Aah, Kids

There are a lot of kids at the zoo. And it's so fun listening to them.

A little boy though the rhino was s t-rex.

A little girl spilled some popcorn in the giraffe barn and thought she'd have to go to jail.
This week, a little girl said to me, "are you the adventure lady?"

Silly Little Girls

Well, they're not really little girls. They weigh a couple thousand pounds each. I'm talking about the giraffes.
Public giraffe feeds today. I'll share some of the girls' shenanigans.


So, giraffes have very long tongues. About 18 inches. And their saliva is really thick and sticky, which protects their mouths from the thorny plants they eat in Africa.
At the end of public giraffe feeds, my hands are covered in that saliva, since I feed the giraffes little bits of lettuce to keep them around and interested. It was hard to wash off today, since there was more than usual. I was trying to feed our youngest giraffe, but her mom was in the way. As I reached out with the lettuce, mom giraffe (Barbro) wanted it for herself. She tried to grab it from me, and ended up taking my entire hand in her mouth. Twice.
It doesn't hurt. They can't really bite, since they have front teeth only on the bottom - not the top. But I was surprised XP And amused.

Anyway, that was a new experience. What isn't new, but still funny, is when the giraffes are too impatient for the next piece of lettuce and stretch their tongue out demanding more immediately (they grab the lettuce with their long tongues).
And when they're done with their lettuce for the day, sometimes they think I'm still holding lettuce and wrap their tongues around my fingers and try to reel my hand in before they realize that I'm out of lettuce.

Wind Waker Revisited

I'm in the middle of a few posts, but they're all longer ones and I'm about ready to crash for the night. But I want to write something.
I'll pick a random topic.

At the Fanime swap meet, I got a copy of the Wii U Wind Waker game. I've been playing it over the past few weeks. It's been really fun because I've played it a coupe times before, but not in a very long time. So I know what to do, but it's fun to see everything again. It's going very fast, and I finished a side quest that I was never able to finish before. I just have the final boss left.

I should have played the challenge mode, but I hit the wrong button at the beginning of the game and was too lazy to go back and fix it. Well, maybe some day XP

Though I have a million other games to play first. And there are several I'm in the middle of.

A while ago, the zoo told the two of that we were going to be in charge of public giraffe feeds.

Inside I was going


At first they threw us straight into it. Except the giraffes didn't know us, and didn't know that people gathering on the balcony meant that they would get food. So we spent the next several weeks hanging out on the balcony every day with lettuce, getting them used to us, and the fact that we brought treats. And they slowly got better at coming to us.
And the last two weekends, we've had public giraffe feeds. And it's gone really well! Sunday was the best day so far. Even the youngest, shortest giraffe comes up, though it's harder for her to reach us on the balcony.



It's been awesome getting to know the giraffes and spending so much time with them. I love all of them~
Heheh. One of the giraffes drools more than the others. Giraffe spit is very thick and sticky (it protects their mouths from the thorny acacia trees they eat in Africa), and when they drool, it literally looks like fishing line coming from their mouths. When it's really windy, her drool sometimes blows back in our faces XD

Have old Jeans? Help Giraffes!

Hey, I ran across this and thought it would be cool to share! If you have old jeans or want to start a fundraiser, you can donate them to help giraffes!



People know tat some African animals are low in numbers. But they recently discovered that giraffes are a lot worse off than we thought.
For example, people know that elephants are in trouble. There are about 500,000 elephants left.
There are only 80,00 giraffes left.
So yeah. Not cool.
There's lots we can do to help. But for a simple one, never buy those giraffe hair bracelets. Because the giraffes are often killed in the making of those...

A Character Type I Wish Didn't Exist

Back when I first started getting into anime, I immediately ran into a new character type. Well not new, but I hadn't run into it much before. They are very common in anime. The pervert characters.
One of the first manga I read was Fruits Basket. There is one in there, though he is pretty mild. Shigure.
One of the main character in InuYasha is in this category as well.
Then that creepy teacher in Azumanga Daioh.
And that freaky little grape head in My Hero Academia.
No pictures in this one because I have no desire to promote this.

