December 29, 2002 - 9:56 a.m.

Home Again

I'm back from my trip, and from the sounds above my head, I think the kids are trying out their new rollerblades in the kitchen right above me!

Wow, it's been a while! I had net access while I was in New Orleans, but not the time to sit down and compose an entry. Now that I am back and my time is fully my own again, I can fill everyone in on what the trip was like. There's enough to tell that I think I will split it into a couple different entries. Plus, that way I'll have something to write about in the next couple days when I am doing nothing more exciting than sleeping, cleaning, and a little DIY.

One of the best parts of the New Orleans trip, other than hanging out with the fam, was going to the zoo. If I am visiting a new place and it has a zoo, there is a 90% chance that I will find a way to go. I can think of few ways I would rather spend an afternoon than with a bunch of exotic animals. The New Orleans Audubon Zoo certainly did not disappoint. Being the day after Christmas, it was pretty quiet, so we took our time and meandered.

Some pictures and highlights:

That's the VERY pregnant elephant. The picture doesn't do it justice, but you could make out the shape of the baby elephant's body through the mom's sides, and even see it move! We suspect she'll have the baby any day now. It was really cool!

This is a photo of my younger brother and his wife hanging out with the goats in the petting zoo. Unlike many petting zoos, you couldn't feed the goats, but they had brushes you could groom them with. The goats loved it, and practically came running when they saw you grab a brush. They acted like big pussy cats getting a good scratch behind the ears!

My favorites, the otters! There were four in the exhibit, and they were quite active, showing off for us, by swimming about in their pool and rolling onto their backs to look up at us with their adorable, beady, black eyes! I kept threatening to take one home to live in my bathtub! :)

This is a siamang, a primate a bit larger than a chimp. He put on the biggest show of any of the animals. That bulbous thing on his neck is a vocal pouch that is used to help their calls resonate, and it expands and contracts just like a bullfrog's throat. Once a few people had gathered near his enclosure, he started making noise - usually a deep sort of territorial sounding call, but occasionally a higher pitched "eeee-yah!" thing. All the while he was looking at the people and swinging around with his pouch ballooning in and out and basically driving the other monkeys nearby crazy!

This may have been the most unusual thing we saw - the white alligator. It was really odd looking! Apparently, it isn't albino (it has blue eyes rather than red) but leucistic, which is a rare recessive genetic trait. In the dim light of the tank it was really sort of creepy.

There were also white tigers, kangaroos, lots of snakes (including my favorite, the amazon green tree python), sea lions, jaguars, wrestling raccoons, zebras, emus, softshell turtles, and many others. Oh how I love animals!

In other news, I saw the BIA at a party last night. I'm not sure how to interpret his actions, yet. He gave me a big, tight hug - how I've missed those - and kissed me on the cheek. Also said he'd missed me and that we should talk. I don't think he'd have kissed me if he was still wanting to keep some distance between us - he ought to know that would be mean to me - so I want to think it's a good sign. On the other hand, I don't want to get my hopes up. Hopefully we can get together in the next couple of days and have that talk so I know how things stand now that he's had some free time to think without the distractions of law school. We'll see.

today's project: unpacking

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