Aquarium Weekend Katsup

I kept thinking that if I just had a chunk of quiet time, I would finally catch up on my blog. Saturday and Sunday morning, I had some time, and guess what? I didn't catch up on anything but clearing my Reader!

So, it will never be caught up. But to go back t some highlights...

In late July, an old friend came out for a visit. Even though I've only seen Ethan a handful of times over the years, it's always surprising just how quickly he feels like an old friend. We met at the Monterey Bay Aquarium on Saturday, where I was attacked by a giant whale:

From 2009

The Monterey Bay Aquarium is great, but full of really obnoxious people who feel the need to take pictures of each and every tank. Of course, they are not going to look at all 500 of these blurry cellphone pictures ever again, but that doesn't stop them from jamming the things in between you, who are actually looking at the exhibits, and the tanks.... for 5 minutes while they try to get just the right stupid shot. The Monterey Bay Aquarium is a good place for kids. My personal favorite was watching the otters gleefully rip apart their meals. Who would have thought entrails could look so cute? (besides Peter Jackson in Dead Alive-- adorable!)

It was a bit of a cat-herding exercise to keep the entire group together but we did manage to get to dinner together at a Thai place across the street from the aquarium, which I thought to be surprisingly un-bad, despite it's proximity to tourist hell. Then we went to Kapp's Pizza in Mountain View for a few beers before calling it a night.

Sunday we went to the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, which was fantastic, and a little less kid-oriented (that's a good thing, for me) The building is beautiful, the rainforest is fun, and they have set up the large tanks so you can see them from a different angles from the different levels. Paul tried to jump into the alligator pit

From 2009

For dinner, we went to Axum in Lower Haight for some tasty Ethiopian food.

Every few years, I get a picture like this:

From 2009

and am reminded that even though people are far apart, good friends will reconnect almost immediately. I have to admit, I was wondering how awkward it might be to see someone you haven't seen for years, then spend two days with them. It was great to see Ethan!

Hooray!