don't think.
Yesterday the excitement continued. Last weekend, I told Andres that I wanted to go to the zoo--but he decided it would be better to plan it out further ahead and he promised he'd take me this weekend, so I'd been looking forward to it for the entire week. We got up early, and I was so gratified to realize that I felt reasonably well and functioning! Perfect for zoo exploration! It was super exciting, I had been so worried that I'd mess up all of our plans by not feeling up for the trip. We invited Brittany along with us and we walked around the entire place and saw all sorts of animals! I'm really glad that we waited til this weekend and decided to go relatively early. It was hot and even humid, but not as hot as it could have been, and a lot more of the animals were active and fun to look at, as well. Highlights were the roaming anteater (not as awesome as an aardvark, but still super cute), the capybara (*squeeeees* omg), and the elephants. They had an enormous elephant enclosure with 5 African elephants in it, and 4 of them were playing in a pool beside a viewer vantage point. We probably stayed there for 20 minutes watching the elephants splash around and play together--they were so playful and cute and they seemed so happy! :D I was so grateful that we got to see it. They also had some trainers feeding them from time to time, and they were doing little tricks with their trunks to earn treats. :)
Andres had told me before about how the Tucson zoo was small and lame, so I guess my expectations were rather modest...but I thought it was pretty great, all things considered. To be fair, Andres has been to the San Diego Zoo, which is not even in the same league, but--I don't know, I was fully satisfied. Yes, the zoo was pretty tiny, and they didn't have the biggest variety of animals, but I also feel like the smallish enclosures allowed me to get closer views of the animals than at other "better" zoos I'd been to, like the one in San Antonio. It was also devilishly hot when we went to the San Antonio Zoo, so we didn't really see any active animals, whereas yesterday there were a bunch of animals moving around, interacting with their environment, etc, especially towards the beginning of the visit. The only negative thing was that the polar bear was apparently taking refuge in his refrigerated room and we didn't get to see him, but other than that, everything was absolutely perfect. I haven't been so happy in a long time, and I know that Andres and Brittany enjoyed it too. :)
Unfortunately, when we got home from the zoo and lunch, we only found more creatures...of the unsavory kind. -_- I noticed there were numerous houseflies around the large animal cage, and with a sinking realization I looked around and confirmed my fears--new infestation, 40+ flies. Ugh. I'm almost completely sure they bred in one of the cages, which is ironic, because I had concrete plans to clean the cages the following day...today. But alas. Anyway, tired out from walking around the zoo, we had to start a full housecleaning overhaul and I had to find the energy to clean all the cages. :P It eventually got done, though, thankfully. I think I learned a lot of lessons from the previous fly infestation in terms of how to limit damage and spread, but I'm also really angry at myself for having let it happen a second time. I'm just hoping that it gets better and doesn't turn into a week-long nightmare again. Things are looking promising today, at least. There are still a lot of flies around but they seem more random and disjointed, so I'm hoping we just have to pick off the remaining stragglers and then we'll be good. I will say, I am grateful that we noticed it when we did; not later--but also not sooner, because I am pretty sure the infestation had begun in the morning and had I been paying attention rather than focusing on getting ready for the zoo, it could have ruined what turned out to be a fantastic day.
Today, though, I'm tired. REALLY tired. I've been having pretty severe insomnia all this past week (2-3 hours of sleep for every 24), for no apparent reason. On top of that, yesterday was obviously busy and exhausting, and I took 2 benadryl (which actually serves as a sleep aid for most people) to deal with allergy symptoms while cleaning the cages--but at the end of it all, last night I literally couldn't sleep at all. It doesn't feel as wretched as it could, but I still have absolutely no energy and I'm starting to get really incoherent (sorry if it shows in this entry). On the bright side, my only plans for today were to clean the cages, and I don't even have to now, since that got done yesterday. Haha, small victories. Maybe my new plans for today can be to get an hour or two of sleep.
