You know how different friends enhance different parts of your personality? For example, I think everybody has a friend that brings out their crazy side, another who brings out their quiet side, a friend who brings out their gossipy side, and yet another friend who brings out their giggly side.
This is Becky.
She brings out my happy side. She's a crazy ball of energy who goes through life seeing things to be happy about. In other words, she's a very good friend to have when things are a bit crappy because she will slap that crappy right out of you and shove all kinds of good stuff in your face.
So when she suggested a trip to the zoo without kids, I said, "I'M COMING!"
And here's the thing--I had no idea that the Pittsburgh Zoo in January is a REALLY, REALLY good idea. We went on a rainy weekday. Most of the animals were out, but the people weren't. SCORE.
I am not exaggerating even a little bit when I say there were *maybe* ten people at the zoo. Considering I was part of a group of four, that means we ran into maybe SIX people total. In the entire zoo. It was GLORIOUS.
I got to take as many photographs of the animals as I wanted without anyone yelling, "Momma! Momma! Momma!" or glaring at me or standing in my way or ANYTHING. I even managed to stand two inches from that tiger and take a photo of it as it watched some zoo workers through a window. Usually if I try to stand by that window, it's with a little fear because there are normally so many kids crawling around there that I'm afraid of an uprising from the sippy cup sect.
We got to watch that gorgeous girl pace around.
We looked on as the elephants got baths.
(An aside: we heard the zookeeper say, "Lift your ear" and watched as the ELEPHANT DID IT. Why is it that elephants are better at listening than kids?)
We even had the penguin room all to ourselves. NEENER NEENER.
Which is all to say, get yourself a Becky and go to the zoo for a day.
It's a guaranteed good time.
Promise.