No animals were harmed in the writing of this post

First off, did you see I'm (crazy and) doing NaBloPoMo for December? The theme is Zeitgeist, which is kind of a word I hate. As a refresher for me, I looked up zeitgeist on dictionary.com:


Anyway, I don't think I'll have to go out of my way to capture the spirit of the times, because doesn't this blog always capture the spirit of my times? I'm not sure what that spirit is, though. Bitterness? Cynicism?

So, since I will be traveling this month, some of the December posts will be from the iPad. And since I don't have the external keyboard for it (Christmas gift idea!), I'll be using the built-in keypad, and my posts will probably be something like:

im no a fcuking train with a 3yo please klil me whre the hll is the period kye on thsi tinhg

And speaking of NaBloPoMo, I finally figured out how to register myself on the blogrolls. It turns out the whole "hover over the tab" thing doesn't work with Firefox. So I did it in Internet Explorer ... et voila! I am now on their blogroll, and I'm hoping I get a few visitors from the NaBloPoMo site. Because right now my blog is ranked #23,592 on Technorati, and I think I can get up to #23,591! Take that, Bob's Poodle Blog! Same Old Shannon FTW!

Okay, enough housekeeping. (Isn't that what people always say in college courses and meetings?) I'm drawing a line.

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The main subject of this post is my trip to the zoo yesterday!

I went with Katie, of marathon-running, musical-loving fame, to Brookfield Zoo's Holiday Magic! That's when the zoo gets all lit-up with pretty holiday lights and Christmas trees. And remember how it was snowing yesterday, and how I dropped something heavy on my foot the day before that? Well, cold weather, adverse driving conditions, and injuries weren't going to stop us from going to see a light display that blinks in coordination with a continuous loop of "Feliz Navidad."

So nobody is allowed to call me a wuss or a Californian ever again.

Now, of course we wouldn't start our zoo trip by seeing some actual animals. First we rode the carousel!

That animal he's riding is called a Barbarusa. I called it a purse hook.

Katie picked the more mainstream penguin. I remember she had penguin pajama bottoms when she slept over at my old house, back when I was young and fun and we started the tradition of wearing hats while drunk.

Next stop: The Overpriced Kiddie Train! But this is a really cute photo, right?

And then we went to see the Great Bear Wilderness, which I don't have any photos of, but here's a picture of us in a Three Polar Bear Open Sleigh.

You can't actually see the polar bears.

Blah, blah, blah Katie with the Abominable Snowman:

Best. Picture. Ever.

In the spirit of the holidays, Nathan wanted to paint himself up like The Flash.


Yadda, yadda, yadda they had a neat model train set. (You can see why I'm not a scrapbooker.)

Also note that he is tearing off his coat, because he does that 3 seconds after he gets indoors.

And that was our trip to the zoo. And not one of those pictures featured an actual animal. Oh well, most of them were in their indoor hidden enclaves, because who would be dumb enough to be outdoors in weather like that?