Last night I attended an ASMP members-only event. We were permitted to bring a guest, and Christopher went with me. I couldn’t have stopped him from coming even if I wanted to. See, the event was a social one and it was held on Joan Embery’s ranch, just east of town.

Yes, that Joan Embery–the one who has been visiting the Tonight Show for, like, ever. The animal expert from the San Diego Zoo whom I remember watching for years with Johnny Carson (her first appearance was, I think, in 1971). I have no idea how old she must be now (do the math…60 maybe?), but she looks great except for a bit of extra weight (the photo is blurry and not flattering, but the light was fading so it was long-exposure time). Her face looks maybe 45-50ish, max, with lots of very real smiles. I think it’s from doing what she loves and getting to live with so many cool animals.

Speaking of the animals, we got to see several. There was a lovely Percheron horse who was about 18+ hands (6 foot+, at the shoulder) that you can see in this wide shot. Here’s a cropped image shot from across the yard, looking left from the previous shot–that’s the barn and, well, you just don’t expect to see this kind of butt in a barn door.

By the way, sorry for the occasionally blurry images. The sun was going down and I didn’t want to use flash much because of the animals. Anyway…

We also got to pet an aardvark (one of the oddest creatures out there–part pig, part opossum, part Darwin’s nightmare) and a Fennec Fox named Yoda. There were snakes and birds and even a baby armadillo (I’ve never seen a live one–this one ran around like a pinball!), and then they all went away. At that moment they brought out the special guest…a cheetah. We couldn’t pet the cheetah (darn) but it was a thrill just to be so close.

Later, I was near a table where Ms. Embery was speaking to one of the photographers and she mentioned a mountain lion in the barn. I ran to get Christopher, who adores cougars, and brought him to Ms. Embery, politely asking her to repeat herself. She said we could see Mugger the mountain lion by just going into the barn, and then she took us back there herself. At first Mugger was hiding, then he came out and Christopher took some pics of him. I like this one.

Oh, and in the barn we pet other horses and mules (the zebra, by this time, had gone outside–never did see the whole thing). Another Percheron was there and he kept forcing me to pet and scratch his HUGE head. I was in heaven with all the horse-y smell and sounds.

I may complain about living out here, but sometimes there are some really good things connected to San Diego living. This was definitely one of them.

Today is Bastille Day. I mentioned this to Christopher over coffee this morning and he promptly asked “What do you want to do to celebrate?”

I answered,”Get an iPhone. Isn’t that the traditional thing to do? It’s in the song:

Allons enfants de la patrie
Achèterons un iPhone…”

I’m pretty sure Marat and others would spin if they heard me, but with a dying cell phone and mostly dead iPod, it’s been very hard to resist the siren call of the device.

Aux marché, citoyens!
Le “mall” nous attend.
Achètons, Achètons,
Un iPhone neuf
qui nous rendra heureux. [translation]

Late in June, Christopher and I went to the Members’ Preview evening for Nighttime Zoo–every year, during the summer, the San Diego Zoo has later hours, which is great for seeing animals awake and we love going there especially during these evenings. Well, this preview evening had fewer people (since it was restricted to members) and most of those went to the special “show” in one of the amphitheatres. We decided to explore the zoo instead, and we had the place almost to ourselves. (note that all pics can be clicked on for larger versions)
We decided to start off with a quick peek at one of our favorites, Diego the Ocelot, in the Children’s Zoo. Then we took the Skyway to the far side of the zoo, so as to work our way back. Right near where the Skyway stops is the Polar Bear exhibit. While they weren’t awake, they were just cute as all get-out and they were right up next to the glass too .

Anyway, we walked all over the place and, while we still didn’t see the tigers (they are almost never out when we’re there), we did see lots of big cats and giraffes and loads of pork variations (the zoo has about a billion pigs of different varieties) and all the usual animals we love to visit.

We also paid more attention to the odd foliage of the zoo (and SoCal in general in many cases). For example, These two odd flowering succulents:

Not to mention the largest Honeysuckle plants I have ever seen! Look at the size of the blossoms that’s Christopher’s hand!

We walked ourselves out that evening, got to commune with the animals, and generally had a wonderful time. It is one of our favorite places here in San Diego. If you come to visit, we do have some passes…

The very word still gives me the willies. After being here in San Diego for the HUGE fires of 2003 (just a couple of months after moving here), when the news says “There’s a brush fire at…” my skin prickles.

Yesterday, as I was watching the local noon news while eating lunch, they broke into their regular reports to announce that there was a brush fire in Rancho Peñasquitos. They cut to the video, gave a street name, and the Google map confirmed my suspicions: it was not far from Christopher’s parents’ house. As his parents are out of town right now, if the fire got too close, we’d have to go up there to rescue their cats and, at the very least, move their cars (filled with whatever we could save) to safety.

We had to drive into the 2003 fire to evacuate Janeen’s kids and animals…I really didn’t want to have to do that again.

Luckily, the fire crews jumped on the fire and kept it away from homes. Whew.

Today, they have announced that it was deliberately set. Not a campfire that got out of control–arson.

Now today, again during the noon news, they cut to their helicopter over Peñasquitos again and announced that there were fires there again. In exactly the same place. At the same time as yesterday. This is sounding odd, to say the least. But this time the fire bug started it (if that is the cause of today’s burn) in a place that burned yesterday so there is no good fuel for it to take off again.  Hopefully.

One of my favorite things out here in SoCal is that there are lots of hummingbirds. Actually, there are many interesting birds out here, but I have a particular love for the little hummingbirds.

To encourage them to hang out in our yard, we’ve had a feeder for years.  A simple sugar-water mix and they slurp it up all year. There are less birds in the winter, as most breeds migrate, but there are some which stay, and now that it’s summer, there are almost always some birds in our back yard.

That many birds and you’d expect the feeder to run low more quickly than in the winter months, of course. However, in the past couple of weeks, the “nectar” has been disappearing in record time. We’ve been calling the birds “miniature pigs with wings” as the feeder is often dry in a couple of days after filling.

Now we know why. Caught in the act, that is (we think) a Hooded Oriole which apparently loves sugar water as much as the hummingbirds do. We’ve seen both him and, we think, his mate at the feeder and they often sit on our back fence and chirp at the Mockingbirds, Sparrows, Mourning Doves and other birds who share the yard.

And yes, we feel guilty for blaming the tiny guys for being pigs.