Okay no lie, this was the best Thanksgiving I've had - ever. Our family dinners are a nightmare of awkwardness so it was a relief that no formal dinner was planned this weekend. Instead, my sister arranged for my dad to have turkey with my mom at the nursing home on Monday and my son, his girlfriend and I told dad we'd take him out for dinner on Sunday. We had already decided we wanted to go to the zoo but he said he didn't want to go. However, when we picked him up on Sunday morning we just pretended that he had agreed to come with us and he went along with it. (Dad lesson #1: it may take years but you eventually learn how to handle them.) We intended to bust my mom out of the nursing home but she was completely out of it so we decided to visit again later.
Anyway, after some issues with decrepit wheelchairs at the zoo (hint: they keep the good ones locked up in the back) we hit the trails. It was great! The weather was beautiful and every animal was out and in plain view. I haven't been there in years but I put myself through school by driving a school bus. In the good weather I was there about 5 times a week and not once in those hundreds of visits did I ever see as many animals as I did this weekend. And bonus - there are a number of babies right now - two tigers,
a zebra, giraffe, orangutans & monkeys - you can watch the tigers on the tiger cam but they were definitely more fun (and close-up) in person.
My dad didn't say much while we were there. I thought maybe he was bored but really, he hasn't been able to put a full sentence together since he underwent chemo last year. It killed the cancer (hooray!) but had some other, negative side effects. He can only speak in monosyllables, says yes when he means no and can't taste or smell anything (a definite plus around the elephant & rhino enclosures!). Anyway, when we were getting into the car to leave he said, "You know, I've never been to this zoo before." Considering the effort it took for him to get the words out, I took that as a thank you. Afterwards we went to his favourite Chinese restaurant, Paul Wong's on Hwy 2 and had an amazing Szechuan-style thanksgiving dinner. Awesome.