I have been meaning to write about my trip to the zoo in Grand Rapids for several weeks now and so here goes!

    Tod and I decided we should go out to Grand Rapids to visit with our friend Liz and her roommates.  On the way there as we went through Stockbridge (I think it was on this trip) we passed a peculiar sight.  Four cars were pulled over on the road and a woman was waving her arms at something.  As we got closer, we saw a cow standing by the side of the road, looking quite bored, and a miniature pony running back and forth as a woman tried to shoo it to the side.  We laughed and continued.  We were definitely in Stockbridge.
    After the drive we got to Liz's house and met up with Jessie and Jenny and since we were all very hungry we headed off to Wendy's.  The we sat down to eat and the food was good, then Liz pointed out Tod's head shaking as he ate, which of course was nothing new but still the source of much humor.  Then we pointed at the cars going by outside the window and which made Jenny turn around to look, only to find herself starring at a wall.  And it was the source of much humor ;-).  After more joking around and inappropriate conversation we headed to the zoo!
    On arriving we took off chasing the geese and ducks gathered by the large pond there, bounding and waving our arms to scare them all into the water.  And of course the girls had all just walked the other way straight to the gate, ignoring our antics entirely.  But we showed those avians good!  Then when we got to the gate it was free!  Once inside we wandered around a little bit and decided to go down the "Australian Trail" featuring a lovely sign detailing the Didgeridos and Didgeridon'ts of the petting farm.  We determined I was as tall as a kangaroo (thanks to the fine measuring board by the entrance) and that Liz is definitely taller than a wallaby although still very little.  Also Tod and Jessie road on the horses (rusty barrels with saddles) we found along the trail.  At the end of the trial was the petting zoo and we saw a weird goat with no horns, or ears.  So I fed it some leaves off the ground.  And the other goats tried to eat our shoes through the fence, and they smelled (like goat cheese) so we left!
    Further up the trail we found a porcupine outside, and all alone in his exhibit so he didn't have his girlfriend with him.  Last time we were at the zoo they were inside a dark building and a guy who was watching them told Liz that they were having sex, and that he was "Biting her, and pulling her hair."  Not knowing what to say, I told him "Yeah, that's what she likes."  We laughed.  And do to this day whenever we bring it up :-).  Then we looked at an owl chilling in his cage for the rest of his life, and I was tempted to sing to him "It's only forever.  It's not long at all."  But I didn't.  We went on down the path and got to the jellyfish exhibit, and sure enough inside they were playing trancey music just like Jenny had predicted while the jellies floated around looking all other worldly.  It was cold though so we decided to duck into the aquarium for a little bit, and as soon as we stepped into the doors there was a constant noise from penguin calls.  They were so cute!  And so LOUD.  We all went over to the glass and watched them swimming around, and someone commented on the gulls in the exhibit with them and that maybe they had snuck in haha.  So I was leaning over the top of the glass watching them swim by and making penguin calls at them "Rrrrrrrrahrahrahrah!" and I must have said something naughty in Penguin because the next thing I know there are three of them swimming back and forth right in front of the glass.  Pecking at my crotch.  Sooooooo... I don't even wanna know what that was about!  The rest of the aquarium was cool but after penguins peck your crotch, fish swimming about just doesn't seem as attention grabbing.
    After that we went over to inspect the otters, and decided that one of them was dead, and in the process of being buried with leaves by her grieving husband.  But soon a rival theory arouse that she was actually pregnant, and DEMANDING he build her comfy nest while she sat around doing nothing.  And then go out and get her pickles and ice cream, haha thanks Tod.  The prairie dogs were nowhere to be seen, but NO one has ever seen them out so that wasn't news.  Next door the wolverine was pacing back and forth looking angry, and then he hopped up on a rock so I stood up really straight, and went up on my tip toes so I would be taller than him still because everyone decided he wanted to be up high because he thought he was better than all of us.  Then I told him the Spartans are better.  Haha next we looked at the bears and they were laying next to each other looking very cuddly, except as Liz pointed out they probably wanted to rip our faces off.  We realized they have bear powers, AND could smell the menstruation so we got the heck out of there!  Next was the kitty exhibit and we watched the pumas run around for a while, and a group of women came by with their little kids, and right away the cats suddenly got really interested and started walking around right up by the fence eyeing them ;-).  The snow leopards were the same way, and today they didn't chase each other around the exhibit like last time which was too bad.  Liz said once she saw them trying to catch a bird that had come into the exhibit, and it ALMOST got one!  And then...  We went to the monkey exhibit.
