The London Zoo

And because I am so in the blog zone it is SICK (cue my third cup of coffee), here are some London Zoo pictures!

Now before I get started, let me throw in a disclaimer: I typically don't like zoos. Not because of 'the inhumane treatment of animals' or anything remotely honorable like that, but because they're just so effing BORING. You walk to a fence. You stare at a lion lying apathetic and innert in the sun. This is entertaining for approximately...one and a half seconds. You try to make eye contact, in the hopes that if he sees you and your happy, beaming face, he will become enthralled and do something thrilling, like stand up, but he doesn't, and so you move on to the next enclosure. You briefly skim the description printed on the wooden podium of the exhibited animal: 'The okapi, or Okapia johnstoni, comes from central Africa...' and rapidly zone out. Turning your gaze to the fabricated central African zone before you (consisting of a lot of dirt and a single tree), you strain to find this exotic beast. He is nowhere to be found. Perhaps it is feeding time in that dank, smelly warehouse located at the rear of the African plain. And so it goes: hours of trodding, squinting, waving, yelling, and moving on. Honestly, if I want to see loads of sleeping and pacing animals, I'll just go back to my desk job, where at least they occasionally get feisty after lunch.

But THIS zoo, far from being dull as dirt, was as wildly entertaining as the Cirque du Soleil.* Not because of its miniscule size (which was nice), nor because of its fabulous location at the top of Regent Park (which was nice), but mostly because of the fact that the animals were just plain SASSY. All three of them. Check out the way they posed for my camera:

This is one I like to call 'Another Day in the Jail Yard.' You can tell he's torn between the mess hall and the weight room, and wishes someone would start a pick-up game of baseball:

This was taken in the Butterfly Sanctuary. Initially you would think (as I did), 'A butterfly sanctuary! How charming! A hot and steamy little rainforest with hundreds of butterflies fluttering around you!' But then you go in and find yourself sweating and surrounding by all of these darting, flying creatures, who were doing their best summertime-moth impressions, and it was actually a bit alarming. All of the swooping and diving around your face is far from relaxing or magical, and you find yourself--as you instinctively duck and jerk back--wishing for a flyswatter. Needless to say, I loved it.

And last, but not least, we have this guy, who I think by his expression needs no introduction:

And the one who stole the show:
This cat, while perhaps not a 'technical' zoo animal, was prowling the enclosure of the above bird. He stalked about the tall grass, eyeing his prey, and totally plotting a coup. He was by far my favorite exhibit of the entire day. One, it was the first time I saw an animal doing anything that was remotely natural, and two, you've got to respect a domestic housecat playing predator to such a wildly exotic and possibly aggressive bird. I couldn't help but secretly hope for some kind of live discovery channel action but alas, the wire mesh proved too much of a barrier, not to mention the bell around his neck (obviously his owner knows how he spends his days), so he could only lurk about threateningly, ruffling the bird's feathers.

And so concludes my tour! I would follow up with a recommendation, except, well...you've kinda seen it all right here.

*I'm lying to you. There is nothing in the world more entertaining than a show that ties midgets to giant balloons and sends them afloat.

A Condiment Conundrum

So forgive me while I COMPLETELY disregard photos altogether for a minute here and get on my Go America soapbox. One that I never actually knew existed until I got to this country and discovered this. Funny how you don't realize what's really important to you until you are deprived of it. For example, (climbing up on soapbox now), hot dog relish. This country has Heinz Ketchup (and dare I say, it's used even more here than in united-states-land). It even has French's American Mustard (if you don't have the courage to use the burn-your-nostril-hairs-Colman's). But one thing it does NOT have is hot dog relish. I KNOW. I know. It amazes me, too.

So cue last night: dear, sweet Katy texts me, 'Going to Trader Joe's! You want anything?' Instantly, 'RELISH!' And then, because she's an effing genius, she replies, 'Sweet or dill??' Now here is a girl after my own heart: she even knew to ask what type. (Sweet, of course.) I was thisclose to asking for hot dogs, too, at the risk of near-death from the lack of refrigerated mailing, because GET THIS (now about to stomp on soapbox): there is not a single producer of chemical-free hot dogs in England. I learned this from Whole Foods, where I went to find some organic ones. They didn't have any, and I found out (oh, yes, I asked) that the demand here isn't high enough to warrant importing them, so they had to find a domestic producer. And that's when they found out that there is not a single domestic producer of chemical-free hot dogs in all the land. Therefore, they cannot be sold at Whole Foods under their organic standard. Hence, no hot dogs at Whole Foods. Apparently some producers are willing to SPECIALLY MAKE them, but only if the sales are guaranteed to be at xyz figures. Which of course can't be done. Voila!

(Climbing off of soapbox now) Unfortunately, my craving is such that I'm willing to take the risk with the domestic, chemical-laden variety, if I can figure out where to find THOSE. Bring on the cancer, folks! Rona's got relish coming, and she needs a vessel...

Richard Curtis wants me.

Okay, so you know the screenwriter who did Love Actually, and Bridget Jones's Diary, and Notting Hill, and Four Weddings and a Funeral, and The Boat That Rocked, and, like, LOADS OF OTHER AWESOME STUFF BECAUSE HE'S THE GREATEST EFFING SCREENWRITER OF ALL TIME? Well, for my birthday (which is Saturday, so you still have time to send me gifts), HE SIGNED ONE OF HIS MOVIES FOR ME! See below for the kickin' cover. And I don't think I have to read much between the lines to know a love letter when I see one. It's pretty obvious we're going to get married and have loads of babies:

p.s. This good fortune befell me courtesy of THE COOLEST WOMAN EVER that I nanny for, who just * happens * to be a close and personal friend of Dick's.

p.p.s. I feel that we're close enough that I can call him Dick now.

