A Day at the Zoo

I had promised my youngest daughter a day at the zoo as part of her birthday (which was a few weeks ago) so that's what we did on Saturday. "We" was me, my three kids, and a girlfriend of my teenage daughter. Highlights included a live show (seals and exotic birds, mostly) and a great time in the lorikeet aviary. Lorikeets are small, brightly colored parrots, and in the aviary you can tempt them with little dishes of water or nectar to climb onto your fingers or shoulders. At one point I had three of them on my shoulders (much to the delight of my youngest daughter) all nibbling on my hair. I suppose the only down side was that it seemed that my older two sniped at each other more than usual. After the zoo I was supposed to keep them until evening but they all wanted to go home instead. I didn't see much point in forcing the kids to stay with their dad, so I took them home. That left me an unexpected evening to knock about alone in my too-quiet rental, which was no fun at all. I suppose that's something I'll just have to get used to.