    Last time I went to the zoo with everyone we had a great time watching the chimps and I expected this would be more of the same.  We would watch the monkeys while they watched us, Tod would show one his teeth and piss it right off, it would take that anger out on ME and try to bite me through the glass...  And give me psychic monkey stink, as we decided later out in the car.  But nothing could have prepared us for what happened next.  We walked in and everything seemed fine.  Someone noticed a chimp in the exhibit licking something brown off the wall, but we decided it was chocolate.  DEFINITELY chocolate.  One of the chimps climbed up the tree near the observation platform and sat there on the branch for a while, scratching itself and picking at its butt.  Just typical chimp stuff.  We were laughing and talking about how gross it was, then it started peeing.  Okay also really gross, but you know it's just a little water.  As Jessie pointed out, it's sterile and still gross, but not a big deal.  Then it cupped its hand back there, and a horrible thought occurred to me.  I had heard all those stories about what monkeys do, what they're famous for doing.  But I had never really believed they did it.  It couldn't possibly be about to...  The monkey got a bemused expression on its face.  And then, its hand wasn't empty anymore.  Everyone took a big step back away from the glass.  The chimp had POOPED in its HAND.  But it wasn't over.  It turned slightly so we could see what it was doing, raised its poo-hand to it's face and...  took a little bite.  THE MONKEY ATE ITS OWN POOP.  Jessie was making choking noises and had backed all the way to the wall, and a moment later we were all running outside laughing in horror at what we'd just seen.  Liz commented that when she heard Jessie making coughing sounds she knew she was about to throw up and that if she hadn't gotten out of there she was sure she would have.  "There's no way we evolved from that" Jessie said as we walked off.
    We walked up the ramp to the llama exhibit and of course shouted at them that we had cookies (llamas HATE cookies, I discovered this many years ago) and they seemed a little pissed off.  Then I started standing on my tip toes and going up and down, and one of them would raise its ears every time I went up, and lay them back down when I went down.  We continued to harass them and talk about how ugly they were until one leaned its head back like it was taking aim at me, and started making this "hawking a loogey" motion with its throat.  At that point I was no longer so confident and Tod announced that llama spit can leave a welt if you get hit, so I took some rather hasty steps back, and out of range.  I don't remember when exactly but we also looked at some other animals, and Liz confirmed that the camel they had there was not worth 5 dollars to ride because "It'll just let ANYONE ride it for money.  It's like a camel ride whore."
    Our next stop was the Herpetarium (LOL you know who the poor guy) and lots of fun was had talking about the little critters, and Tod pointed to the anacondas and said "He don't want none" and on the whole it was a very nice walk through the building.  At the end we came to the Spider Monkey exhibit, with their little monkey caks flopping around as they swung around their cage, and seeing more monkeys was not what we needed so we headed on out.
