Day in the Life of an Idiot

Mason’s birthday was yesterday.  Shawn took the day off work and my folks came up from LaCrosse (ah, the joys of being a retired graphic artist and a college professor with summers off) and the whole family went to the zoo.  Mason broke with his usual tradition by zipping past the tropics trail and ran straight to the new “Minnesota trail.” 

The Minnesota trail is, in the words of Elizabeth Bear, a whole lot of awesome.  The trail is structured as though it was a lodge, so even though much of it is covered by a roof, it’s also open to the elements.  Think of a long, extended porch.  The animals are outside and you mostly look at them through mesh/fencing and occasionally glass.  Tall grasses and flowers grow right up to where you’re walking and birds and insects are all able to wander through.

The fences and such might sound crude, but the illusion is really that you could reach out and touch the animals and that you’re peeking into their lives surreptitiously.  Plus, there is a web cam into the beaver’s lodge and one-way glass into the coyote’s den.  The eagle, which was injured and can no longer fly, is probably the most impressive.   You’re almost eye-to-eye with him.  An unintentional cool thing is that some song birds apparently had snuck under a slender gap at the bottom of the eagle’s cage because there was evidence of, shall we say, bird lunch.  I don’t know why, but it kind of made me happy to think the eagle, even well fed as I’m sure he is, couldn’t resist the opportunity for live prey. 

My favorite was probably the lynx.  It’s such a rare animal to see, and, despite yesterday’s stifling heat, it was up and about prowling the edges of its territory.  They’re so lanky and mangy – not like anything I’ve seen.  Cool.

We also took in some lunch and then watched the bird show, something Mason and I had only seen once before.  The show is pretty much the same every year, but there are some truly amazing birds.  The fishing eagle from African was cool, if a bit scary.  Some people decided they couldn’t stand the heat and were making their way out with their baby in a carrier when the fishing eagle was perched in the tree.  The show’s host had to ask the people to sit until the bird was back with one of its handlers. I’m sure they couldn’t understand it, but Africa is also home to the monkey eating eagle, the ancestor of which scientists say very likely fed on early humans.  The handler/host didn’t say all this, but Mason and I knew about it from having read “Yikes!” a fantastic picture book about dangerous animals.

After that we tried going out on the lake in the paddleboats they have at the zoo, but it was just too hot, particularly with the life-preserver around our necks.  Grandpa and I gave up pretty quickly.  Then we all went home and hid in the air-conditioned room (Mason’s.) 

Mason got a lot of good loot.  A bunch of new dot-to-dot books, a couple of Thomas Trains, and some really fun games – a motorized fishing game and a gear puzzle game grandma and grandpa found.  I also got him a sticker book about bugs and shark jigsaw puzzle.  I think his favorite is the gear game.  Grandma and grandpa really scored with that one.

We also made Mason his traditional birthday cake – with a plastic mouse hidden in it.  This all started because just before Mason’s third birthday, he imprinted on a Sunday morning Garfield comic strip where Garfield bites into a cake and ends up spitting out a mouse he finds in it.  It’s not particularly funny to me, but Mason made us (actually grandpa, because we were visiting them that weekend) read the thing fifty times.  He started asking us if he could have a mouse in HIS birthday cake.  We have this mouse bath toy that Shawn figured out how to insert into the cake (she just cut a hole in the the bottom cake after it was baked, put it in and put the second layer on.  She puts a toothpick in the spot where the mouse is hidden so we don’t loose track of it.)  Mason was charmed!   And he asked for it again this year. So, we did.  This year the cake was yellow with purple trim (last year it was pink and purple, EXACTLY like the comic strip.)

My folks left around 4:30 pm.  I checked my e-mail in Mason's room and discovered an e-card from our friends the Jacksons.  Mason loved it so much I had to play it for him five times.

After that I was up late last night working on the *&%^#@! revisions.  I wrote a bit about my struggle over at Wyrdsmiths if you’re interested in keeping up with my writing woes.   I’m losing a lot of sleep, literally, over this dang book, but I think it’s becoming significantly better so that’s good.  I’m going to have to miss Wyrdsmiths this Thursday because our neighborhood is having a crime wave and we’ve organizing a meeting to talk to the police about it.  I’m actually going to stay home and write while Mason sleeps, but Shawn will go to the meeting.

Oh, and my Free Mouse shirt showed up.  It’s cool.  I’m going to buy about six more.  I wore it out the other day, but I have no comments to report.  I think people expect me to wear weird clothes.  I only rarely get comments when I wear my “Metaphors be with you” National Writer’s Union tee-shirt, other than a few looks of bafflement.  A couple of days ago, I wore my “Kerry / Edwards” campaign shirt and no one even looked at me cross-eyed.  Yet people feel free to comment on my cut-offs.