Wednesdays

Wednesdays are Zoo Day. Or Aquarium Day, if the weather is being uncooperative. It's one of my favorite parts of the week.

Gramma and Grampa are so nice: They renewed my membership for 2012. Thank you! I'm really looking forward to the new card coming because then Mom will give me my very own card for my wallet. I like to drive to the zoo on my fire truck. With my purse. (Or backpack, if I'm feeling racy.) Of course, I'm just pretending when I drive. Mom drives when we go for real.

We're regulars at the zoo, so we have a pretty good routine.

First, I help Mom get tickets -- the person at the membership desk always appreciates my help.

Then we hand the tickets to Marcus. Not me. The grown-up Marcus who lets us in.

Also known as "Stinky fa-meen-goes"

The flamingos always greet us.

Next, it's off to the fountain and elephants. Sometimes we get lucky and the elephants make a poop. I'm always very impressed with it. Usually they just eat hay. Or tree branches. Neither seems particularly tasty to me, but different strokes... Elephants are one of my favorite animals right now. I'm not quite sure why we can't get one, but Mom mentioned dung shoveling=problematic -- not sure how it's different than scooping GeeGee's poop.

Mom said actually she's not sure either...

On the way there, we always stop to visit the duck parade. Definitely one of my favorite parts. I like to test each duck for ridability. It's important to get a good fit.

Usually we head to the playground and the Carousel at this point. I prefer to call the Carousel the Meh-Go-Roun. Probably because Mom calls it the Merry-Go-Round. (Sometimes Big Marcus works at the Carousel.)

On any given day, I prefer to ride an elephant. If only they had a giant duck...

Then we go choose-your-adventure and visit either:

- the lion, tigers, and bears. Oh my. And the monkeys and apes. But Frank*'s right: They're not all in a zoo...

- the sea lions -- who put on a show rivaled only by my attempts to kill myself in the stands

- the snakes and spiders

- the swamp

Mom tries really hard to make sure we head home for lunch before I turn into a lunatic. But whatever we miss, we can always see the next week!

Today was fun because I got to ride in my friend's wagon. I like me some wagon!

And we got a special treat: This lovely fellow escorted us out.

Ok, he might have been trying to break into the Cafe, but we can pretend.

And we made it home and had lunch before I went lunatic.

* That would be Sinatra

And all the monkeys aren't in the zoo

Every day you meet quite a few

So you see it's all up to you

You can be better than you are

You could be swingin' on a star