My Thanksgiving Day by Nancy Mon

My Thanksgiving Day

By Nancy Mon

Roy and I did Thanksgiving differently this year. Roy has been talking to me for weeks about going to the Houston Zoo on Thanksgiving Day. Believe me I have been less than enthused and tried to use every opportunity to discourage the idea. First the weather men gave me great hope that the morning would be rainy and overcast. Then they changed their forecast to overcast, warm and rain free. Roy was making reservations for his staff Christmas lunch with McCormick and Schmidt downtown yesterday and they tempted him with the offer of an 11:30 opening for Thanksgiving lunch. Well, I hesitated to tell him, there wasn't anyway we could do the zoo, then be ready for an early lunch. Roy thought we could come straight from the zoo and eat because they told him dress was casual. I had to break the news to him that they didn't mean zoo casual more like business casual or casual chic...whatever that may look like. We couldn't traipse in with camo shorts and workout capris. Then as we began discussing the whole thing, which by the way in Roy's sweet way he was trying to make the day fun for me, we decided there wasn't any reason to go eat all those extra calories when we had planned a perfectly fine lunch. The fine, fine folks of the Play Grocery , and God bless the hands that prepared the meal, had a fine array of dishes to order and seeing that I am all about the economy, ordered several things to go along with a delicious smoked brisket that was in the freezer. We talked through options for the day and then came the brilliant plan of going out to breakfast first and then going to the Houston Zoo.

So we went to Mimi's in Pearland and had delicious pumpkin pancakes. I had heard they were awesome and so instead of getting my usual, Belgium waffles which are so good, we ordered pancakes. We were not disappointed! It took breakfast at Mimi's to get me out and about so early in the morning. I repeatedly pointed out to Roy how overcast the sky was and the probability of staying at the zoo for more than an hour was imminent. Roy joined the zoo society, nothing but socializing with monkeys for us, and admittance is free for us upper crust zoo types so leaving so quickly wasn't a problem. We headed down 288 and were at the zoo in no time. We even parked on the front row...which is nearly impossible most days. Much to my surprise there were several others who had this insane idea of going to the zoo on Thanksgiving Day.

So here in pictures is our Thanksgiving Day at the Houston Zoo

This is all too familiar to me now. Roy constantly takes pictures of me while I am doing mundane things like...you know...picking my teeth or making a face or rubbing my nose. No I don't rub my teeth and pick my nose. Honestly I don't pick my teeth but that sounded funny to me at this moment.

This is a dead plant that is located in the elephant area.

The elephants weren't out because they wanted to celebrate Thanksgiving indoors inside their cages.

Here is some more space of where the elephants would be if they were out.

This is the empty giraffe area. The giraffe's have been moved to African Forest section of the Houston Zoo, which isn't open yet. When I was a little girl this very same giraffe house was painted green. I don't have any idea why I felt like that had to be shared.

Oh boy! Time for some refreshing dippin dots to relieve us from the humidity and warmth. Oh, not open...closed for Thanksgiving...

Nothing like the combination of nachos and cotton candy. That would hit the spot. Oh, I see closed for Thanksgiving. The zoo is open...for business, no eating.

Maybe perchance a quick trip through a gift store. This one is located near the carousel which was open for business.

Oh, never mind, the shop is closed for the Thanksgiving holidays. By now I was getting nervous to even checking into whether the restrooms were open...

Here is the stage where the sea lions would be performing and also educating us in the ways of the lions of the sea. Oh, I see, Thanksgiving...they are eating their fish inside with their trainers.

Nothings says I've been to the zoo like sausage on a stick! Protein in abundance...oh, let me guess, closed for Thanksgiving, but the zoo is open.



OK, I intentionally did this to aggravate Roy while we were at the zoo. I told him I thought I would share our fun but closed day at the zoo. Actually, there were some concession areas open for business. And we got to see the new baby elephant, but through glass. We got some great pictures of lions, no tigers and a sleeping bear...oh my! I will share those in another blog post.

We did have a few scary moments though. Taking in the sights at the zoo and being constantly on the move was probably more excitement, don't laugh, and activity I've done since they zapped my heart. Since then my pulse rate has ranged from 39-54. Right there in lion country I had several moments where I thought I was going to faint. Of course Roy's answer to feeling faint has always been keep walking...till we found a bench. I really felt bad and thought I might have to flag down one of those golf carts that kept whizzing past us to get me back to the entrance of the zoo. The heart monitor watch said my pulse was 43. We had been there for almost 2 hours and I kept telling Roy I'm not faking anything just to be able to leave. Because, to tell you the truth, I was really having a good time. We got to the front and we bought some water. That helped and then I had the miracle moments to recover and have enough energy to go to the gift shop where Roy purchased some very cute gifts for me. I also showed him a couple of things I wouldn't mind seeing in my Christmas stocking. They really have some cute things there besides stuffed zoo animals.

The train wasn't running which I would have really liked to ride, so we walked a little bit around the duck pond and then headed home. We fixed a delicious Thanksgiving meal, thanked God for all His blessings and grace to us, ate, and then I took a long Thanksgiving nap with Godfather I and II in the background. And we didn't even have turkey.

I will probably post the "fun" pictures from the zoo tomorrow. I am so thankful to the Lord for all of you, known and unknown who read my blog. Thank you and God Bless!