The Urban Pantheist

Looking pretty cute together as we make preparations to go to two xmas parties in one night. I'm fairly certain I'm paying for it with a sore throat today, so I stayed home from work to rest up.

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A quick snapshot before lunch, then off to Sanibel and Captiva!
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The view from the kitchen window on xmas day 2012. Alex came over around mid-day, and when the snapshot alarm went off she was out getting Chinese food. I spent most of the day from 1-5 standing by the fire and a little bit playing with dogs. I felt pretty gloomy most of the day--I always want December 25th to be an anti-celebration, reveling in not belonging, but it's hard to pull off unless you have others who want to indulge those feelings with you. Alexis was gloomy too, but I think she was partly preoccupied with the puppy's health issue, and partly in a deep funk about the weather.

Alex was good company even though she was feeling a little under the weather herself. Jim and Turtle played most of the day, and the big dogs joined in but wimped out of the cold pretty quick.

I called my dad, who was not traveling on xmas for the first time in 15 years, and he seemed okay with being home alone. His plan for the day was to call all his relatives.



I was inordinately pleased with myself for having spent much of the previous half day preparing firewood and storing it in the shed to keep it dry. The gloom broke after dark, Alexis and I cuddled and watched John Carter. This weekend we will probably do some kind of xmas thing with the Vermont family, and my dad may come along too if the weather isn't too shitty.

Part of the holiday decor in the building where the zoo hospital is.
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At one point I figured we'd seen about all that we could in the botanical garden, but my dad wanted to keep walking. We found this little pond, and there was a couple on a park bench by it. Just a couple feet in front of them was another (maybe the same?) great egret. This was a pretty imperturbable bird! We moved quietly closer, and saw that there were also ducks and at least one gallinule near the couple. They were eating, and tossing some bread crumbs to the birds. The ducks and gallinule were happily eating the bread. They tossed some near the egret, which took a predatory pose and struck, and came up with a big fish! When my snapshot alarm went off I set the self-timer so that I could get a shot of my dad and myself, with this story in the background.

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Much of December 30th was spent in the car.

( but no more of these pictures are from there )

We got to Puerto Rico just as the sun was setting on the day after Xmas. It took a long time for the shuttle to arrive to take us to the car rental place, and that was our first real discomfort--not really knowing where to go, wearing our Boston clothes in the 80 degree night. Then a quick course in driving in San Juan in the dark; I brought my GPS, which was helpful but there were a lot of roads that are parallel to one another, so I had to make good guesses about which ones I should be turning onto. We actually managed it relatively smoothly, and ended up in the resort area, pulling up to what was probably the cheapest and nastiest hotel available.

To be fair, the man who checked us in was friendly (the first of many to immediately sense I was over my head trying to speak Spanish), and the room was clean but very small. I had lingering nervousness from things a friend told me years ago--he said San Juan was "like New York but with more crime," and that he was mugged by a couple on a date. Fortunately lots of other people had told me that the North American worries about crime on the island were way overblown. We were on a side street which felt a little dangerous, but after a while we went out to explore. I love to go shopping for regular stuff on my vacations--it's fascinating to me to see what's different and what's the same about, say, Walgreens. What's different: local music played at what I now realize is a very modest volume, and lots of booze for sale. I foudn myself somewhat fascinated by xmas stuff--I feel like if you have a tropical climate, you really don't need to have a winter holiday. I bought traveler's kits of toiletries, and we went looking for a place to eat.

The streets were crowded with American tourists, a few beggars, and tons of cops. It didn't feel dangerous at all. We lucked into a restaurant selling local cuisine (I had goat stew) and began our project of depleting the island of all rum. We wandered up and down the main drag, stopping at various kinds of bars which all had different ambiance but all seemed to have giant TVs with NFL games on. I also noticed that I could hear the calls of the coqui frogs coming from the street trees and landscaping. I had imagined that urban conditions of San Juan would be too harsh for most amphibians, but at least one species (of 13-16 on the island) was heard over the traffic noise. Dad suggested we go look at the beach, so we walked about two city blocks with the hotels behind us on soft sand. According to the tourist guide we consulted later, that was the most dangerous thing we did, as apparently the beach is where drug deals take place. We only saw other tourists. I walked in the water a bit, which was delightfully warm for December 26th. The city lights were pretty, and there were holiday decorations everywhere.

Don't feel bad for me, I volunteered to work today. But do think of the caregivers of both humans and other animals who can't take a holiday off whenever they want. I love the dawning of realization that happens when a zookeeper explains why they are working on a day when everyone else seems to have the day off.

I wish peace to all, whether you are a public safety official or just trying to get along with your family.

What do you think of when you think of zookeepers? Fecal matter? Keys? Perfect gift idea coming up!


Okay, but say I was an insect-obsessed guy who loved a certain band and worked at the zoo?


(Except mine says "Franklin Park Zoo," and I have a tiny bit less beard and less gut)

Nice job, Santa!

Toward the end of the "Island of Misfit Toys Brunch" that my friends Bek and Joe had yesterday. Good food, good drink, and classic xmas cartoons. We also watched the decidedly unclassic "Return of Frosty," with the titular snow elemental played by John Goodman, a Mr. Burns-like villain (whose company is marketing a snow-disintegrating spray) played by Brian Doyle Murray, and a tiny narrating weirdo played by (and modeled after) Jonathan Winters.


Bek and Joe encourage their cats to shit into this robot, which looks like it should be mounted on a star ship. I guess it makes sense that the first household robots would be dealing with our shit and garbage, and it makes their inevitable revolt against us more understandable.