The Omaha Zoo

Over Memorial Day weekend, we went to Nebraska for Nathan's cousin Lauren's wedding.  While we were there, we spent an afternoon at Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium.

Before I continue, let's get this out of the way:

As a Southern California native, I grew up assuming the San Diego Zoo is the greatest zoo in the world.  It does, after all, have pandas.  I've also visited the zoos in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, London, the Bronx and Central Park.  The Omaha Zoo does not have a panda, but it's still my favorite.

Nathan has taken me to the Omaha Zoo twice, and we have still not seen all the exhibits.  There are so many animals!  Many of the animals are outside like at a traditional zoo, but there are also enclosed "environments" like the Desert Dome and the Lied Jungle. 

(And, because I'm feeling really mature, I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that I have not yet had a chance to visit the Grewcock Butterfly & Insect Pavilion, but I just want to mention the Grewcock Pavilion because it's called "Grewcock" and holy crap, how does anyone ever say that last name with a straight face?) 

My favorite part of the zoo is probably Skyfari, which is like a ski lift that crosses over the park.  You fly only about twenty or thirty feet above giraffes, monkeys, ostriches and other fun animals.  If you ever visit Nebraska, I highly recommend the Omaha Zoo.

Oh yeah, I might have gone crazy with my camera while we were there....

Summer Travel Reads

Summer does not officially start until June 20th, but in my heart, it's already here.  I'm hoping to do some armchair traveling this summer from the comfort of my swimming pool (I'll leave the armchair in the house, but you know what I mean).  These are my favorite travel memoirs:

• Bill Bryson's travel books, especially A Walk In the Woods and In A Sunburned Country.  In the first book, Bill attempts to hike the Appalachian Trail (which actually cut through my college campus).  In the second, he travels through Australia.  I still laugh when I think about these books.
• The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift In the Equatorial Pacific, by J. Maarten Troost.  The author and his wife move to a remote South Pacific Island.  By remote, I mean "once a month, a container ship arrives with supplies and sometimes, every few weeks, an airplane stops by."  One time, the container ship arrives without the monthly beer supply and the entire island goes bat sh*t crazy.
• No Touch Monkey!  And Other Travel Lesson Learned Too Late, by Ayun Halliday.  The author goes on crazy adventures in Romania and Bali so you don't have to. 
• A Year in the Merde, by Stephen Clarke.  There are a lot of memoirs written by Brits and Americans who live in France and rhapsodize about how the French are the most amazing people in the world.  Not Clarke.  Clarke lived in Paris for a year and had a terrible time.  This book chronicles his misadventures.
• A Year In Provence, by Peter Mayle.  If you dream about operating your own vineyard and living in a drafty estate in the French countryside, then this is your book.
• Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia, by Elizabeth Gilbert.  The title summarizes the book better than I can.  I think a lot of people felt obligated to hate this book since it was on the bestseller list for so long, but I adore it.

Can you recommend any good armchair travel books?  If so, please leave a note below in the comments!

Disneyland!

Being a grown-up involves a lot of crappy stuff, like paying bills and taxes, but there are also perks, like going to Disneyland whenever you like. 

Last Sunday started like a normal Sunday.  We went to our favorite bagel shop for breakfast, played a lot of Mario Kart Wii, and grilled some chicken for lunch.  We were planning to swim and bum around the house after lunch, but then we decided to go to Disneyland.  BECAUSE THAT'S THE SORT OF CRAZY SPONTANEOUS ADVENTURERS WE ARE!  WE EVEN SOMETIMES GO TO NEW RESTAURANTS WITHOUT CHECKING YELP!  WE ARE WILD AND CRAZY - WATCH OUT!

We took a minor detour and Nathan got his First Annual Summer Buzz Cut at SuperCuts.  For a thirty-two year old man, Nathan has had an impressive full head of hair; but he has been talking about buzzing his hair off for the summer for a couple of years now.  The stylist looked to me for approval, but I did not try to knock the clippers from her hands.  We are both pleasantly surprised with how Nathan looks.  I just hope his hair grows back the same, and the buzz cut did not turn him into the next Carrot Top.

