I don't have any Sesame Street pictures or anything related to any of the sad milestones that happened today in Texas or Virginia.

So here's a koala bear.

And a giraffe.

The giraffe is framed in my office, of course he is. I was THISCLOSE to him, how could he not be, after we shared a moment like that? I mean, he was really way more into his grass or hay or kale or whatever the cool giraffes are smoking these days, clearly, than he was interested in me and my dumb camera, but still. A girl can dream. Don't take that away from me please thank you. The koala bear is not framed anywhere, although I have a huge soft spot for them (although I know very little about them. They could eat your face off for all I know. Are they that variety of seemingly cuddly animal, the kind that looks sweet but could basically turn on a dime and ruin your life and eat your nose? Probably.) I have a soft spot for them not just because they're CUTE, seriously, but because my father brought me back a stuffed koala from his Navy tour, which included Australia, when I was a baby and I loved that thing. Loved it loved it. I also had a rabbit coat then too, though, which is kind of screwed up, this patchwork looking thing that my great-grandmother (who we called Nanny but I don't just say my Nanny because then you'll not only think I was the type of kid who had a nanny - to which I say, oh land, do come over to the family jamboree some time, it's not how we roll - but also that I'd be all capitalizing Nanny the occupation like it was a proper noun. No.) Anyway, I had a rabbit coat which I was probably going to say meant I had deeper issues before I got off on the Nanny/nanny tangent. It was patchwork. It was ballin', as my students say. It would have been highly coveted by small actors on Starsky and Hutch.

I have lost my train of thought.

Anyway. My little sister lived in San Diego for three years and I visited three times. The first time we went to the zoo, a famous spot in the city which is where these guys - the giraffe and the koala - happen to live. I'm a little conflicted about zoos (less than I am about the circus. Do not talk to me about the circus, and why the Biggest Loser partially took place there tonight other than that is totally thematically appropriate for the show and why there is this resurgence of the circus, ugh, couldn't they just keep it at 24 Hour Fitness where it belongs because I have to hear them carefully insert 24 Hour Fitness into the dialogue like 18 times to earn the ad dollars? No? Ringling Brothers?) but this zoo, on the surface anyway, seemed like an okay place for most of the animals. But then again, what do I know about that?

I just felt like some animal pictures were in order, apparently. That's really all.