It's actually a little embarrassing to be getting around to this only now. I put off unpacking certain things for a ridiculously long time just in case we had to move our entire household again at a moment's notice. I don't know why I keep expecting that to happen. It's been years, in fact it's been nearly two decades, since I've had to scramble all my belongings into a few suitcases and scamper off to new digs every couple of months. You'd think I'd grown up dirt poor and underfed, or raised by wolves, the way I act sometimes. But this weekend I overcame my minor neurosis and just unpacked those software boxes, darn it. I felt bold. Daring. Actually, I felt irritated by the boxes themselves. They're so unsightly on the bookshelves, and I could never find what I wanted easily.

I also unpacked every single video cassette I own and arranged them on shelves. I don't own a ton of them (John owns two tons, just to make up for my lack), but I do have all of Mystery Science Theater 3000's first through sixth seasons, plus the five year run of Babylon 5, plus all the movie versions of Jane Austen's novels, a copy of Dangerous Liaisons, and The Legend of Fong Sai Yuk. Now you know my media secrets. Basically, I'm only interested in science fiction or period pieces. You can have the contemporary stuff.

The action half of the weekend started with going bowling with Bill and Julie Humphries on Saturday. We went to the inexplicably named Cherry Bowl somewhere in the godforsaken blight that is Sunnyvale. It was a decent little bowling alley, very old fashioned and not filled to the brim with Silicon Valley power bowlers like the Palo Alto Bowl nearer home. The advantage of the P.A. Bowl is the Thai restaurant attached to the building, but it's just too glitzy for me to really enjoy myself. This is because I stink at bowling. I hate feeling like I'm bringing down the tone of the place as I stand worriedly clutching my ball, trying to psych myself into aiming for the arrows instead of the pins. It gives me performance anxiety. You'll understand when I tell you that breaking 80 is a really good day for me.

Sunday, John and I took ourselves up to the city and visited the zoo. We mooched around for three hours, enjoying the changes wrought since we last visited in 1989. They've done so much to make the animals more comfortable, and gotten rid of a lot of the nasty old cement floors and barred cages. I used to feel terribly sorry for the larger animals. Now the Asian elephants have nice sandy ground and a huge pool to bathe in, the tigers have tall grasses and bushes and a couple of trees to hide in, and the otters have a well-designed, more natural series of pools and waterfalls to play in with no cement in sight. All of the plantings have been improved, too. I think we're going to rejoin as members of the zoo. We used to go pretty frequently when we lived in the city. I'd like to contribute something towards the new open landscaping for the African savannah area. I can't wait to see the giraffes get more room to stretch and the African elephants get moved out of their cement-floored pens. It's the least they deserve under the circumstances.

Nota bene: I've obviously been updating twice a week instead of just weekly as threatened. I expect to have a new entry up on Thursday, so check in then. New month, new color scheme, new graphics. Oh, the adventure!

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