Miss D. and I had a pleasant day yesterday. We spent the morning visiting the Kansas City Zoo, which is one of the best of its kind either of us have seen. (The Red River Hogs were fat and lazy – perfect grilling material, as far as I’m concerned! I suppose it’s a good thing Lawdog wasn’t with us. He and I would probably have driven other visitors nuts with our shared appreciation of how barbecue-ready many of the African animals were! The kudu, eland, springbok and others looked well-fed and fit, ripe and ready for serving. What can I say? I’m an African boy. I’ve eaten enough of all of them in my time to make me hungry for more!) Miss D. was in ecstasies over the irresistibly cute sand cat. I have a feeling that, given half a chance, we’d have one in our hotel room right now, on its way to join our brood at home.
We left Kansas City early in the afternoon, and made it as far as Edmond, OK before we felt too tired to continue. We contacted Jennifer and Evyl Robot, and shared supper with them and their son at Haigets, an Ethiopian restaurant. The food was delicious, even more so to me because I’m familiar with East African recipes, so it brought back many memories. We’ve made a mental note to bring our friends up here from northern Texas for an extended supper sometime, even if it is a two-and-a-half-hour drive. The food’s worth it! (I bought a couple of dozen meat and vegetable samosas to take home with us. I have a real weakness for them, and these were good enough to be irresistible.)
We’re about two and a half hours from home, so we’ll head out at our leisure this morning, and hopefully be there by lunchtime. We expect to be drooled on, shed upon and generally fussed over by our cats, who’ll be alternately ecstatic that we’re home, and annoyed with us for going away in the first place! Clearly, it’ll be all our fault, whatever happens.
I’ll try to put up another blog post this evening. God willing, normal blogging schedule will resume tomorrow.
Peter
Since you have lived in Louisiana, I'm sure you've heard the joke about how Cajun zoos are different than other zoos – that next to the placard describing the animal and its habitat is a recipe card.
Sweet Mother of God!!!
I'd never heard of a sand cat and can completely understand the desire to have one of your own. Wow! So much cuteness in a tiny little package…that would pluck out your eyeballs and play with them on the floor if given the chance. Sigh.
Diane
Sand cat (from fantasy short stories) is very different from sand cat in zoo. It's probably just as well that Red 2.0 is under a stuffed animal ban at the moment due to allergies or I'd be tempted to get a toy one. For Red 2.0, of course.
LittleRed1
'Tis true, there's a place for all God's creatures.
Right next to the mashed taters and gravy…
Was such a wonderful surprise to have you come through our town last night. It's always a pleasure to catch up with the tribe. Makes good food taste even better.
LittleRed1 – Don't know if you have tried this with the stuffed animals but this helped my daughter a lot. I ran her stuffed animals through the dryer on air fluff (no heat cycle) every so often to 'dust' her critters. It seemed to help. I also do the same thing with our quilts and draperies.
Glad you had safe travels! Wasn't able to comment earlier when you were looking for things to do in KC. Next time you get up that way, you DEFINITELY need to visit the Arabia Steamboat Museum. The boat sank in the Missouri River in 1856 on it's way upstream with full cargo. Neat thing is all the items on display are new – they never got to their end users. Found by a family out to find treasure to sell, but ended up keeping it all. Well worth the visit. Can't get to their museum website, but here's Wikipedia (yeah – I know). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabia_Steamboat_Museum
When my wife and I were preparing for our hunting Safari to Zimbabwe, I took her to the Honolulu Zoo several times. We brought along the pocket version of Dr. Kevin "Doctari" Robertson's "The Perfect Shot" . . . . . and a laser pointer.
I had her pick out and lase her shots on various animals at various angles, including brain shots on the Ele, since she had never hunted a mammal in her life. Only a few other patrons figured out what we were doing, including one couple where they were both wearing NRA hats. Got a big grin and a thumbs up from them, not so much from everyone else. left just before we got kicked out the last time.
Worked, too. She went 5 shots for 5 tags on our trip, and earned the nickname "Sniper-Woman" from our trackers.
FormerFlyer
Not dry enough in your area to successfully keep a Sand Cat healthy. That 5k'meter night wander would also present a potential problem. Neat looking cat.
Judy – the problem was sheer quantity. Red 2.0 has over 80 (!) stuffed critters. She was the first grandchild, and, well… She's down to a rotation of five at a time, and those are all ones that can be washed and dried. Her room looked like that scene from E.T., or the Chick-Fil-a commercial where the cow hides in the pile of toys.
LittleRed1