zoo gamut
This weekend, Jen and I went to the zoo. Jen, it must be understand, has a certain fondness (somewhat akin to a sense of camaraderie) with bears. My, but she does love the bears.
And so a zoo can be a slightly depressing place, causing reactions like this:
But it can also be a wondrous place, causing reactions like this:
Seeing the animals at the zoo does have the tendency to be a little melancholy, it's true, but I've never been able to fully shake the little kid in me who just likes all the wondrous animals. Even the sad ones, which unfortunately prove the easiest to photograph (moping animals are much easier to catch with a slow-shutter camera than cavorting, playful ones).
And the weather made for a nice, brisk, wet-but-not-raining Oregon day to be out and about, but certainly some animals didn't agree with us, like Jen's favorite (and one of my favorites), the sun bear. No sun bears lazing in trees today.
The day was great, though. And, seriously, I mean look what wistful joy it brought to my lady:
Part of the great weekend also included the (slightly premature) premiere-ish screening of Wyatt, Walk Away, which even in rough cut form managed to get more laughs and engaged "hmms" and "oohs" than chair-shuffles or visible boredom; and Jen and I finishing our out-loud-to-each-other reading of Cat's Cradle, a favorite novel of mine and her first Vonnegut. Next we're going to give Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises the same treatment, which should be a treat. All of those things were lovely, but I have no pictures of them, alas.
I didn't manage to write much. I'm trying really hard to keep the right perspective on this, to make days for focusing on that and days for taking my mind off it and focusing on other things (like the lady). It's hard to do, really hard -- both focusing on and focusing off the thing -- but I'm trying, dammit.
And so a zoo can be a slightly depressing place, causing reactions like this:
But it can also be a wondrous place, causing reactions like this:
Seeing the animals at the zoo does have the tendency to be a little melancholy, it's true, but I've never been able to fully shake the little kid in me who just likes all the wondrous animals. Even the sad ones, which unfortunately prove the easiest to photograph (moping animals are much easier to catch with a slow-shutter camera than cavorting, playful ones).
And the weather made for a nice, brisk, wet-but-not-raining Oregon day to be out and about, but certainly some animals didn't agree with us, like Jen's favorite (and one of my favorites), the sun bear. No sun bears lazing in trees today.
The day was great, though. And, seriously, I mean look what wistful joy it brought to my lady:
Part of the great weekend also included the (slightly premature) premiere-ish screening of Wyatt, Walk Away, which even in rough cut form managed to get more laughs and engaged "hmms" and "oohs" than chair-shuffles or visible boredom; and Jen and I finishing our out-loud-to-each-other reading of Cat's Cradle, a favorite novel of mine and her first Vonnegut. Next we're going to give Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises the same treatment, which should be a treat. All of those things were lovely, but I have no pictures of them, alas.
I didn't manage to write much. I'm trying really hard to keep the right perspective on this, to make days for focusing on that and days for taking my mind off it and focusing on other things (like the lady). It's hard to do, really hard -- both focusing on and focusing off the thing -- but I'm trying, dammit.