show me your cheetah feet

Oh ZooCamp. How cool and bizarre are you.

Like yesterday, when we couldn't find a Penguin camper, only to realize she'd left with the other class. Or when I ate lunch with Zoe and her hilarious AIC campers with the matching faux-hawks. Or like today, when we had our second fast-reaction find-a-camper moment. Or when I ate lunch, again, with hilarious AIC campers. Also when I got to come within a foot-and-a-half of a giraffe.

ZooCamp, I love how lately people are so willing to help you out by moving sinks to classrooms or opening up educational spaces. I love how just at the moment when I think I can go back to the office and send an email, or even go to the bathroom, you come up with a million things I can do instead that take me as far from my office, or the bathroom, as possible.

And Zeta Chi, the amazing and capable staff of ZooCamp. I find your stressful moments motivating and your camper interactions inspiring. It's only day two, but I feel like, with the way we support each other and care about the welfare of one another, it's mid-summer already.

And to end, I'd like to post some amazing campers quotes from the aforementioned lunches with AIC campers.

Zoe: This kid over here thinks Victoria, B.C. is better than Vancouver, B.C.
Camper: Did someone say Victoria Beckham!?
Zoe: What? No!
Camper: Oh. I thought you said 'Which is better, Victoria's Secret or Victoria Beckham.'

"Would you rather have an endless supply of cheese or play professional lacrosse?"

Well, all the others I'm realizing are only funny if you were there.

So here's to the rest of the summer. This is what we wait for all year, right?

In closing, welcome back, Larmy. It's also dinosaur season again.

take only what you need from it

a couple really important things:

watch this video. all my a capella dreams come true! feel free to stop watching it when we start singing seasons of love, however. the first song is the best.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUCC22tqhVw

the summer mix is here! listen to it as you drive to the beach/to work/anywhere in the sunshine. sing along loudly. it's pretty much perfect.

1. california gurls - katy perry (feat. snoop dogg)
2. somebody to love - justin bieber (feat. usher)
3. king of anything - sara bareilles
4. i'm not your toy - la roux
5. your hands (together) - the new pornographers
6. in my head - jason derulo
7. hannah - freelance whales
8. lisztomania - phoenix
9. bad romance - glee cast
10. if we ever meet again (chew fu remix) - timbaland (feat. katy perry)
11. animal arithmetic - jonsi
12. walking on a dream - empire of the sun
13. kiss n tell - ke$ha
14. sleepyhead - passion pit
15. this too shall pass - ok go
16. last person - jenny owen youngs
17. break your heart - taio cruz (feat. ludacris)
18. up up & away - kid cudi
19. where the lines overlap (acoustic) - paramore
20. home - edward sharpe and the magnetic zeros
21. symphonies - dan black

also, today was father's day but my dad is in saudi arabia at mecca (WHAT?!). apparently yesterday he and my mom went to morning prayer with 1,000 people. how is that fair!? i wouldn't really know how to do the prayer thing, but it would be amazing to see. anyway, i'm pretty excited for them to come home tomorrow. i really love my papa and i'm sad he wasn't home for dad day this year. also this house is creepy with just me and kavi, even though we made a delicious pasta sauce tonight.

and lastly, tomorrow is the first day of summer and the first day of zoocamp! it still blows my mind how that happens. full speed ahead....

let it all begin again

I should have known this would happen.

Summer starts slowly: lots of time with parents, a few coffee dates with friends as they trickle into town. Then all of sudden, summer slams into my life and explodes in a fiery ball of zoo, weekend trips, frisbee, and evening hangouts. Probably the best kind of fiery ball, if you ask me, but always just a little bit overwhelming.

