Universal Monkey Business

Follow up to Monday's post.... The Girl is sleeping through the night again, allowing Mommy to sleep through the night again, which means Mommy feels less like the walls are pressing in on all sides.  Sleep deprivation doesn't sound as bad as, say, being mock-drowned, but it messes with my equilibrium and I don't underestimate it as a torture device.  And just in case I didn't grasp all the other illustrative possibilities, the universe sent me leaky plumbing at home AND work, on top of the sleeplessness and other stuff, which seemed unnecessarily redundant and a little mean.

......

I just perused Google Images for pictures of cars being crushed, the Star Wars trash compactor scene, and drowning scenes, for actual illustrative purposes [I am a TON of fun at parties] but then I was distracted by this guy:

Which I think illustrates this week's Life Lesson perfectly well - it can always get worse.  You could always catch on fire and be thrown from great heights by a huge robot AFTER being crushed.... Nevermind, no complaints here, we're just moseying along, thanks.

Let us talk of happy things:

I want to see the hippos!

Like some more pictures from the Family trip to the zoo - Matt and the The Boy were off, hopping all over the country during spring break, using our free flight benefits with NO problems  (grrrr!), so my brother & his wife came to keep me and The Girl company.

Funny story about these monkeys.  We sat down on the bench in front of them to take a breather and because they were cute & especially active.  One of them turned around right in front of my face, revealing what I thought were some very large, er, boy monkey parts.  My brother and I may have - allegedly - hypothetically - immediately made some juvenile crack thereabouts.  But at that very moment, a creepy zoo keeper mysteriously appeared at my shoulder & archly informed us the boy monkey was, in fact, a girl monkey, a cancer survivor, and those were fatty deposits leftover from her chemotherapy, you insensitive assholes.  The last bit may not have been verbalized but it was clearly implied.  OH MY GOODNESS.  This is a new low - suburban mom caught verbally bullying a cancer surviving monkey.  I'm not sure about the etiquette of atonement here -  Note of apology?  Extra souvenir purchase?  Fresh fruit basket?  Maybe she didn't hear us.

Dear Miss Monkey - I am very sorry I thought you were a boy.  Yours, k.

We quickly moved on.

Strike a pose!

STL natives might notice the The Girl's sticker.  We stopped by Ted Drewe's for frozen custard before going to the zoo but I didn't take any pictures because there is no good reason to document for All Time the consumption of that many calories in one sitting.  The combined guilt of dessert AND monkey bullying?  Well, maybe that explains my luck lately.  [Redacted:  offensive religious joke about cleansing waters & Old Testament floods].  Hmm, I wonder if I should reconsider that fruit basket?

Ha! You think a fruit basket can fix this? Funny!