But I digress.  We left Pasadena around 1:10 p.m., encountered almost no traffic, and entered Disneyland around 2:30 p.m.  Between parking the car, riding the tram to the park, and buying tickets, we made good time.  If you live in the Los Angeles area and the park is open until midnight, I highly recommend this strategy.  The park will be crowded when you first arrive, but then around 8 p.m., it starts to empty.  So you get a normal day at Disneyland without the freeway traffic.

My second favorite ride at Disneyland used to be Star Tours, but the ride has been updated and the changes made my soul hurt.  First, the ride is now 3-d, but the 3-d vision did not improve the ride.  It just meant I had to wear stupid glasses.  What about patrons who are wearing glasses?  Are they supposed to wear the stupid 3-d glasses over their normal glasses?  Second, there are now dozens of different Star Tours experiences, so the ride will always be different.  In theory, this is a cool idea.  In practice, we were sent on an adventure inspired by A Phantom Menace AND I HATE THAT MOVIE SO EFFING MUCH.  As I was riding Star Tours, I just kept thinking about how much I hate George Lucas for taking a dump all over the Star Wars franchise.  It's hard to enjoy an amusement park ride when you are having bad flashbacks to Jar Jar Binks. 

I may never ride Star Tours again... but Space Mountain is still my favorite ride at any park.  And we rode twice!  All in all, we had a great trip to Disneyland and got to ride all of our favorite big kid rides, from Splash Mountain to Haunted Mansion, with one exception: the Matterhorn.  The Matterhorn was closed on Sunday, and it was also closed during our last visit in February 2012.  Apparently, I'm cursed, so if you want to ride the Matterhorn, don't go to Disneyland with me. 

A special message for Disneyland's Director of Operations: The entrance to Disneyland smelled like raw sewage on June 3, 2012, both when we arrived at 2:15 p.m. and when we left around 10 p.m.  Also, an alarming number of park patrons smelled like urine.  The Happiest Place on Earth should smell like unicorns and fairy dust, not urine, poop and vomit.  Please fix these problem, thank you.

A special message for the grown men wearing Mickey Mouse ears at Disneyland: you look stupid.

The Great Sugar Detox of 2012

Earlier this year, I conquered my caffeine addiction - and I feel great!  I feel less edgy, sleep better, and have more energy.  But most noticeably, my face looks better.  My skin feels softer and smoother; I get fewer zits; and there's less redness in my cheeks.  (In my case, the "redness" was like "the unhealthy flushing of a fat ass," and not " the pleasant blush of a cheerleader.")

Now I'm ready to tackle my sugar addiction.  I know I will be healthier and happier if I can cut back on my sugar intake.  But I'm an addict, so I need to purge the sugar from my system.  

I have no idea what my sugar detox will entail.  Should I just eliminate white sugar from my diet?  Or should I also eliminate things like honey and dried fruit?  Fruit has sugar, but I'll be damned if I'm giving up my blueberries and watermelon.

I don't intend to break-up with sugar forever, but I think I need to detox for awhile in order to control my sweet tooth.  Right now, I crave dessert daily, and by "dessert" I mean "ice cream, cake, and pie."  I'd like to get to a place where I can have a sugary treat once or twice a week (and maybe, eventually, once or twice a month - but I'm not yet emotionally prepared to think that way).  But how do I get there?  Should I eliminate sugar for a week?  A month?  Or maybe I should start with baby steps and just take this day by day?

And how will I feel without sugar?  Energized?  Lethargic?  Giddy?  Depressed?  Will I start preaching the Gospel of Sugar Detox?  Or should I just crawl into a ditch right now and die?

Wish me luck.  If you hear about a Pasadena woman who gets arrested for engaging in lewd acts in public with a cupcake, you can safely assume it was me having a meltdown.

My DIY Merit Badges Tote Bag

Although my Girl Scout days ended decades ago, I still love the idea of earning and displaying merit badges.  So I made myself a merit badges tote bag: 

I was going to be lazy and just sew badges on to the front side of the bag, but I went overboard when I ordered the badges.  So now both sides of my tote declare my commitment to nerdiness:

I tried to only use badges that I have legitimately "earned" at some point in my lifetime.  The etiquette badge is questionable since I still struggle with utensils at restaurants, but I did attend cotillion lessons for two years. 

I don't think I've ever attended a "Pizza Party," but I have eaten a lot of pizza and can make a damn good pizza from scratch.  Besides, every merit badges tote bag needs some pizza!