For example, things I've done since last Monday:

- Gone to Bend, twice. Once with zoo people, and now again with Claremont people.
- Turned 24 (!)
- Hung out with three Yalies making their way through Portland, taking them to Pied Cow, Doug Fir, Rimskys, Burgerville, CPK, and Colleen's birthday party.
- Game night at my house, Taboo, Settlers of Catan
- Lots of zoo time. Lots. All staff training, preparation for training, overnight shadowing, etc.
- Seen the weather change from rainy poo to sunny beautiful overnight.
- Began the music recording process with Zoe. Stay tuned.

Etc.

Anyway, everything has been very eventful and exciting. In fact, I would like it to be a little less eventful, but obviously I lead a very interesting life so that comes with the territory. The music recording situation is my current favorite. I hope to have some tracks (some alone, some with Zoe, some original songs, some covers) finished in the next couple of weeks so I can post them to places and immediately become a famous musician.

Also, yesterday I was in Fred Meyer, wearing my new pretty little white dress. While I was walking down the aisles, this older man (probably in his 60's) with a trucker hat and dirty hands walks past me, smiles, and says "I like your dress." It was completely not-creepy and sounded entirely sincere. It completely made my day. I thought about writing an entry about little acts of kindness and things like that but I decided that that would constitute over-analysis of something that's just nice, and I'm trying to do that less.

Okay. I was secretly just waiting for everyone else in this Sunriver house to wake up, so now that's happened and I'm going to go explore a potential apple and peanut butter situation.

(Also, I need a new good book to read. Recommend me the best book ever, ready, go!)

the giraffe is watching you.

A few things (I like lists):

1. If you are reading this, or if at some point you have read my blog, you should click the little "Follow" button. That way, I know not to say things like "This person sucks sooooooo much etc etc." Just kidding. I would never write that. But still.

2. I cut all my hair off yesterday. I'm not going to post pictures right now because I don't like those pictures people take of themselves on the computer. I'll just wait until a real picture exists of me doing something totally rad and exciting, and also my hair looks good. But suffice to say that I can now faux-hawk it and make it look like Justin Bieber. Win-win.

3. Today is going to be a good day. I can't say why because it's a secret.

tightly structured yet approachable

In college, Laura's dad told us that if we ever didn't know what to say about a wine, we should call it "tightly structured, yet approachable." I like this phrase and have even used it from time to time. This is relevant because today, Colleen, Amanda, Eric, and I went to visit Laura at her parents' vineyard for Memorial Day wine-tasting. This is what the vineyard looks like.

As you can see, it was also amazingly sunny, for the first time since I've been home.

Without going into copious details, it was a lovely day. Wine at Yamhill Valley, then at Bella Vida, cheese, strawberries, brownies, friends. Turkey vultures. We brought Pascal!

The end of wine-tasting brought us back to Colleen and Laura's new apartment, eventually, where Zac met us for dinner. It was wholly wonderful, all around. The entire day, however, I kept thinking about how much I wish my east coast friends could meet my west coast friends. This is part of the problem with leading several overlapping lives. You meet all these people and you talk about half of them to the other half and vice versa. The stories are funny, but you really wish that there weren't 3,000 miles between the people who made these stories possible.

The easy solution to this predicament comes from traveling friends. Amanda and Kristen each came to New Haven and now they know many, if not most of the people I am close with from FES. A few wonderful east-coasters will come west throughout the course of the summer and I couldn't be more excited to show them around my Oregon life.

Because the best part of wine-tasting, strawberry eating, and going out to dinner was knowing that today was only the beginning of three and half months here. Days at the zoo, Tuesday frisbee, Wednesday staff bonding, weekend trips to Bend and the beach. And with smatterings of visitors all the way through, I continue to have a very good feeling about this summer.

So maybe that phrase has applicability beyond wine. Having groups of people in your life that represent different places and adventures creates a network of people that intersect and diverge, a network that is both approachable, constantly inviting and including new people in new capacities, and tightly bound, structured in such a way to allow for adaptation.

Or maybe I'm just over-analyzing (again) something that's not meant to be analyzed at all.  Hard to tell, really.