First off, Maria had come back to Tucson this past week to say goodbye to people (before shipping off to Canadaland forever), and Friday was her last day. Luckily she found some time to have lunch to me. :D We went to a nice restaurant I'd never been to and I ordered a portabella mushroom sandwich that ended up looking looking like a burger patty. <3 And we caught up a bit. Afterwards we went onto campus briefly--and naturally, yet also bizarrely, I didn't recognize anyone. It was kind of a sad reminder that most people I went to school with are graduated and gone now, and nothing will be the same as it was, but that's okay too. I wouldn't want to be in college forever, I don't think.
Yesterday the excitement continued. Last weekend, I told Andres that I wanted to go to the zoo--but he decided it would be better to plan it out further ahead and he promised he'd take me this weekend, so I'd been looking forward to it for the entire week. We got up early, and I was so gratified to realize that I felt reasonably well and functioning! Perfect for zoo exploration! It was super exciting, I had been so worried that I'd mess up all of our plans by not feeling up for the trip. We invited Brittany along with us and we walked around the entire place and saw all sorts of animals! I'm really glad that we waited til this weekend and decided to go relatively early. It was hot and even humid, but not as hot as it could have been, and a lot more of the animals were active and fun to look at, as well. Highlights were the roaming anteater (not as awesome as an aardvark, but still super cute), the capybara (*squeeeees* omg), and the elephants. They had an enormous elephant enclosure with 5 African elephants in it, and 4 of them were playing in a pool beside a viewer vantage point. We probably stayed there for 20 minutes watching the elephants splash around and play together--they were so playful and cute and they seemed so happy! :D I was so grateful that we got to see it. They also had some trainers feeding them from time to time, and they were doing little tricks with their trunks to earn treats. :)
Andres had told me before about how the Tucson zoo was small and lame, so I guess my expectations were rather modest...but I thought it was pretty great, all things considered. To be fair, Andres has been to the San Diego Zoo, which is not even in the same league, but--I don't know, I was fully satisfied. Yes, the zoo was pretty tiny, and they didn't have the biggest variety of animals, but I also feel like the smallish enclosures allowed me to get closer views of the animals than at other "better" zoos I'd been to, like the one in San Antonio. It was also devilishly hot when we went to the San Antonio Zoo, so we didn't really see any active animals, whereas yesterday there were a bunch of animals moving around, interacting with their environment, etc, especially towards the beginning of the visit. The only negative thing was that the polar bear was apparently taking refuge in his refrigerated room and we didn't get to see him, but other than that, everything was absolutely perfect. I haven't been so happy in a long time, and I know that Andres and Brittany enjoyed it too. :)
Unfortunately, when we got home from the zoo and lunch, we only found more creatures...of the unsavory kind. -_- I noticed there were numerous houseflies around the large animal cage, and with a sinking realization I looked around and confirmed my fears--new infestation, 40+ flies. Ugh. I'm almost completely sure they bred in one of the cages, which is ironic, because I had concrete plans to clean the cages the following day...today. But alas. Anyway, tired out from walking around the zoo, we had to start a full housecleaning overhaul and I had to find the energy to clean all the cages. :P It eventually got done, though, thankfully. I think I learned a lot of lessons from the previous fly infestation in terms of how to limit damage and spread, but I'm also really angry at myself for having let it happen a second time. I'm just hoping that it gets better and doesn't turn into a week-long nightmare again. Things are looking promising today, at least. There are still a lot of flies around but they seem more random and disjointed, so I'm hoping we just have to pick off the remaining stragglers and then we'll be good. I will say, I am grateful that we noticed it when we did; not later--but also not sooner, because I am pretty sure the infestation had begun in the morning and had I been paying attention rather than focusing on getting ready for the zoo, it could have ruined what turned out to be a fantastic day.
Today, though, I'm tired. REALLY tired. I've been having pretty severe insomnia all this past week (2-3 hours of sleep for every 24), for no apparent reason. On top of that, yesterday was obviously busy and exhausting, and I took 2 benadryl (which actually serves as a sleep aid for most people) to deal with allergy symptoms while cleaning the cages--but at the end of it all, last night I literally couldn't sleep at all. It doesn't feel as wretched as it could, but I still have absolutely no energy and I'm starting to get really incoherent (sorry if it shows in this entry). On the bright side, my only plans for today were to clean the cages, and I don't even have to now, since that got done yesterday. Haha, small victories. Maybe my new plans for today can be to get an hour or two of sleep.