The rest of the story

Because I didn't just take pictures yesterday...

We left about 10 minutes late for the zoo. It's a 90-minute drive (or, my niece kept saying, we could take the train and a bus...which would mean almost twice as much travel-time, and I don't think the train seats would be good for Beast's back). Fifteen minutes or so down the road, Beast remembered he'd forgotten his meds, so we had to return home for those. Just in case.

As it turned out, he took both pills at about 1:30.

So we arrived 45 minutes late because travel in L----n P--k along D-----y is insane on Saturday mornings. By the time we got parked and walked inside, Sparky and I were desperate for a bathroom. After taking care of that, we met up with my niece and nephew. Thank God for cell phones.

It's a very nice zoo, very small, thank goodness because I'm tragically out of shape.

After meandering about for 5 or 6 hours, we sat down near the gate we'd come in and spent--I kid you not--20 minutes deciding what to do next. We'd figured out "dinner" fairly quickly, but the next question was "where." We suck at "where" and we definitely suck bigtime at staying on task! Finally, I suggested going to Greek Town. I ate at a place there over 20 years ago, while I was still in college. Beast has eaten in the area a couple of times for business, when he worked "Downtown" (that sounds so funny now--I must be becoming a native!). We'd never eaten there together, and my niece and nephew hadn't been there ever. And he's a native C------lander.

So we ate outside in the courtyard at Athena. I had spanikopita, Sparky had something starting with "ex..." that involved wrapping lamb in filo dough, Niece had the combination platter, and Nephew had lamb of some kind. Beast...hmm, don't remember except it was a sort of mushroom/meat/spaghetti/veggie dish. Looked lovely. Most of us thoroughly enjoyed our food, though Sparky and I brought some home for today. And I had crema caramel for dessert, which is more eggy and honey-ey and less sugary than American custard. Weird texture and the caramel was quite thin...and I ate over half of it. No more eggs the rest of the month!

A lovely, lovely day. Now I want to eat nothing but Greek food for a week, and my "go live on a Greek island" yaya is back in full force. It didn't hurt that at least two of the waiters (of the 8 dozen or so hanging around) were lovely examples of Greek maleness. Nor did it hurt that one of the waiters complimented me on the shirt I was wearing. The very first time in the approximately 7 years I've owned it that someone has done that.

It took us about 80 minutes to get home, whereupon the old grind began: laundry, bills, prepping for today's meeting, downloading software (after finding it), blogging, and bed. I even slept past 5:45 for the first time in 5 days!

Now it's off to Sunday School (I may be leading the high school class), church and a meeting afterwards.

Have a great day.