![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Oops, Life Got Away From Blogging
Aug. 6th, 2008 09:14 amHey, sorry that it's been so long. We've had some pretty serious adventures since I last posted here.
Mason's last day as a Pre-K student was on July 1. Since August 1 is Lammas, Shawn took off work and we decided to celebrate the way we always do "by doing something summer-y." So we went to the Minnesota Zoo to see the new "Russian Grizzly Coast" exhibit. It, my friends, is awesome. The Minnesota Zoo does a good job, in my opinion, of making pretty natural looking spaces for the animals (and the people) that accomodates the public's desire to see the animals and the animals' need for wild AND private spaces. The other thing I liked is that at the entrance to the new exhibit, there's a gigantic water park. There are spraying fountains and shooting fountains (a lot like a favorite park of Mason's in LaCrosse). We weren't prepared, per se, for Mason to get wet, but it was a hot enough day that we just let him. We always have a pair of swim trunks in the car (along with towels, etc.,) but that was far away. The nearby gift shop had towels as it turned out --- along with swimming suits, swim diapers, etc. Pretty much smart marketing, actually. Mason spent a LONG time playing there and for a while I wondered if we'd actually go in to see the bears.
The exhibit is built as though you're moving through a narrow/cliff-y passage. The walls are meant to resemble craggy rocks and there are pines trees looming over that. We saw sea otters (my favorite), which has an exhibit a lot like the beavers in the Minnesota trail, if you're familiar with that -- where you can view them from the ground-level, but also underwater. A lot of people had parked out in front of the glass in the stadium seating they provided there. We moved on to look at the faux volcano and boiling mud. Then there are the bears, who were quite close, and the wild boars (Mason's favorites), and a very well hidden leopard.
We did stop at the gift shop not only for a towel, but because I was really hoping for a t-shirt with some Russian lettering on it. All through out the exhibit all the headlines of the signs were printed in both Russian and English. The bathrooms were labeled in Russian and English, and it gave me a chance to vaguely remember my one semester of Russian I took nearly twenty years ago at Augsburg. But, to my great disappointment, there was nothing there with any kind of Russian theme. That was kind of strange because I actually overheard several people speaking in a very distinctively Slavic language which I thought perhaps was either Russian or Ukrainian.
But generally I'd say it was worth the price of admission. They also have a very cheesy food stand close to the water park which sells "Romenov Burgers" and "The Russian Rueben" and similarly silly named things that were really American food in disguise. Still, I had to have a Rueben. I don't get enough saurkraut in my life otherwise.
Then it's been back to the schedule of Mason and I tooling around all day. Yesterday we spent the afternoon hanging out in the truly amazing backyard of my friend Dave Hoffman-Dachelet. While Mason romped with his kids (and a neighbor boy named Sean), Dave and I chatted about his new, awesome book and industry gossip, while sipping cold lemonade in the shade. Ah, what a life!
I got home and discovered a phone call from my agent, which was good timing as I just passed her card on to Dave and I had a lot of good progress to report. I love my agent.
In other news, I need to compose a long fishily obsessed post for those of you who care about the health and welfare of my various wet pets. In brief, Kenya, our white cloud mountain minnow (tanicthyus albino -- or something very close to that) sometimes also called a white cloud danio -- got some new companions. We got two new minnows, which Mason named: Ecuador and Georgia. Also a new shubunkin goldfish named Madagascar. Anyway, I'll write more about that in a bit.
Now Mason is bugging me to play Lemmings Revolution on my laptop. The only other thing of interest is that we wrote an Open Letter to Barack Obama on my other blog about his position on off shore drilling for oil (which, frankly, pisses me off. I even had a dream about yelling at him, but that's for another post too.)
Mason's last day as a Pre-K student was on July 1. Since August 1 is Lammas, Shawn took off work and we decided to celebrate the way we always do "by doing something summer-y." So we went to the Minnesota Zoo to see the new "Russian Grizzly Coast" exhibit. It, my friends, is awesome. The Minnesota Zoo does a good job, in my opinion, of making pretty natural looking spaces for the animals (and the people) that accomodates the public's desire to see the animals and the animals' need for wild AND private spaces. The other thing I liked is that at the entrance to the new exhibit, there's a gigantic water park. There are spraying fountains and shooting fountains (a lot like a favorite park of Mason's in LaCrosse). We weren't prepared, per se, for Mason to get wet, but it was a hot enough day that we just let him. We always have a pair of swim trunks in the car (along with towels, etc.,) but that was far away. The nearby gift shop had towels as it turned out --- along with swimming suits, swim diapers, etc. Pretty much smart marketing, actually. Mason spent a LONG time playing there and for a while I wondered if we'd actually go in to see the bears.
The exhibit is built as though you're moving through a narrow/cliff-y passage. The walls are meant to resemble craggy rocks and there are pines trees looming over that. We saw sea otters (my favorite), which has an exhibit a lot like the beavers in the Minnesota trail, if you're familiar with that -- where you can view them from the ground-level, but also underwater. A lot of people had parked out in front of the glass in the stadium seating they provided there. We moved on to look at the faux volcano and boiling mud. Then there are the bears, who were quite close, and the wild boars (Mason's favorites), and a very well hidden leopard.
We did stop at the gift shop not only for a towel, but because I was really hoping for a t-shirt with some Russian lettering on it. All through out the exhibit all the headlines of the signs were printed in both Russian and English. The bathrooms were labeled in Russian and English, and it gave me a chance to vaguely remember my one semester of Russian I took nearly twenty years ago at Augsburg. But, to my great disappointment, there was nothing there with any kind of Russian theme. That was kind of strange because I actually overheard several people speaking in a very distinctively Slavic language which I thought perhaps was either Russian or Ukrainian.
But generally I'd say it was worth the price of admission. They also have a very cheesy food stand close to the water park which sells "Romenov Burgers" and "The Russian Rueben" and similarly silly named things that were really American food in disguise. Still, I had to have a Rueben. I don't get enough saurkraut in my life otherwise.
Then it's been back to the schedule of Mason and I tooling around all day. Yesterday we spent the afternoon hanging out in the truly amazing backyard of my friend Dave Hoffman-Dachelet. While Mason romped with his kids (and a neighbor boy named Sean), Dave and I chatted about his new, awesome book and industry gossip, while sipping cold lemonade in the shade. Ah, what a life!
I got home and discovered a phone call from my agent, which was good timing as I just passed her card on to Dave and I had a lot of good progress to report. I love my agent.
In other news, I need to compose a long fishily obsessed post for those of you who care about the health and welfare of my various wet pets. In brief, Kenya, our white cloud mountain minnow (tanicthyus albino -- or something very close to that) sometimes also called a white cloud danio -- got some new companions. We got two new minnows, which Mason named: Ecuador and Georgia. Also a new shubunkin goldfish named Madagascar. Anyway, I'll write more about that in a bit.
Now Mason is bugging me to play Lemmings Revolution on my laptop. The only other thing of interest is that we wrote an Open Letter to Barack Obama on my other blog about his position on off shore drilling for oil (which, frankly, pisses me off. I even had a dream about yelling at him, but that's for another post too.)