I had planned to park in the loading dock on friday morning, but they had chosen that day to start putting in a new gate, so I parked on the lawn next to the garden instead, which is the best parking place I've ever gotten. I wish I could always park there, but sadly that just isn't going to happen. They let me do it only because I had all of the reptiles and bugs and such with me.
It didn't take me long to discover that it doesn't matter how often or well I wash my hands - if I've been holding other critters, the Water Monitor is going to try to take a bit out of me. Consequently, he spent the morning in his cage. The python spent the morning in the plants in the garden. All of the creatures were popular, so I spent hours rotating them in and out of their cages.
Author Gary Bogue (see previous post) and illustrator Chuck Todd showed up at around 1:30 or so, and I had a good time talking to them in between answering questions and getting out animals. Gary had lots of interesting anecdotes about strange, exotic wildlife encounters, including a time when he had to rescue a Wallaby from someone's garage. Sounds like a dream job to me. At 2:00 they gave a short talk and handed out some cool posters to the assembled children. At this point, I was already packing up so I could make it over to my next engagement (this makes me sound busier than I actually am somehow) at the church summer school. Too bad. It would have been fun to stick around longer.
The church presentation took place outside, with small groups of small children coming and going. The python kept trying to sneak off while I wasn't looking, but since he's slow I always caught him. The Monitor remained in his cage.
I was delayed going home by heavier than usual traffic, which I found out later was caused by a freeway closure that came about when a woman threatened to jump off an overpass. It took hours for the police to talk her down. I'm not sure why they needed all of the helicopters though.

Last night I went up to Berkeley to see The Mysterious Mr. Looney, a play about the controversy surrounding the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. Sound by G. An enjoyable evening out, as is always the case with Central Works plays. Next weekend is the final one. Go see it if possible.

Today I cleaned the yard. Wahoo!