Here I sit, feeling the cool spring breeze wafting in my window and I feel new life return to my body and the cobwebs dissipate. I have been fighting various and sundry ailments and I feel like Theoden, King on his throne, all bound up and weak and cobwebby and I need a friendly yet fierce wizard to work magic on me knarly self. I wish I could be ready for the "big run" that I've been registered for since September which is happening this Saturday, but I think it will be more of an amble down azalea adorned avenues. I don't know if I have allergies, or if the Lord is teaching me to not take getting well for granted, but I have a chest cold that won't quit. I finally went to the doctor two weeks ago and he said "bronchitis." I think part of it is that with children there's little rest to be found when I'm sick. So then the stomach virus struck on Friday and my intestines may never be the same. I long for a big ole greasy pizza, but for now I eat rice and bananas and applesauce. I can see how when I am sick or in a difficult time I really get bogged down and think it will last forever and that things will never return to normal. I forget what it was like to be normal and have energy and have my body function correctly. I think of people with chronic pain and illnesses and I really wonder how they do it.



So I will backtrack a little and put a few pictures of one of my favorite events in Mobile, The Festival of Flowers. It is a wonderful festival with flowers from around the world, and landscapes that inspire. Ruthie really enjoyed the festival, even though she sort of withdraws into herself and doesn't want to be in any pictures. She loved sitting on the John Deere tractors they had tastefully displayed, and she was obsessed with the various water-features. She was in awe of the Azalea Trail Maids and asked me if she could have a dress like theirs.



I can go back further to our Valentine cookie fest, and even further to our fun trip to Montgomery. We visited Jay's parents and got to go to the Zoo. It was a beautiful day, and unbeknownst to us it was a special day at the Zoo, "animal enrichment" or some such thing. This meant it was very full of people as well as animals, and they ate like animals and we had to wait an hour for a couple hot dogs and some nachos. That was the low point, but we endured and even got to see the lion enrichment while we waited. Basically, they put a zebra made of plastic buckets filled with "lion treats" inside their enclosure to see how the lions would respond. The theory is that animals need exposure to different materials and textures and forms, to enrich their lives and give them excitement and variety. I think it mainly annoyed the lioness, who toyed with it half-heartedly and the male, if interviewed would probably have said, "Whatever; if it's not bleeding or able to be mauled, I am not interested. Enrichment my arse." We also had a close up view of the giraffes eating some acacia branches. I liked seeing the baby elephant, and I wanted a closer perusal of the pygmy hippos (how cool are pygmy hippos!) but they were sacked out on the grass far away from my view. In general I don't like zoos, they make me sad for the animals whom I feel should be free! free! to roam and poop and kill things, but it is fun to see them up close, especially for children. The saddest animal were the bears. They just seemed lethargic and melancholy. They just sat there by their nice waterfall and one would let out a growly-moan now and again and dip his big paw in the water like he really didn't care about life.



I did learn one interesting animal fact: there is no such thing as a black panther- they are just jaguars or leopards with a gene that makes them produce more melanin, hence the all-black coat. In some cases you can see the differentiation between the dark spots and the darker pigmented areas around. Interesting, huh? I liked this Zoo, despite my general anti-Zoo bias. It was really well planned and landscaped and the habitats were large and seemed like they were true to the animals' real habitats in the wild. My wee ones really enjoyed it, especially the train ride (well, except Mac's tunnel panic). Ruthie's favorite was the snakes! (Sorry JuJu!)