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. 

The Hundred Dollar Sweatshirt... and other stuff

As I sit here in my hundred dollar sweatshirt thinking about Christmas and how little prep work I've done so far, I am not nervous. I am not stressed. It is what it is. I'm letting go and finding balance. And I have a hundred dollar sweatshirt...so I am alllllll set.

It would be funny if I were to tell you that I had gone to Costco today with the sole purpose of picking up a sweatshirt. And walked out with a 30-pack of Northern Quilted toilet paper, a Brita water filter, two dozen Duracell AA batteries, an 8-lb. block of Kraft American Cheese Singles, and one of those double-packs of Honey Nut Cheerios in addition to a Gloria Vanderbilt sweatshirt. Seriously, who hasn't done that?

Or what if I said that I had gone into the local Goodwill to grab a sweatshirt but had gotten waylaid by all the awesome VHS tapes they were selling three for a dollar (who wouldn't love copies of He Said, She Said, An Officer and a Gentleman, and Field of Dreams?) and the myriad of kitchen tools just begging to become a Granny's Gadgets feature? If I went on to tell you that after finding the sweatshirt, selecting a fine assortment of 80's and 90's entertainment, unearthing THE Ginsu (!) and escaping for under twenty bucks with all that loot, I went outside to find my car with a $78 parking ticket tucked neatly under the windshield wiper...in it's o-so-cheery neon green envelope :)...that would be kind of funny, right?

While both of those scenarios would have resulted in a "hundred dollar" sweatshirt complete with a laugh and some good commiseration, this is not a funny story. And my hundred dollar sweatshirt gets no quotation marks.

I have a hard time fathoming how someone could spend so much on a #@*ing sweatshirt...but people do. They don't even wait for them to go on sale...they plunk down full retail for these suckers. Having worked in retail for years and years, I have a really hard time doing that :P

Now being in possession of a hundred dollar sweatshirt (I am wearing it right at this moment...and if you are reading this pretty much anytime in the next five years, I will probably be wearing it right at the moment you are actually reading this), I must say it is really, really nice. But I probably wouldn't spend real money on one. I won mine...remember that Soyjoy Workout Wardrobe Make-over Contest?

I've gone from this:

To this:

Notice how I look a lot more comfortable in the tattered, 'vintage' outfit?

it might be the clothing... 

but it might be the fact that the fancy sweatshirt picture was taken in the kitchen.

I had a little of my winnings left over. It's been converted to a gift card that will be part of the Jingle Bell Hell 2011 Grand Prize. Click that link to see details of the real and virtual races this weekend.

All runners who submit a race recap linking back to Taking It On will be entered in a drawing for various running-related prizes...Nuun, Gu, reflective stickers, a race-number belt, those sorts of things... and my favorite write-up (can be a blog post, a facebook update, an email to me that I can post on my blog, or a photo representing your hellacious fun) will win a $10 iTunes gift card and a $30 Lululemon gift card (that'll get you a headband or a pair of socks...or roughly 30% off on a pair of running tights...and they do have stuff for guys).

Please understand the write-up winner selection is entirely subjective. Big Hint: I am looking to laugh. 

But honestly, it's not about the prizes...it's about having fun.

Disclaimers: Do I need disclaimers? Some of the stuff in the giveaway I won, some I bought and some was given to me in exchange for nothing. Except the Nuun... some might say I sold my soul for that one.  But Hood to Coast was worth it.

The Semi-Urban Athlete

Lately there have been some athlete blogs showcasing gorgeous scenery... mountains, trees, beachfront settings, sunsets... all inspiring vistas. Often, when I take pictures during my workouts I, too, generally focus on the pretty things (except when it is a pivotal bathroom or monumental dungheap). I tend to look one way and not the other.

I am definitely sequestered from reality, here all cozy in my little gated community. This hit me hard on Saturday morning. My husband was listening to the radio. "Did you know there was another homicide?" Another? I have been hiding my head in the sand... He went on..."There have been 8 homicides in (our city) this month!"

It is just over one mile from our house to the pre-ghetto... the edge of the Iron Triangle. Fortunately, between our house and the pre-ghetto are: The Gate, police headquarters and 6 lanes of freeway. When we moved to this city we were moving from the nation's #5 ranked crime city to #6... a step in the right direction :P but The Gate really makes all the difference when it comes to feeling safe.

Last night, I went for a ride. I decided to look that other way. Not the pretty way. I didn't head into Crime Central on my bike, though I do drive through it nearly every day. It doesn't really scare me, but perhaps it should. I guess I tend to not really think about it. It's there. I need to go through it to get where I am going. Just do it.

