(a birthday) night at the zoo

We celebrated hubby's birthday a day late with a dinner with dear friends in a delicious and fun restaurant- Buca di Beppo. And to top it off, we got the best table in the house- the Pope's table. I find this setting ironic, considering my status as a "recovering catholic" and all. But, it's got it's own defined space, which is perfect when you dine with five kids in your mix. And, honestly, a bust of the Pope in the middle of the table makes for fun picture taking. We enjoyed a lovely dinner of many different gigantic bowls of pasta and meat dishes, and our kids decided to be on their best behavior as a birthday gift to their father. (HA HA HA.) If only. Instead, there was much furtive whispering to little ones about bums being on chairs and bodies being in control and voices being at indoor levels. (HA HA HA again.)

The highlight of any visit to Buca for my kids is unequivocally the pleasure of seeing "The Peeing Guy." Oh yes, we stay Klassy. (With a capital K, you'll notice.) Unfortunately, he's been kind of dehydrated on our last two visits, but that doesn't stop a particular three year old in our midst from watching him carefully. After a request to the staff, he was plugged in and began to get watered up. Pudge couldn't have been more excited. Along with TPG, there's a ton of stuff to look at on the walls of "Joe's Basement." (Which is the English translation of the restaurant's name, according to the gentleman who seated us, who also complemented hubby's new shirt and declared his love of the Yankees, too, in reference to Pudge's hat. Nice guy.) Framed pictures and kitschy Italian-American memorabilia fill almost every square inch of the walls, and a huge percentage of this is dedicated to the beauty that is Sophia Loren. Holy cow, was that woman HOT.

Speaking of semi-nekkid women, another thing I adore about sitting at the Pope's table is that I'm reminded that women of my stature (ahem) were once considered a beauty worthy of artistic rendering on a regular basis. Which helps me to not feel so bad about myself when I gorge on four-cheese ravioli. È squisito!
(which according to the google, means "It's delicious!" in Italian). I'm willing to bet we're not the only dorks who have taken such a picture as this.

After we finished up at the restaurant, we opted for a somewhat spontaneous trip over to the National Zoo, since we were right up the road. The idea was to get a little snack and take a walk around the zoo. The sun hadn't yet set, but the evening hours were getting on, so we anticipated just a short trek. What he didn't anticipate was that we would get really wrapped up in our visit to an almost empty zoo or that we would discover an area of the zoo previously unknown to all of us- four adults who have lived in the DC area for over a decade.

We visited the Asia Trail and looked at some deserted-for-the-night environments, we got to see an elephant walk around part of his amazing, new habitat, and I got to dance with an emu.

What? Don't believe me? Watch for yourself.

Oh yes, I've got some serious bird whispering talents, my friends.

Speaking of birds, how in the world did I not know there was a whole bird area of the zoo?? Since we were there later in the evening, the Bird House had already closed, but there are lots of outdoor habitat areas where I made lots of new friends. (Though, no others wanted to dance, sadly.) I found myself taking lots of pictures of the Wattled Crane, and hubby, our friend D, and I were cracking up at a Men in Black reference that came to mind. (If you can't figure it out on your own, hover over the pic to see it's name.)

And yes, we were the oh-so-responsible parents who took the photograph below, one that made me laugh out loud when I realized the sign was visible.

Parents of the year, all of us. In our defense, we did stop the children from putting their fingers on the wires. Yay us!

We made friends with the Green-winged Macaw, also known to us as the "Hi Bye" parrot. I tried talking to him a little bit when we first approached his enclosure, but he was quiet, and we soon got distracted by the Black-Crowned Night Herons, who incredibly nest at the zoo every spring, right outside the bird house. The huge flock was all over the trees, and we watched an adult come swooping in and feed a whole crew of its very noisy kids in the nest. After we watched those herons for a while, we began to walk away, when Mr. Macaw decided to show his manners. "Bye Bye!" How could we leave then? We stuck around for a while, in which he cawed at us, in addition to his "Hello!" and "Bye Bye!" calls.

And finally, there were two signs in the bird area that instigated hubby and I to insist that Red pose for a picture. For one, she was excited, because the name on the sign made her smile. For the other, well... not so much.

Yes, feel free to laugh your butts off. That's what I do every single time I see this picture. I've even made it my  desktop, because I need to condition myself to laugh at this expression that I see quite often, instead of becoming infuriated by it.

After seeing flamingos, the (non-dancing emu cousin) Rhea, Storks, Scarlet Ibis, Roseate Spoonbills, a King Vulture, several types of cranes (balled- and non-), and the coolest Kori Bustard ever, among many others, we realized that the sun was definitely past setting, and thus began to make our way back toward the front of the zoo, where we had luckily nabbed a couple parking spots right on Connecticut Avenue. In a moment of foreshadowing that we were not aware of, my friend and I were talking about how the zoo "closes." We hypothesized that they simply locked up all the buildings at a certain time, but didn't do anything to ensure that people were actually off the grounds.

We were wrong.

As we got back in sight of the front entrance of the zoo, what did we see but a large, iron gate slid across the sidewalks indicating that we were now overnight residents of the zoo. The nine of us (and 1/2, counting B's belly baby!) stood there perplexed for a moment, until we waved to the DC police car that was across the street. The (thankfully) nice officers informed us that we'd have to walk back down the hill to the side parking lot area where were could get off of the zoo's grounds. Whew. Had I been a bolder blogger than I am, I would have asked the police officers to take a picture of our crew behind the bars, but I have to admit to being slightly sobered in enthusiasm when speaking with people who carry handcuffs and firearms.

Insert mental picture of five kids and four adults behind the zoo's bars here.

With a few unexpected visits from the native area deer, who apparently come to the zoo at night to mock the caged residents, we had an incredibly unique visit to the zoo, unlike any other we've experienced in the fourteen years we've lived here. I would suggest to anyone who would listen to visit the zoo in the late afternoon/ early afternoon.

Just don't try to exit in the front.

One of the happy zoo visitors,