These characters are everywhere.
And it drives me crazy.
They're just supposed to be comedy relief, but it is nowhere near that simple. The fact that they're comedy relief makes it even worse. It's like anime/manga are saying that it's funny and okay to grab people inappropriately and say rude/suggestive things.
Anyway, I wish that character type didn't exist. It drives me crazy and I only cringe every time I run into them and have to watch them ?be funny."

Roses and Diamonds

First of all, spoilers on Steven Universe: A Single Pale Rose.
I watched it a while ago, and am finally getting around to writing about it XP

I always thought it was odd how Rose/Steven had so many different powers. The other gems really only have one or two abilities, but Steven has several (floating, controlling plants, healing people, linking dreams, ex). I guess now it makes sense.

I don't know yet if I'm excited about Pink Diamond's identity. I want to see how they explain all of it (I still haven't gotten really excited about any new stuff since Lars and Steven were taken to Homeworld, though the episode with Garnet and the kittens was pretty cute).

The more I thought about Pink Diamond, it made more sense. Oddly enough, when I connected it to The Twelve Kingdoms, it all clicked. Pink Diamond, and Youko.
When Youko becomes queen, no one else at the palace trusts her. Even though she's queen, she can't really do anything. Thus she pretty much stages a coup against herself to show the officials that they can't mess with her.


Pink Diamond feels very much the same. During Steven's dream, Yellow treats Pink like a child. They give her a colony to humor her. So although Pink "owns" Earth, I bet she doesn't really hold any of the power. The other Diamonds are probably forcing her to run it their way.

Pink must have thought that she could never talk the other diamonds down, so she tried to fight against them while keeping her own involvement secret. I guess she could never have imagined that the diamonds would end up destroying almost all of her allies (and planting the Cluster).

Babies!

A couple very important babies were born at the zoo today! So freaking excited. I saw a couple photos, and they are the cutest things ever. I can't wait until I can see them @_@

I'm trying to think of a post that actually involves my stories. But all I can think of it how much I cringe when I try to write Evva's romance stuff @_@
Well, I guess I'd better go back to it since I'm almost past the part where it's worst.

Most Freaking Depressing Movies Ever

It feels like the most depressing movies I've ever seen have been animations.
But I also know that's not really true. When I saw the new Les Miserables, I heard more crying in the theater than I had ever heard before.

And Only the Brave was hella depressing, because during the credits they showed photos of all the real guys that the movie was based off of.
But in America, people tend to think that cartoons are for children. That thought has always driven me crazy, since I love cartoons, as do my parents and plenty of other people that are far older than I. In general, I like animations more than I like live action because I love the art involved. But also, my favorite stories are usually the ones that you can enjoy whether you're a child or an adult (though there are exceptions).

But some animations are definitely not for children. Especially when you get to animations from other countries.
I've known this for a long time. But it seems that the truly depressing animations I've found leave me more stunned than depressing live-actions do. Maybe because subconsciously I don't expect them to be so depressing?

I just watched an animation I'd never heard of before, called When the Wind Blows. It started off with quite a bit of that British humor. It was rather cute at first, though there was that threat hanging overhead.
And the further it went, the more depressing it got. The ending was not unexpected, though it was unexpected to the two characters.
I saw it coming a mile away, but still...

And there was another animation I watched a while ago, I think from Spain. It was called Wrinkles, about a guy that gets alzheimers. That one was like a punch to the gut because my Grandpa had just died from alzheimers.

And Since I was talking about Takahata recently, Grave of the Fireflies is another. I think that was the first really depressing animation I'd ever run into. It was back in high school, and I was definitely not expecting anything like that, considering the other Ghibli movies I was acquainted with (Ghibli movies do not fit into one neat category, but that's what's awesome about them).
Actually, that's the only time I ever saw it. I really have to watch it again. At least this time I'll be prepared.