My claim to the laser tag badge is tenuous at best.  I played laser tag once, for about 30 seconds, at Universal Studios in the 80s.  Also, I knew a kid named Michael who had his own laser tag gear, with all the equipment.  But Michael was a little prick and just taunted me with the fact that he had laser tag gear and I did not.  Is is possible to earn a badge by coveting someone else's toys?

I chose the hay ride badge for two reasons: (1) I recall at least one hay ride from my early years (I just remember the hay was scratchy and uncomfortable); and (2) it's tough to tell in the photo, but there's a pumpkin on top of the hay.  Since my blog is The Cranky Pumpkin, obviously I needed at least one pumpkin on my tote.



I bought my badges from here and will use them again if I want more patches.  In fact, I already want more badges!  They have a new gardening badge THAT I MUST OWN.  (What else can I make with merit badges??)

I agonized over the tote bag and spent weeks looking everywhere for the perfect one.  I wanted a bag with exterior pockets and handles large enough to go over my arm (I hate bags with short dinky straps).  I went with this bag but it's currently unavailable on Amazon.  Shit.  Why didn't I buy more bags when I had the chance?

Then I just hand sewed the badges on with needle and embroidery thread. I have a huge stash of DMC embroidery thread from a cross-stitching phase, so I was usually able to match the thread to the badge.  But I wanted the bag to look homemade and a little tragic, so I did not worry about matching thread colors or making pretty stitches.

I stabbed myself with my needle about 82 times while making this bag.  The 82nd stabbing hurt just as much as the first.  I tried using a thimble, but thimbles are for wimps.  

My tote bag has exterior pockets, and the bottom two rows of badges are sewed on to the pockets.  I accidentally sewed the pockets shut about eleven or twelve times, because I was paying too much attention to the television. 

If anyone asks me about the tote bag, I could just tell them that I really like merit badges.  But maybe I'll invent a club, like The Society of Recreational Education.  That sounds much more legitimate and impressive than "I really like merit badges." 

Toms!

I tend to have long term monogamous relationships with my shoes.  In elementary school, I lived in my white Reebok high tops.  I must have had five or six pairs of those shoes.  In high school, there was a Doc Martens phase (shudder) which was followed by a Converse sneakers phase.  (The Converse sneakers violated my Catholic high school dress code.  Most girls rebelled by smoking in the bathroom or going to class stoned.  I just wore my Converse). 

I still have a pair of Converse sneakers in my closet, but these days, I am in a serious relationship with my navy blue Toms:

I just bought my third pair, and it's a miracle I only bought the blue.  I want red Toms!  And beige Toms!  And the Valentine Toms with cute hearts!  I want all of the Toms!  (Well, I already own a pair of sparkly silver Toms that I have never worn outside.  I keep trying them with different outfits, but they always make me look like an asshole.  I'm officially too old for sparkly shoes.  So, to be clear: I want all of the Toms, except the sparkly Toms that make me feel old).

Toms are great for running errands, knocking around and ambling around your neighborhood.  They are the house slippers that can easily go to the mall, grocery store, or even a nice restaurant.  But these are not the shoes you want to wear if you anticipate a day of serious trekking.  The soles offer some support, but not enough if you are going to spend all day on your feet. 

Bonus: when you buy a pair of Toms, Toms donates a pair of shoes to a child in need.  (Which totally justifies purchasing an entire rainbow of Toms!  Hello, red Toms - I'm looking at you).

My Favorite Organizational Trick

I am a natural slob who prefers a neat, organized house.  My impulse is to just leave things lying around and to hoard everything, but I hate clutter and mess.  Yes, I am a paradox.

I am always looking for new ways to keep our home organized and tidy.  If I have a mindless system to put things away, it's easier to subdue my slob tendencies.  This is my favorite system:

It's a shoe organizer hung on the back of a closet door.  I saw this idea online years ago but cannot remember the source.  I use it to store pens, paper clips, stamps, labels, envelopes, and other doodads.  (Score yourself ten points if you can spot our lifetime supply of highlighters). 

I use this system for office supplies, but it could work with anything that is small and not too heavy: make-up, jewelry, Lego's, your collection of vintage souvenir spoons, etc. etc. 

Just don't use the shoe organizer to store your bricks, anvils and barbels.  It stores a lot of clutter and is pretty amazing, but it has its limits.