You Can't Make An Omelet...

Today was Jack’s first day of day camp, and Abby works a regular Monday through Friday job, so it was just little Spence and I hanging out today. We decided to go to The Zoo.

Since we have memberships to The Zoo, we feel pretty free to go in and out as much as we please. Since we planned on spending about six hours there, we decided to head into Clifton around lunch time to eat at the Skyline there (best place to get a cheese coney in Cincinnati), rather than paying the zoos exorbitant concession fees.

We walked around Clifton for awhile, walking through Burnet woods to the University of Cincinnati Campus. We had a nice conversation. We talked basically all day long; We don’t get to do that enough. Spencer told me a lot about this game that he’s nuts about called Starcraft, and he told me he’d like to volunteer at the Zoo when he’s old enough, and we just kind of chit-chatted about a range of subjects. It was a good day.

We went and picked Jack up from day camp and decided to head back to the zoo. I’ve been to a lot of big city zoos, and I would put Cincinnati’s Zoo up against all of them. Our Zoo kicks ass.

It was kind of rainy, which was good, because the animals act a little differently when the weather is imperfect. It’s like they don’t expect to see people around, so they let their hair down a little. We spent about an hour in front of the bonobo exhibit. This young bonobo named B.J. was fascinated by my cell phone. I showed him a bunch of pictures I had on the phone, and he was pretty into it. BJ kept tapping the glass every time I had left a picture up too long (I think) as a way to get me to move on to the next image. It was a good, laid back day.

On the way home we were listening to the new Pearl Jam CD, and doing a little more chatting. We had all been walking around for hours, and were kind of wiped out; Wiped out, but happy. I have been tense lately. There have been lots of things going on: problems with the garbage disposal, I had poison ivy for about a week, projects for work, etc, etc, the stuff of life. I needed a day like this.As we turned down the road to our house, a little bird flew right into my windshield, making a dull thud. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw his diminutive corpse straddling the double yellow lines on the road.

‘ah!’ I said. ‘idiot bird!’

‘Hey’, my oldest said. ‘It wasn’t his fault...do you think he’s dead?’

‘I’d say so.’ I said.

‘Aw.’ Said my boys, almost in unison.

There was a moment of silence, and then I turned the volume on the radio back up.

If you haven’t picked up Pearl Jam’s newest CD yet, I recommend it. It’s pretty awesome.

Best place to get Chili in Cincinnati:

Pearl Jam's 'The Fixer':