What a Day

Last Tuesday I enjoyed one of the best days I've had a long time.  I began the day by getting up at 6:30 or so, which is a feat in it's own right for me these days, and headed out to LaGrange Park.  I was "doing a favor" for my aunt Chris and hanging out with her youngest, Liam, who had the whole week of school off while his older siblings had to attend Monday and Tuesday.  Chris had her clinical rotation all day and couldn't be home.  When I arrived at their house around 8:30, Liam was still sleeping and Paul was getting ready to head out.  Figuring that I had a little while before Liam was ready to get moving I sat down at the computer and wrote some emails, facebooked and read some blogs as I had a hot cup of coffee.  After about half an hour I decided that Liam was not about to keep me waiting all day, and went to go and put into practice the waking up kids technique I have learned under the supreme master of waking up kids, uncle Tom.  Now, Liam is a little like Matt in some ways, he's pretty big (I think it was in third grade when he toppled a sixth grader in the playground for picking on his, ironically very small, best friend Ricky), he has always loved showing off his body, as Edward learned first hand on the beach in Michigan (much like Mitch and Doreen learned the first time they met Matthew as a baby, walking down the street butt naked, having left a trail of clothes on the sidewalk), he can be a little slow in the morning, and they both have been arrested for underage drinking.  Okay, I lied about the last one.  All jokes aside, I used all the old tricks like, shaking, bouncing, jumping on him, tickling, nothing was moving this kid.  So I decided to grab Sean's guitar and take a page out of the Vince Gogo book of waking up people and sing a horribly out of tune and obnoxious song until he couldn't stand it anymore.  I really don't think that my singing was what actually got him up so much as he decided he was ready, but either way he finally got out of bed and, due to his rather pungent odor (another similarity to my brother), we decided it was best if he showered.  

When he got out of the shower, I was ready to get moving, Chris had left her pass to the Brookfield Zoo, and I was on a mission to see some dolphins.  I friggin' love dolphins, and apes, apes are sweet!  Anyway, Liam had other plans.  He and his friend, he explained, had invented a game which involved shooting a hockey puck at the garage door from different distances and the first to miss looses.  After beating him a few times, informing him that I was vastly superior in the game of hockey and that his sad attempts to continue were futile, I suggested that we head out for some breakfast and... DOLPHINS!!  He wasn't quite ready, and wanted to play again, we changed the rules up a little to make it more difficult and I let the game get a little closer in hopes that almost winning would be as satisfying as winning.  After going to triple over time, I finished him of (evil chuckle) and we headed to the zoo.  I cannot remember the last time I was at Brookfield Zoo, but the place hasn't changed much since then.  The buildings look a little sad and run down, the animals still don't really do much of anything, except for the Gibbons (one of the lesser apes), who were teasing some sort of otter who had to share a habitat with them.

Liam, obviously, had been to the zoo more frequently because he had a plan the minute we walked through the gate.  On his list was the 80 or so year old Cockatoo whose name I forgot, the "fragile kingdom" and the big cats.  In about two hours or so we saw the entire zoo.  Although I must admit I forced him to sit and watch the dolphins with me for at least thirty minutes.  There were a few other moments, besides seeing the dolphins that is, that were worthy of mention, both of which came from the pachyderm house.  Number one happened as we approached the first rhino and Liam informed me that I we need to be on the lookout for it turing around because his friend once got peed on by a rhino here.  The way he explained the rhino peeing was one of those priceless kid moments that I can't possibly do justice to in writing and left my cracking up.  Go figure, as soon as I walked up to the pen holding the huge specimen of African megafauna and was reading the sign which warned that Rhinos mark their territory by SPRAYING urine in ALL directions, the thing turned, faced the wall of the pen (thank god) and proceeded to pee, no sandblast, the wall behind it (I'm pretty sure I saw some paint flake off).  We had a good laugh, which probably sounded like Beavis and Butthead, and moved on toward the other side of the building, which brings me to the other notable experience I had at the zoo.  The Hippopotamus.  That's it.  The thing didn't really do anything except eat hay off the floor of its pen, but it was effing HUGE!!!  Wow!!  You could have stacked up five of me and it would not equal the girth of this enormous creature.

When we left the zoo, we were both starving.  I wanted to get the car back to my mom in case she needed to run some errands for the upcoming trip to Niagara Falls for Thanksgiving.  We arrived in Oak Park and mom suggested we go to the Depot for some lunch.  Brilliant.  I hadn't been there in way too long.  Plus, it was right up Liam's alley.  We sat at the bar and he ordered himself a tall glass of chocolate milk and a club sandwich and I, under the conviction to try something new, went for the meatloaf sandwich.  Anna, the first lady of the Depot, took our order and chatted with us when she had a free second, and in between that Liam and I talked about hockey, Blackhawks snow shovel girls, school, work, you know, man stuff.  We polished off our food in record time, scarfing down the deliciously seasoned fries, coleslaw, pickles, all that remained were Liam's tomatoes because he has convinced himself that he doesn't like them, so I ended up eating them for him.  Afterward, he informed me that what he had just experienced was "the best club sandwich I've ever had," so I made him tell Anna, which he did not seem the least bit shy about.

By the time we left it was getting to be time for me to get down town to take the kids in our after school program to the UIC Physiology lab.  I asked Liam if he wouldn't mind coming along, and, you know help me keep the high school kids in line.  He was down with it and we got on the train toward the city.

The story from here on out gets pretty boring, we go to the lab, Liam plays it cool, doesn't really seem to mind hanging in the background and my parents come to pick him up and ship him back home for the night.

Chris and Paul, you guys have great kids, I hope that whatever eventually springs from my genes is as fun and interesting and talented as Sean, Samamfra, and Liam are.  Seriously, any time you want to get rid of them for a while, send them my way.  Well, at least until I move home, then you'll have to ask my roomates if it's okay.