I was surprised to be the first kid up Sunday morning too. ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger's brother had hoped to go visit a friend before heading to the airport and I assumed he'd get up early, shower, and head out. I don't seem to have inconvenienced him, as he got up well after I showered Still I felt a bit guilty when I realized he hadn't gone out yet, until I learned he wouldn't have used the time anyway.
We had breakfast or lunch, a good bit of coffee cake that bunnyhugger's mother was anxious that I should eat. We don't have coffee cake much and it's really nice having some, really. And saw bunnyhugger's brother off to his friend's house. He promised to be back by 1:00 or maybe 1:30 and the consensus among the family was that he would not make even that. Their father wanted them to leave for the Detroit airport by 1 pm at latest, in your classic get-to-the-airport-14-hours-early mode, but 2:00 should have given them reasonable time.
While we packed up and loaded into the car everything we could --- basically everything but Sunshine and the stuff she immediately needed --- 1:00 rolled around and, to a wonder, he called. He was heading out and should be back by 1:30 and he was, or at least was close enough to not be too nerve-wracking. We made final plans for what gifts to send by mail, rather than force him to deal with hauling through security and through the long tiresome path from LaGuardia Airport back to New York City. And bunnyhugger's brother and parents left, leaving us for the last cleaning up.
Mostly, it was putting Sunshine in her carrier, and then cleaning up her area so that it could be returned to the dogs (their night kennels are normally kept in there). Also, bunnyhugger brought one of the kennels up from the basement, an act that somehow earned me thanks for getting that out of the basement. My reputation with her parents is unjustly elevated.
The only real reason we left --- really, the reason we didn't ride with them to the airport --- is that the Potter Park Zoo was having its Wonderland of Lights, the annual show where they decorate all the paths around the zoo. You've been seeing pictures of it here. The show was ending that night, though, to our annoyance; we could swear they've run as late as New Year's before. Maybe they couldn't secure the staffing for one more weekend. So we had to leave, with the promise to come back sometime soon and visit her parents again.
We unpacked everything at home --- Sunshine was so happy to get back to normal. And then studied the poor wounded fish, in the hospital tank. And realized that they were too badly wounded to recover.
On that sadness, after the end of family time, we bundled up --- I put on my long underwear and got my heaviest jacket even though it was only supposed to be about freezing --- and headed to the zoo. While in the parking lot, we got a call from bunnyhugger's brother. He was at the Detroit airport. His flight was cancelled. He was in line, to deal with how he was going to get back to Brooklyn. I asked if we needed to divert to the airport and rescue him; we didn't, not yet.
In the end, he would get a new flight, at Early:25 Monday morning, and they put him up in an airport overnight. Which is better than nothing, although had we known, we'd have been glad to house him overnight in our place. Although then we'd have had to get up at (Early minus three):25 Monday morning so perhaps that's all right-ish.
In the meanwhile, we went to the Wonderland of Lights.
Continue with me on the walk around the Poter Park Zoo's Wonderland of Lights.
Here's the otter tank. We never saw an otter, or hint of otter, but I love the weird solid glowing box it forms against the dark night.
And here's the path just past the otter enclosure. Like I said, we're both sure there were more lights this year even if we can't prove it.
Three very flat, hollow wolves. I think this fixture wasn't lit up last year either.
Trivia: According to his wife, Antoine Lavoisier would wake each morning at six and work on his science until eight. He would resume working on his science at seven in the evening, for three hours. The time in-between would be spent on his professional responsibilities, such as working at the Gunpowder Administration or committees for the Académie des Sciences. Sunday, his jour du bonheur, was set aside for conducting experiments. Source: Mendeleyev's Dream: The Quest fot the Elements, Paul Strathem. (Strathem notes that Lavoisier's schedule can't have been that rigid as we know, for example, how often he would spend nights entertaining other Great Scientists of the Enlightenment.)
Currently Reading: Miscellaneous comic books sent me by a friend. Not sure what's weirder in those Little Archie digests from the 90s, reprinting comics from the 70s: the many references to ``Women's Libbers'' or how everybody speaks of him as ``Little Archie'' even though, in the Little Archie continuity, he's never been any older. I get it if the adults refer to him that way and if his dad's name is also Archie (I don't know and don't have the energy to look it up) but it draws my attention now when his friends, who are all the same age, call him that.
PS: From my Third A-to-Z: Osculating Circle, a term that isn't ortho- to anything for a wonder.