I was blind and now I see

Whoa. Okay, so you know how everybody tells you that red bell peppers are like, great sources of antioxidants? (Whatever that means.) And vitamin a and what have you? Well, get THIS: red peppers also have THREE TIMES the vitamin C content of an orange. THREE TIMES! Apparently just half of one of these guys is your daily dose! What I want to know is, why aren't they blending THESE into smoothies?? Seriously, next time I'm sick, forget the o.j. I'm making fajitas, and that is THAT.

While we're on the subject, I had a delicious baked red pepper today with melted halloumi and pesto on top, served on a bed of olive-oil drenched basil leaves. HOLY DELICIOUS, BATMAN. I feel healthier already.

I think that I shall never see / a poem lovely as a tree

One of the things that struck me most in Greece were the olive trees. Notably, their color. They're silver. I know what you’re thinking: ‘No effing way.’ Or maybe, because you don’t really care about trees, you’re thinking, ‘That’s probably the ouzo talking.’ But SERIOUSLY. I can’t make this stuff up. I’m not Garcia-Marquez. Take THIS, for example:

Look at the tree on the left. All nice and yellow and sunset-y. Look at the tree in the middle, happy and gay and green. Now look at the one on the right. Holy. Crazy. SILVER TREE. This is the olive. It’s un-buh-leevuble. You should see a whole grove of them. It’s pretty much the most unphotogenic thing in the world, or I’d post a photo of one here. Aw, heck. I will anyway. Just so you know, this is NOT under-exposed. I took about a kazillion of these photos trying to find one that worked (less sky! more grass! less grass! more leaves! more sky!), but apparently trying to make a grove of olive trees look good is like trying to put a leprechaun in your pocket. Something else I've tried on a number of occasions.

Check out this netting. Apparently when the olives are in season, they just roll the nets out to cover the ground and catch them. And when olives aren't in season, they roll them up like you see above (and below).

I liked the mystical look of all these black shrouds draping down the mountainside. The gravelike aura they gave was wonderfully spooky. It also made me glad that I had a leprechaun in my pocket.

Little Shop of Horrors

I have to go buy some art supplies for my mom today. This is a very dangerous thing for me, as art stores are my kryptonite. Not because I am an artist--no, no, then it wouldn't be so bad--but because as soon as I step foot into an art store, I'm convinced I'm THISCLOSE to my life's fulfillment in the creative arts. That maybe, if I just had the right tools, all of that latent talent would reveal itself, and my new paints will fly from my new brush onto my new canvas, and galleries will seek my magnificent works, and in only a few short weeks, the SFMoMA will call to interview this Fresh Young Talent, demanding to know where I've been hiding all these years. Or if I don't feel like painting on canvas, I can tackle my new textiles that I will stamp with my new rubber pads, on which I will carve designs with my new knife, after squirting my new textile paint onto my new piece of glass, rolled out with my new brayer roller. I'll be the next Lotta Jansdotter! I think as I survey the colors in the shop and imagine hand-stamped leaves adorning the corners of the new pillowcases I'd buy that afternoon.

And then I come home, arms overflowing with supplies, brimming with enthusiasm and ideas. Supplies that will never be touched more than once every six months, when I need to decorate a postcard.

This is why I can't go in art stores and have forbidden myself more than passing entry. But maybe a little bit of stationery can't hurt? Maybe some vellum, with glassine envelopes? That will inspire me to write more letters! I NEED it...But NO! No, today, I will be strong. Oh, yes. I will be strong.

'Boats on Water,' or 'My Recent Trip to Greece.'

I was originally going set up an online photo album of the recent shots I took in Greece* and just provide a link to it, but then I realized that I am TERRIBLE at looking at other people's online photo albums, no matter how matter how much I want to see pictures from their vacations to Egypt**, so why should I expect you to go to the effort to look through mine? So instead I will FORCE you to look at them by posting some of the shots right HERE:

The first couple of days there were stormy, which was great for two reasons: one, it made the sky so much more dynamic than a sunny day can ever do, and two, it made me nostalgic for my childhood spent in the heart of tornado alley, Oklahoma. I didn't realize how much I missed the wall-shaking rumbles and room-lighting flashes and the black-and-orange sky of a good, honest springtime tempest until our mountaintop villa started shaking during dinner on our second night. I've got to start planning my vacations back home better. If I don't sprint through hail on the way to a tornado cellar at least once on my next family visit, then I haven't planned properly.

'Boat on water.'

'Men playing cards.'

Seeing these two playing cards in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week, in a taverna on the water, made me realize that somewhere along the career path, I made a wrong turn.

'Another Boat on Water.'

I know what you're thinking: 'Did you photoshop that boat into the photo?' No. No, I did not. But I DID make it appear using the power of my mind, so I still cheated.

*Sidebar: I recently had the pleasure of spending ten days in Corfu and got back a week ago. It was rad. I am now dog-sitting in Kensington, which I dare say is as much a leap in lifestyle as Greece was. I would post photos from this, too, except I'm spending most of my time at Whole Foods.

**I'm actually lying. I don't at ALL want to see your vacation photos of Egypt. But your wedding album, now THAT would be a treat.