Pre-Birthday Partying

Today I slept until noon, which was a treat in itself, catching up from days of inadequate sleep and recovering from a disappointing Friday.

Then I went to the Zoo. The Phoenix Zoo isn't as nice as the Milwaukee County Zoo. For one thing, the Milwaukee zoo has polar bears, whereas the Phoenix zoo does not. I recall having more fun at the Madison, WI zoo, where admission is free. Admission at the Phoenix zoo is decidedly not free. But it was an okay place for lunch and it was a little fun being around all the people, all the children running around.



The zoo closed at 4pm, but the Desert Botanical Gardens remain open until 8pm and are right next door, so I headed over there afterwards. I took the opportunity to explore the wildflower gardens, which were beautiful despite being largely not in bloom. I took about a bzillion pictures. I wonder if, besides giving me a hobby, they'll actually ever be of use to anyone. In theory a teacher could use them to teach plant identification or plan a trip to the gardens, maybe.



On my way home I stopped in at Arizona Mills to check it out. We certainly do like our shopping malls out here in the Valley, don't we? Wow. I got another cheap pair of sunglasses. I never seem to have one handy when I want one and I figure I'm eventually going to saturate my space with shades. They had a gourmet popcorn store but I resisted temptation. I think my love of popcorn is waning. I did stop in Gameworks and played a few games for the novelty of it, but the flashing lights and noise is too much to take for very long. The virtual reality beachhead protection game was kind of fun.

That's quite the movie theatre in the mall. Didn't see any movies, since there's some chance I'll have a chance to see one over Thankgiving break and I wouldn't want to have already seen it. Thanksgiving break. I talk like I'm still in school.

After that detour I went home and tried to see Leonids. This evening I didn't even think I saw any. Disappointing. Light pollution probably made it much harder to see anything interesting, but I didn't come up with an alternative.