I headed, as usual, over to the water. For a change, instead of looking out over the water at this...

or noticing the lovely marshlands and all the interesting waterfowl or Mt. Tamalpais in the distance, I looked the other way.

About a mile of the ride is alongside a huge postal transfer center...

The razor wire lets you know you shouldn't hop the fence.

This mile goes by fairly quickly when biking but much more slowly when running.

Next door to the postal transfer center is ...

Home of $9.99 pizzas that are soooo bad for you.

Right near the Costco is a great little getaway spot...

Coffee Cup Beach

The pathway down to Coffee Cup Beach...

I thought I would find a litter-mess of coffee cups down there.

Nope... just a rainbow of colorful, used condoms.

A little further down the trail is this...

I know what you're thinking...

prison guard watchtower!

Wrong!

It has something to do with horse-racing...

the track grandstand is in the distance.

And here are the bales of straw and horse-trailers in the parking lot.

One of the exciting parts of the trail is where it parallels the freeway. Just a flimsy cyclone fence and 4-foot retaining wall between you and fast cars...

It's kind of hard to shoot video with a cellphone while biking down a trail, 

so a little slack in the professionalism department and a lot of appreciation for the risks I took :P

So that's the less-gentle side of my 'hood. I am working up the guts (or stupidity) to do a photo/video study of the harsh side.

Are you ever afraid where you work out? Of what?

Do you get to run or cycle in a lovely environment?

Contests...

You might notice some changes going on around here.

The first thing you might notice is the ROCKIN' pic of yours truly and Fidel over on the right >>>>>>>>

When you click on this picture it will link you to a contest... me + celebrity photo contest... "the dorkier the better" is what the creators put in their tag line.  The creators are some pretty hilarious and out-there women... the ladies behind the brain of Lady Brain.  If you want to know about manscaping or 15-minute O's or if women journalists should be placed in dangerous situations, you need to check the ladies out!  Their radio show and website covers EVERYTHING... really.  

The winner of the contest wins....

ONE HUNNNNNNDRED DOLLARS

I want to win this contest.  But I don't want to win it for me... I want to win it for YOU.

And this takes us to the second thing you should notice on the page...
the NEW FACEBOOK BADGE!

If you click on the BADGE with the lovely picture of Baby X silhouetted against the sunset, you will be transported to the NEW FACEBOOK PAGE for Taking It On.  Woooo hooooo!
Low readership on one site isn't enough for me!  I need to experience being ignored on multiple sites ;-)
So what you do is....
click on the BADGE.  Then once you are on the new Taking It On Facebook page, you click the "LIKE" button... the one with the little 'thumbs up'... near the top where it says Taking It On.

Go on... click it.
It won't hurt.
You can do it.
Awesome!  Thanks so much :)

If When I win this photo contest, I am going to share the winnings with my Facebook likers!  My first thought was to split it evenly amongst all of us... we'd each get about two bucks. Then I realized that my popularity might suddenly begin approaching my generosity, and that would significantly diminish what we'd each walk away with monetarily... of course, the good, warm feelings of sharing and friendship and love and being a part of something bigger than oneself are impossible to put a monetary value on, and in that regard we'd all be richer than Bill Gates... or Oprah. Plus, I was reminded that the postage to mail a quarter to 400 people (my husband is the Eternal Optimist in addition to The Penguin) would kind of blow my budget :(

So what I propose to do should I win is to draw 5 names at random from the list of likers on that Facebook page and split the winnings between them. $100 ÷ 5 likers = $20.  I got the math thing down ;-)  Now I want to let you know that it won't be $20 cash... they are doing a gift card to some place as yet unknown, but I am sure I can figure something out so that it works the way I want it to :)

What this means is... 
click on the dang Facebook badge and go "like" my page!
Then...
click on the dang picture and vote for me and Fidel!
And...
don't forget to tell your friends and family to get them in on the action of helping US win!

And get ready....
tomorrow's Vecchio Venerdì is going to be pretty amazing :)

Are you open to change or do you resist it?
– it depends on the change... moving from a nice house to a dump... resist.  The other way around... open :)

What would you do if you won $20?
– if I won $20 million, I would pay of my debts and buy momma a new house. Then I'd go to Costco and buy a 52" widescreen HDTV and a new Escalade with spinning rims. Oh... not million? Okay... then I'd probably go treat myself to a burrito with guacamole and sour cream!  Pullin' out all the stops ;-)