Work is Hard

Due to an absence of adventure, Liz has worn us to work instead. We thought it would be hard - dragging kids through the woods, dealing with reptile poop, staring at a power strip under her desk for the afternoon... Boy, were we wrong. This is how our day at work went...

First, we had to spend some quality time thinking about what to do with the kids who come for camp. Apparently the blood flows better if the feet are propped up on the desk. We usually refer to this posture as "chillin'" but Liz seems to think it is a more productive pose.

After some thoughtful minutes spent on camp planning we shifted to more important things - like how to kill the two hours that were left until we could leave...

Who knew that staring at large cows on a computer could be so illuminating? After reflecting on the state of funds in our pockets, and how much chocolate we would be able to procure with said funds, we decided to go for a walk, ahem, we mean we went to the main offices on important work-related business (business that just happened to take us past the gift shop...where, oddly enough, we met several of our co-workers engaged in similar activities.)

At the main offices we met Robin, the museum receptionist. Robin admired us and asked whether our maker "took orders." Liz said "no." (We are becoming quite famous around the museum!)

After such a long hard day Liz felt the need to unwind so we headed for her parents house and found a peaceful patch of grass to relax on. We took a short shoeless romp around the backyard and wound up lounging next to a lovely little garden that was watched over by a stone turtle.

Changes

Well! We have been experiencing so much over the last few weeks that we haven't had time to report on all the goings on! The two biggest things that have happened are: we moved, and Liz got a second job.

Moving was very stressful. Liz kept crying all of the time because of all the problems that seemed to come with her new apartment. Finally, we have all begun settling in and things have gotten much better. We knew it for sure when she stopped on her way to set her clothes out for today, turned around, and brought us out of the drawer. Whoopee! Adventure was on its way!

Our adventure turned out to be a bit of a surprise as Liz took us somewhere we had already been - the Zoo. Seems Liz has gotten a summer job there and spends almost as much time there as she does at the museum. Our trip to the zoo was not like our last. We got to go in areas we weren't allowed to see before (some of that was a blessing - yuck!) and met all kinds of interesting animals and people.

We started the day introducing zoo visitors to the Black-footed penguins. It would have been totally cool if it hadn't been during their morning feeding...pee-yew!!! Penguins only eat fish and there was no getting away from the smell.

Next we had to do a show about frogs. There were many people in the audience - most of whom seemed to be only slightly taller than the penguins we saw at the start of the day! They were very enthusiastic about the frogs but at the end things got a little dicey. When Liz invited them to meet the frogs up close they all rushed the stage, yelling and pushing and trampling each other. We were sure we were going to be hurt - or at least muddied a little. Fortunately the adults in charge of the kids managed to break-up the mob and get them in a nice line to look at the frogs. Whew! It sure seemed like a close call.

Later we got to meet the lady who takes care of the wolves and explain to the public why she was training them and how she was doing it. They were very cool (and not at all smelly!) Our last stop of the day was at the elephants. Their trainers came out and Liz talked about them for the public. Whenever Liz would mention something cool about elephants they would do something, like, when she mentioned their trunks, they both raised them in the air. And when she told the audience how to tell them apart, they each got up and waggled their ears when she said their names. Now if only we could get the darn rabbit to follow commands like that...

On our way back to the education trailer we discovered strange tracks in the mud along the road. They turned out to be elephant tracks! Liz gave us a chance to see how we measured up but even Liz's feet were small in comparison to an elephant's!

We know that Liz will be busy this summer, but we are looking forward to our next trip to the zoo!