A night at the Los Angeles Zoo

I recently signed up to be a co-leader of Tessa's 3rd grade brownie troop. This is a group of 15 very sweet little girls. The troop is in its third year and my role is to get us ready to go camping in tents. Getting to know the great outdoors is a core value of scouting so we're going to be doing that whether the girls like it or not.

We have a plan in place to gradually reach the tent camping goal. Last spring we made a two-night trip to LazyJ Ranch in Santa Monica (sadly we just learned that place is closing). Our brownies were just 2nd graders so all the moms except two came along to make sure the girls behaved and that no one would be homesick. This past weekend we stayed over one night at the LA Zoo. We had fourteen girls and just three moms. And the girls were just great. Not a one complained about her mom not being there, and they independently packed up their sleeping bags and duffles in the morning without even being told. And they schlepped their stuff without a complaint (well maybe Tessa complained a little). There was only one teeny bit of drama because one group of girls didn't leave space for another girl's sleeping bag on the floor, but we were able to resolve that very easily with our "let's include everyone speech." Below is a picture of our troop leader Cathy surveying the sleeping arrangements with satisfaction.

As mentioned, I have set myself up as the camping expert who is going to lead the troop on the outdoor voyage of discovery. So the first thing I did to establish the respect of everyone was leave my sleeping bag and pillow at home. It was all packed and ready by the door, and I simply didn't put it in the trunk. Brilliant! I did however, pack an extra blanket for Tessa so I swiped that from her when we arrived and made a makeshift pillow out of some clothes. I had brought my Aerobed and I figured with the blanket, the makeshift pillow and the Aerobed, I was still going to be getting a pretty good night's sleep. But I wasn't counting on the itty-bitty leak that had developed in the Aerobed. As I was drifting off to sleep at around 11 p.m. (yes, our delightful girls actually all quieted down and went to sleep as soon as lights were out) I did notice that the mattress was not quite as firm as when I first inflated it, but I figured I was just imagining things. I awoke at 2:30 a.m. to the realization that my mattress was half-deflated. But I calculated at the rate it was deflating I would still be somewhat aloft by morning. After that I woke up about every 45 minutes and by 5:00 a.m. I was lying flat on the cold cement floor and that was the end of any further sleep. After this, I'm not sure whether I should trusted to supervise the setting up of tents and attaching of propane tanks.

The zoo sleepover itself was somewhat lame. I chaperoned Rachel and Hannah's NJ troop when they went to a similar sleepover at the Philadelphia Zoo and it was much more educational because it was a backstage tour where we went into the nighttime quarters of the animals and the keepers demonstrated how they are cared for. At the LA Zoo we just walked around to the same exhibits you would see in the daytime, except that they were in darkness and many of the animals had been put inside. Tessa's comment was, "you can see the animals better in the daytime" and I had to agree. But the girls gave the event a 10 out of 10 because they love being together for sleepovers no matter where it is. Hopefully they will feel the same when they are in a cold tent and it is raining outside!

This next photo is of Tessa's friends, Eden and Catrina:


and here Tessa with Layla and Mallika.


This is my best animal shot -- the problem with taking photos in the dark with a LED screen is that you can't see a thing! This might have been a decent picture if the camera had been pointed just a bit lower.

I made my first blog entry and came back today to see how many followers I had attracted. It was a big fat zero. On the news today I heard that men who are using internet dating services are most attracted to women whose profiles say they are interested in yoga and cooking. Being married I am not interested in dating but still, since 50 percent of potential readers are men it might make sense do a little update to the profile. It's not a terrible stretch (excuse the pun). I do cook sometimes and I did try yoga once.

Tomorrow is my choir's perfomance of Beethoven's Mass in C (that right, one of my real interests is choral music). This is a very beautiful work, but not much fun to sing for a 2nd soprano like me. Every phrase seems to lead to a high G which has to be sustained over several measures. After a while I feel like I'm shrieking and I probably am! Gerard is taking a group photo of the choir before the concert and completing the headshots of chior members tomorrow. He has been so generous to do this for me and the choir.

