The Wild Thang at Costco...

Today I took the kids to the zoo.

"Good God, woman...not another f*ckin' zoo post? You've posted about the f*ckin' zoo like THREE times in the past 8 months. It. Is. Boring. ... unless you have more pictures of 5-legged or two-trunked (i.e. exposed male) elephants to share..." :)

First of all...it was a different zoo, okay? And second of all...this zoo has no elephants. Really. So, sorry...but there are none of those kinds of pictures this time.

We had a bit of trouble leaving the house early enough to make the morning carpool lane and get across the bridges on the cheap(er). There was a lot of yelling...some hunting around for unfound reciprocating zoo membership cards...an escaped toddler who ran gleefully up and down the block being chased by her siblings while mommy hunted for those *%#@ingmissing cards...a phone call and some sweet-talking to obtain an official email stating that I hold a family membership at a reciprocating institution and then the printing of that document...

We ended up leaving an hour later than I had hoped. But this is not unusual.

The drive into SF was pleasant though pricey... $10 in bridge tolls. Traffic was light; the Golden Gate Bridge looked spectacular against the bright blue sky. Parking was easy...but also pricey at $8, the admission line moved quickly, and there were no problems with my official email thing being accepted for a hefty discount...yay!

And we went in.

It was a glorious Bay Area day, and the San Francisco Zoo was not too crowded. Unfortunately, it would appear that beautiful days usually mean lazy animals. Does anyone else notice this? 

We hit the Children's Zoo section first.

Intended to be a cute photo of all 4 kids...

and I patiently waited until the hordes of others had finally moved on...

but, as luck would have it, Q accidentally shoved Miss C's head in between two of the metal goosenecks. She is crying and X is reading him the riot act.

The rarely-found-in-captivity Guinea Pig.

I was forced to take this picture and forced to promise to put it on here.

Sorry.

The Prairie Dogs were having issues.

Apparently, until April the moms are protecting their babies who are hiding out in the underground nests. The non-moms are all out in the open getting barked at by the moms.

And then there was this guy...

poor thing has some sort of skin condition...it really made me sad.

Older than me at 50 years of age, this Great Horned Owl is named King Richard. 

She had been living at the zoo for 17 years before laying an egg to let them know that the name wasn't working for her. 

Yeah...a millipede.

The guy said the feet tickle and prickle sort of like a toothbrush.

And he let us pet it...it is very hard and crunchy-feeling.

We left the excitement of the Children's Zoo to go fight the seagulls for our lunch...aggressive bastards. Throughout lunch, Q wouldn't stop playing with his loose tooth (yes, another one).

He told me he wanted me to pull it out when we got home.

It didn't make it all the way home.

Part of lunch consisted of chocolate chip cookies. Whenever we go to the San Francisco Zoo, we have to bring these because the first time Q remembers visiting this particular zoo, he had a stand-off with a peacock over his chocolate chip cookie. He has orchestrated such a stand-off every time we visit now. This visit would be no different. Except that we didn't see any roaming peacocks before he had already devoured his allotted two cookies...

Peacock:  Dude...where's the cookie?

Then there were the capybaras...world's largest rodent.

G says, "Mom...it's like a donkey crossed with a hamster."

Must say I agree...and I laughed really hard at this observation.

Then G took a picture of a pacing tiger. In case you didn't know, the San Francisco Zoo is the zoo where a visitor got killed by a tiger on Christmas in 2007. Apparently, an investigation unearthed the facts that these dickheads guys were taunting the tiger and...well...she got pissed.

This is not that tiger.

And the zoo totally upped the 'security' of all animal enclosures...

this shot was taken through super-duper thick glass.

I finally got a decent shot of all four kids...sort of looking in the same general direction at least...and one is actually smiling :)

Too bad the bear didn't get the memo...

And if you've made it this far in this yet-another-zoo post and are wondering what in the heck Costco has to do with any of this...

Yes...leopard pants. Different leopard vest. Snake shirt. 

A snow leopard/leopard throw blanket tucked under her arm.

What you can't see is that inside the awesome pink Crocs, 

...wait...

...no...

yes!

TIGER SOCKS!!!!

The wildest thing we saw all day was next to us in line at Costco.