Sunday was a fun day. Angela, Rob, Amy and I went to the National Zoo to see the baby panda. I think its name is Tae Kwon Do or something (ok, ok! Yeesh! Tai Shan! Freaking panda lovers!). It was a freezing day with winds of up to a kajillion miles an hour. We were determined to see the ball of fuzz and see what all the fuss was about.

I have no clue whatsoever where the heck the zoo is. Or how big it is.

When we got there we stood in line for a bit and it was quite blustery. I think I saw small children tumbling down the street as they were blown by the wind. But there we were, standing in line with our tickets to see the panda. In order to get an audience with the panda you had to order free tickets. Which is sort of depressing when you think about it. All of these parents were walking by with their children who wanted to see the bear and all you could hear was ‘No, honey. We didn’t get tickets so we can’t see the baby panda.’ Or they were turned away by the zoo police. How sad. And yet there I was, all smug and happy, that I got my ticket because my wife was smart enough to order them a while ago.

Do you hear that little Billy? My wife loves me because she got me panda tickets. Your parents don’t love you.

We finally get in to see the little booger and he reminds me of my fat cat, Cleo . All fat and roly poly. I’ll admit it was cute. And I’ll admit that, if possible, I would have put a disguise on it and smuggled it out of there. Here, panda. Put on this fake pair of glasses and a mustache and this baseball cap and walk slowly out of the zoo with me.

Then we got the bright idea to walk to the other exhibits. It was a fun, lovely day walking and talking with the animals. And when I say ‘talking’ I mean actually holding a conversation. It was weird. For example, at one point there was this giant hippo wading around in his pool. There are a good number of people leaning around the rails watching this huge animal romping in his pool. I decided to lean against the rail and stared at it and started having a mental conversation with it – except I was only doing it by myself. Suddenly the hippo swims up closest to me and we just start staring at each other. It felt like we were having a chat and I could swear that whenever I would think that the hippo was talking to me it would start blinking its eyes. Then we both decided that we had enough and we both turned to walk away at the same time.

My head hurt every time I thought that the animals were talking to me. I got to ‘chat’ with an elephant, a snake and a few other critters.

And were my old bones tired afterwards. All in all, a good day. I need to find a job with animals…