Tessa and I have been canvasing our block to sell nuts for Tessa's Brownie troop and have now met most of the neighbors. The odd thing about this is that we have lived in this house for almost seven years -- and we still didn't know any neighbors! It turns out that we have a number of widows living on this street and they don't come to the door if they don't recognize who is there. There are a few well known cases of elderly women who have been overcome by force after opening the door and had their houses robbed. Well, you can't blame them for being careful. We must look harmless because we were cordially invited in to their living rooms and we have now made several new friends.

Well, in addition to selling the nuts, I am also running the sale for the troop. I have put in about 80 hours of effort for $400 profit for the troop so that is about $5 per hour of my time. I'm glad my regular job pays better than that! And our troop gets 25% of the sale price, the girl scout organization gets about 50% and the remaining 25% goes to the nut packaging company. It's a very good deal for the girl scouts organization but not so good for any of the other parties. This is about the same deal as with the girl scout cookies. But I'm not complaining because after all I volunteered to run this sale.

I'm waiting for a phone call from Rachel who is attending an English group meeting and should have called 30 minutes ago to be picked up. I am still in the business of picking up Rachel and Hannah from all their activities even though they are almost 17. I'm starting to regret not pushing them to get driver's licenses earlier because they could be driving by now. But if they were I would be staying up late worrying instead of staying up late picking them up. Hannah is at a marching band competition and will be getting back at 12:15 a.m.

As in most things, Rachel and Hannah are polar opposites when it comes to driving. Rachel is conscientious and remembers to follow the safety rules. She always looks left-right-left before making a right turn. But Rachel doesn't handle the car well so we are frequently in the oncoming lane at some point during her turns. She also has trouble telling right from left when under stress so I learned to point when when giving her turn directions. One day early in our practice driving it took two miles for her to finally make a left turn I was requesting. We were actually in the next town by the time she finally understood what I wanted. Hannah knows her directions and handles the car like a pro but she drives off before buckling her seatbelt, enters intersections without looking either way, and she speeds. She has a serious case of overconfidence. So with her I have to give a stream of safety reminders about the most basic things -- break now, slow down to keep the car under control during turns, etc. In California teens have to have 6 hours of professional instructions and I'm thinking about buying an extra 6, or maybe 60 would be better. Ok, I am cautious with my teen drivers. Natalie has had her license for over 2 years and has only been allowed to drive on the freeway twice.

Time to go figure out what is up with Rachel and why she is not calling. Not that she will answer her cell phone...

A blog of my own - inaugural address

Inspired by my friend Mia's blog, I am going to start my own in the hope that if some interesting experiences come my way I will have the presence of mind to write them here. Of course Mia's life is much more interesting than mine because she just moved to Japan and has much to report.

I will start with the trip we took to Orlando last week. Gerard (husband) had to give a keynote address at OOPSLA (sounds like LA had an accident, doesn't it?) which is a conference for Object Oriented programmers. Tessa (youngest daughter) and I went with him. We stayed at the Disney Contemporary Resort and visited the four Disney theme parts in four days. Gerard had to skip Wednesday's entertainments in order to give his talk at the conference. My favorite was Animal Kingdom, Gerard liked Epcot best, and Tessa liked whichever one she visited most recently. The highlight for Tessa was the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror ride at Disney Hollywood Studios, and the low point was when Orlando airport security confiscated her Epcot mini-snowglobe on the basis that the one ounce of fluid in the globe might potentially be flammable. The security guy was untouched by the sight of an eight-year-old girl standing silently with tears cascading down her cheeks. Mom was not untouched and is trying to get a replacement snowglobe.

I last visited Orlando in 1996 so that Natalie (eldest daughter), who was then Minnie's most devoted fan, could meet the object of her admiration in person. I had three little kids in tow and so we visited Magic Kingdom one day and spent the rest of the time around the hotel. So, I didn't see as much of the theme parks as I did on this trip. The biggest difference I see is the number of mobility scooters in use.

The picture is of Tessa in Tomorrowland at Magic Kingdom with our hotel in the far background.