Queen of Rambles

I’m not a cow, but we saw cows today. They were the cleanest, shiniest cows I’ve ever seen. Normal cows are ragged, muddy and full of snot. Zoo cows are washed regularly.

Yup, we made it to the zoo.

I was worried about taking Erik on such an adventure and my worries proved well founded. He enjoyed walking on the different types of bricks, petting the donkey, mooing at the cows, and running around a little run-around place we found. He did not enjoy looking at wild animals, riding in his stroller, looking at a sea of legs, or anything else. I was expecting the apathy towards the animals, but I was not expecting the general whininess. I guess he was still feeling sick after his bout of puking. He pooped out the piece of fabric yesterday, but it looked like his body had digested the dye. I think that’s what made him sick.

Both my mom and I were ok with letting him do what he wanted to do without pushing him to go and see the next animal, but it was still an exercise in frustration. It was the first beautiful day in two weeks, so the place was packed. You couldn’t hardly walk down the paths without being run over by a giant stroller.

The morning started with frustration for me. The drive in was awful. I wanted to take the metro, but taking the metro requires a lot of walking. The zoo is built on a giant hill, so it can get really tiring if you don’t plan well. When visiting the zoo in DC you should always drive, park at the very bottom parking lot, walk up to see the animals, then have a nice downhill walk down to your car when you are tired and just want to get home.

We got stuck in a line of cars for about a half hour when we pulled into the zoo. My mom finally grabbed Erik out of the car and said she’d wait for me on the sidewalk. It took me another fifteen minutes to park, then I took off to find them where I left them.

They weren’t there.

My mom doesn’t have a cell phone, so I started to panic just a wee bit. I kept walking along the sidewalk, up up up up up the hill, and still couldn’t find them.

Eventually I got within sight of the sign that said pedestrians couldn’t proceed any further and I STILL didn’t see them. I was cursing and feeling sick and ready to kill my mom for going off who knows where. Since she’s been here she has gotten lost in every single store we’ve gone in, including the giant IKEA.

Suddenly I heard her calling my name and she popped up from behind a staircase that I hadn’t seen before. Since we’d told her we would walk up the hill at the beginning she thought she was supposed to just walk to the top of the hill and meet me there. Communication needs to be better, I suppose.

Daily dinner report: Tonight was a huge success. How can you go wrong with fondue? She was pretty skeptical and kept worrying that I was going to use goat cheese (shhhhh! I didn’t tell her one of the cheeses was sheep cheese. She never would have eaten it).

Last night was also a huge success, which is hilarious because it used both basil and noodles. She said she could tolerate angel hair pasta, so I made chicken gillespie and served it with pasta with a garlic/basil/thyme sauce and steamed carrots.

Poor mom is also having major trouble with the dialects spoken here in the big city. There are a lot of immigrants here, so she has trouble with that. She has the most trouble with the African-American dialect, though. I have to admit when I first moved here I had no idea what anyone was saying either. When I used to watch movies I always thought they were totally exaggerating and being really rude about the way big city African-Americans talk. I’ve known African-Americans and never met anyone who talked like that. I lived a sheltered, rural life. I guess I’ve gotten used to it, but when they start talking to my mom she just looks baffled and makes inappropriate comments like the following:

Clerk: Are you happy Sanjaya was kicked off? (I wouldn’t have had a clue about this, but my mom has been watching American Idol).
Mom: I’m so glad to see the sun.
Clerk, baffled: I hated that guy.
Mom: I’m from Oregon.

Bakery guy: Would you like me to slice your bread?
Mom: I don’t need any cookies.
Bakery guy, baffled: You can have a cookie sample over there.
Mom: I’m from Oregon.

I think she’s also a little deaf, which doesn’t help. I’m going to require a hearing aid when she leaves if I have to keep listening to this TV on max volume.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 21st, 2007 at 6:02 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.