What a lovely day! The weather was beautiful, and Mr. J and I were up at the crack of dawn for Snobville's annual book sale. There's also a boss of a flea market in the same part of town, so it was a win for all ... even Extra Chair, who went to the flea market too. And other folks that I'll get to in a moment.
So, I went to the flea market, hoping to get another nonstick dutch oven like the one I bought last year for $15 that Spare ruined unintentionally by whipping potatoes in it. Auspicious sign of a good day: The same seller was back, I got another dutch oven, same price, and a much-needed ladle.
Then to the book sale. By that time, Spare and her boyfriend had hopped off the El and joined me. I perused the tired-looking paperbacks that get shipped from sale to sale, and all of a sudden, Spare snuck up behind me and gave me a copy of Faeries, by Brian Froud, that she had found among the mishmash! What a grab! I didn't have a copy, and even Snobville's thieving prices of $4 for a hard cover seemed reasonable for this tome.
But wait, there's more.
My browsing yielded me a little gem for a swell and timely Gods Are Bored series. The book is titled Halloween: What's a Christian To Do? Friends, we will have fun, fun, fun till her daddy takes the T-bird away with this one!
Snobville, as I said, charges usurious fees for its used books, but sometimes it's worth it.
After lunch, Spare and I deposited her flame back onto the El. We went to the Philadelphia Zoo, which has been touting its new batch of lion cubs. If you're a zoo, and you want to keep your wounded-and-unable-to-fly turkey vultures in dog food, you need to trot out some baby lions occasionally.
Aren't they adorable? When Spare and I got there around 4:00, they were playing with their mom and each other, gambling about their too-small enclosure. The lioness was giving us humans the evil eye, and I cannot blame her one little bit. But every time a little lion bounded past, all of the viewers just emitted a collective coo. Can't describe it any other way.
Spare and I are no strangers to this zoo. As an aside I'll say that zoos make me uncomfortable, because the animals look so unhappy. But at least the Philly zoo has upgraded its facilities, and particularly the great apes have it pretty good, at least for inmates.
Back to not being strangers. Spare and I had only one short hour to hit all of our favorite critters. We adore the pygmy marmosets.
Now having gorged on cuteness, Spare and I eschewed the giraffes and made a beeline for my personal favorite, a pair of turkey vultures who cannot be released to the wild. I praised and worshiped them, they looked at me with baleful glares and no little suspicion, but thirty minutes in we had achieved a sort of tidy understanding. Spare is so patient. Why hang around a vulture cage when you can see zebras? But such is the love of a daughter that she cleaved to my side.
The zoo had closed the other exhibits by the time we ambled back to see if we could get one last ogle at those cubs. The zookeepers had corralled the mom and the cubs and had let the papa lion out for some air. And he was apparently pissed as hell that he had to sit inside all day, because he was roaring at the top of his lungs. You know what, reader? As cute as baby lions are, I don't think I would want to come across a handful of them in the wild. Their parents are forces of Nature.
I dropped Spare off at her apartment (*my baby left home*) and headed back across the B Franklin Br to Jersey. Lit up my shrine for the coming darkness, lit up my altar for same, offered Thanksgiving to the deities, made a pot of soup in my new dutch oven, and sat down to read about faeries.
This was a day that went well from end to end. How often does that happen?
5 comments:
Wonderful! we have had such perfect and memorable days occasionally too. they are precious memories, and good stories.
May we all have many more.
by the way, gamboling is spelled differently than gambling.
--Kim
Oh, snap! You're right! But in this case, the baby lions were right in the middle of a heated game of blackjack ... no, really. One of them was accusing the other of counting cards!
haha on the typo. I'd like to see gambling lions.
Yes, such days of personal bliss are few and far between. We recognize them when they bless us tho! That's me, sitting here waiting for it!
I hope you're going to share some words of wisdom from the Halloween book! We can all use a good laugh now and then. Tee hee!
Yes, it sounds like a PERFECT day! And I'm glad to learn that Extra Chair is back for another school year. I was wondering if she had returned.
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