    So we all had a really great time at the zoo and decided since we were all out together we should go rent Aladdin!  After a good hour of driving around and going to two different stores there was no sign of it.  They had some freaky movie with super models trapped on an island with Noah's Ark and giant rats, and Micheal Jackson as some kind of secret agent spy, but not Aladdin.  It's a crime!  So instead we went back to Liz's and we all played Simpson's Clue, which was a lot of fun with everyone doing dumb things because apparently none of us remember how to play.  And then...  an epic game of Sorry.  It was the most intense game ever with Liz acting as the coach for the other four players since she wasn't in the game and telling us what the best moves were.  So with her as the mastermind EVERYONE got worked by everyone else for the entire game which lasted forever and included MANY furious outbursts as players got knocked back to their starting spot.  I thought Jenny was going to attack me at one point she was so mad ;-).  We were watching The Little Mermaid in the background and made periodic comments about it, such as Ariel's stereotyped portrayal of women and the model it set for little girls growing up thinking they're nothing unless they look pretty and have guys want to marry them.  And what she might have done to Eric on the beach when she rescued him and he was unconscious, that made him obsessed with finding her again.  And how she has crabs (Sebastian).  And how Eric is such a dork.  And insults against the French.  It was good times!
    Then Jenny left to go spend time with the Cellphone Tumor and Jessie decided she wasn't hungry, so that left just Tod myself and Liz along with her boyfriend Dan to go to IHOP and continue our wonderful tradition of discussing fetuses and stem cells over pancakes.  We had a great time!  Along with the expected conversations about random and fairly inappropriate things a super old man came up to me and shook my hand while muttering something and looking DEEP into my eyes, his pride in me clearly painted across his face.  I have no idea what he said, or why he shook my hand, or why he looked so terribly proud of me.  But ummmm, I guess it was nice?  Hahhaha oh man and as we were leaving Tod and Liz were talking about emo song and wondering who the original emo band was, and some guy there is like "Such and such!" and started telling them all about the history of the genre.  So they laughed after he left, and the cashier is like "Yeah that's my brother."  And went on to tell them all about his brother's love for emo music and how sometimes he would come home and find him crying, and he wanted to just be like "Shut up and get over it!"  Then emo kid held the door for us as we left and we thanked him before running out into the pouring rain to the car, laughing.
    We drove to another video store and of course they didn't have Aladdin, so we rented the sequel to the horrible werewolf movie we watched over the summer at Liz's in Chelsea.  Then we had to drive back in the rain again and the car was fogging up something fierce so everyone had to grab tissues and try to wipe down the windows so we could see hahaha.  When we got home Jessie was nowhere to be found, and had gone off to be a stereotype.  But whatever we had a movie about a japanese samurai werewolf!  And it was so bad.  I won't even try to describe it.  We all had a lot of fun though laughing at it and chatted about late night things for a while.  Anyway it was a really fun trip and someday I hope we all get together and go to the zoo again :-).

    To let us mess up your state with our incompetence.  And line the pockets of our crony friends.  I just went downstairs and the answering machine had three campaign ads on it just from today.  Isn't that like political telemarketing?  And illegal?  The way I see it they're selling their candidate, and many people stand to make a lot of money if they win.  That's why businesses donate money to the campaign right, because they'll get it all back and more in special tax breaks and sweet heart deals.  And the number is on the no call list so they should all be fined for leaving their silly advertisements on the machine :-P.

    I just read a bit of my last post before my year and a half hiatus and yikes.  Anyway I've been well.  There are lots of things that never made it on to this page and they probably won't.  But I decided I wanted to have a webpage again so here I am!  I'm of course planning to change some things about this page to make it a little more fun to look at visually but it's late and I'm going to go to bed soon.  My plan is to steal some things from Tod so I can have some fun alternating pictures at the top when the page gets loaded up but that's a task for another time.  Aside from that I just made the kitty up there talk and was quite proud of myself!  I'm a Photoshop master!!!
    I will keep things short but I feel I should give anyone who comes here a little bit of reading entertainment at least!  The last year and a half has seen many adventures for me.  I've fed french fries to baby swans at the lake, been approached by old men at the gym to whom I am "an inspiration" (It seemed a little sketchy, old guys want my bod what can I say), listened to the sordid tales of my rocker guitar teacher, and come full circle by being dunked out of my kayak by angry adult swans who weren't happy to see me with their babies.
    That's all for now but I may add in depth posts in the days to come.  I also need to talk to the powers that be about getting my commenting system working again since it's been defunct for a long time now.  Later!