In 5 Years Time

This weekend was fantastic.

Have you ever thought about the word "fantastic"?
It's like 'fan' + 'tastic'.
And 'tastic' means of super-great-magnitude, as in the words "frat-tastic" or "ectastic" even though that's not really a word. And then the word 'fan' means a person with great admiration, so the word "fantastic" really describes something that is super-liked by all people.

Or, if you climb out of my imaginative dictionary into the boring world, "fantastic" comes from the word 'fantasy' to describe something remote from reality. In my opinion, the word should then be "fantast-ish", which is the German way to say that.

But aside from my brief etymology lesson, this weekend was great. To illustrate such greatness, I have included a smorgasboard of pictures. Think of it like a graphic novel.

Or, rather, don't.

This post shall be woven with words and laced with lyrics from Noah and the Whale songs, so the things that read like lyrics aren't mine; I'm only including them because they're so happy and super-approrpiate for this past weekend. The purpose of this paragraph is so that the copyright monster won't eat me. You know how those things can get.

So how about I went to a ZOO on Saturday?
I just realized how much the word zoo looks like the number 200. What is with me and words today?
Anyway- I hadn't been up close and personal with such animals since I was 4, back when I used to take field trips.

"A zoo? That's so childish!" you exclaim.

Oh yeah? Then why did they have a college student discount?
Besides, we had to make Mike feel young again since he was turning the big 23.

So here are a few pictures of the things mine eyes have seen. These aren't all the pictures I took (excluded are naked mole rats, warthogs, etc), but included are a worthy selected few. Interesting factoid: Zoo Atlanta is one of only 3 zoos in America that have actual pandas from China. Apparently we rent them for like $1,000,000 a year, as if we're not indebted to China enough already.

But here's a really cool elephant!

I cropped out the zooworker in the background because some people don't look good with tucked-in shirts. And she was one of them.



















"And there will be love in the bodies of the elephants too;
I'll put my hands over your eyes, but you'll peek through"

And this was the closest I got to a giraffe.














We have a mysterious likeness.

Here's a picture I got of a bear.
Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.

Turns out their tongues are really that long.















So this really isn't an exaggeration:


















And it's always really freaked me out much gorillas look like people. Or how [certain] people look like gorillas. Like in middle school. Remember that? Yeah! Anyway, here's a picture of that. I doubt it will freak you out as much as it did me, but they really look like Neanderthals to me!















And then the epic lion! Doesn't he look so cuddly? Like you could just curl up with him and read a book?















Here's a really gold monkey:















If animals were pieces of Quidditch equipment, he'd be the snitch. HP FTW!

And here is the red panda, but I wouldn't really consider it a bear. It looks kind of like a fox. And I like foxes.
In fact, I was once called a "fox". My mum was too, back in the day.
Boys wrote these kinds of things in her yearbook.
True story.















Here's another true story: on Sunday, since Biff is no longer pregnant, we dared her to eat a raw onion just like an apple, just like Sam the onion man did in the book Holes.

So she did.

It was entertaining, but she was only able to eat half of it because we didn't want her to throw up.
I mean, this isn't Jackass 4.
















And she smelled like an ogre afterwards.

There were other things like 3 completely homework-free days, homemade cheesecake and brownies, swimming, family, long walks, and sunsets that made this weekend SO awesome. It all went by way too fast.

And M&I had a fantastic time, despite the overabundance of chin and neck fat in this picture.















In 5 years time, M&I might just be inseparably combined.
Like two atoms in a molecule.

Fair warning.

And there'll be love love love wherever you go there'll be love,
TWS