A Zoo Day in Eureka, CA

I have been seeing Vampire Penguin, Eureka on my Facebook feed for quite some time, and it made me think of how often my friend from down near New Orleans mentions snowcones with condensed milk on them, but I’ve never seen anything like that here. My grandma used to give me a spoon of condensed milk, so it’s always been a treat associated with being loved, but since this dessert shop is 90 miles away it took me awhile to get there. I finally told my family, I wanted the Eureka Zoo and Vampire Penguin for my birthday. The snowy (not crushed ice) desserts were perfect, the price kept it from being something you’d drop in for on a daily basis. With four snows, all smalls, one smoothie, one cookie and a bottled Sprite we were at $40. The few things I think could improve the experience would be the addition of a mini or child sized for maybe three dollars. Also it would pair so well with a hot coffee or hot tea to prevent brain freeze and there were no hot drinks.

 I love Otters, and the Zoo has a fun set up where the otters crawl and up on rocks and swim next to a crawl through tunnel large enough my four year old granddaughter could walk through it. The Zoo has changed so much since I took my sons there 20 years ago. and we went regularly for a few years, I felt like I knew the place, but There were only a few corners I recognized. Gone are the Chimps and the Golden Lion Tamarin, the Crowned cranes and Roosevelt Elk. Added in is a barnyard with a petting zoo. Bush Dogs were there where black bear had been. There were no sign of the prairie dog colony or the wallabies but there was a lot of hands on ecological areas where kids could build with logs and pump with a hand water pump and touch skulls and footprints of local critters.

 And still, next to the zoo, the Sequoia Park is an amazing place for kids to run and climb and families to picnic and relax.

Happy Birthday Greetings from around the world. I hope

My Beautiful Brother turns 39 years old on Friday, Oct. 24th and I was thinking, he loves getting mail and he is worried with our mom being in the Nursing Home and he would be so happy to get a post card, birthday card or printed letter. He can read but cursive is difficult.

The mailing address is

Lance Miller 
PO Box 865
Middleburg VA 20118

He loves the Steelers and any sports, He Loves red cars, the teenage mutant ninja turtles and Donald Duck. He still loves fruit punch more than any other drink but maybe hot fudge sundaes at Dairy Queen beat it out as the all time first choice. Back when they lived in Cody, Wyoming, the Dairy Queen closed for the winter, but the owner actually postponed the closing and kept it open each year so Lance could have his annual birthday party there first.  Lance has the most amazing social skills and people love him. He was in Special Ed. classes for his academic subjects but interacted in regular classes for PE, he loved swimming and bowling, and he Loved Choir, and still does like to sing and still recognizes and talks to people he knew back in those classes.  He called the Bingo games at the senior center and served as an usher at the church he attended with mom.  He started working at WalMart as a part of a school program when he was 15 but he stayed there 19 years, until he had to move to Virginia to live with our brother when my Mom's health became weaker. He started grade school the year the mainstreaming law passed and my mom insisted Cody start a class. And he graduated high school with a real diploma eight months before Dad died of esophageal cancer.

1. Being born with a handicapping condition wasn't as difficult as having to deal with people who had a lot of preconceived ideas about his limitations  I remember the idiots in the hospital who delivered him telling my parents he should be institutionalized before we could ever get attached because he'd never know who we are and he'd be dead before 25. Medical views of what was, at that time, called "mongoloid idiots" were pretty much in the dark ages. Over the years Mom had a Dr try to kill him by letting Giardia run its course until he had lost half his body weight and his hearing. Then when she made it clear that "no, his dying would not be the best thing for the family" one shot of penicillin cured the Giardia but not the deafness until surgery five years later. 

Then after an accident in the park with his puppy jumping up as he came down the slide, and tearing the skin on his arm with it's claw - an emergency room Dr. strapped him down at age six and started putting stitches in him arm without numbing it, "I don't want to waste the novocain, these kids don't feel pain, he is just screaming from reflex"

Well that might have been the Dark ages or this might be. 90% of Down's infants are aborted once it is diagnosed and in some countries it is legal to abort a Down syndrome baby right up to birth.

Here is an earlier blog post I wrote about Lance

http://echo-echosvoice.blogspot.com/2011/10/my-brother-has-downs-syndrome-and-i.html

Men Like Greg, are rare

 My life isn't fair, and I have done nothing that could possibly have deserved this.
I know it. I recognize the fact.
Yet
I am thankful every day for November 26.

 It makes sense that November 26, is frequently Thanksgiving.
Greg was born then.
That is reason enough to be thankful.

 I don't know how many other people have been blessed to spend so much of their life
loving a man like him,
but I know he is one of the best human beings I have ever met or even heard of
and he will always do the thing that is right
over the thing that is easy
and he will know the most random facts
and look at them objectively
and he will know what a fool I can be
and love me always and all ways.

 He will be exhausted and not want to get up
but there he goes out the door to work
and if he is running a gas station
cooking and delivering pizza
camp counselor at a Easter Seals Camp
Set designer, director, teacher
or paint crew,

he will do his job as if it is the most important job in the world
and treat the people he comes into contact with as if they are all important

 He notices when some stranger looks hungry and buys them a meal
or if a door is too heavy for some one struggling to get into a store
or if an animal is injured
and he tries to help.

 And he never forgets to play
and to stay about "12 mentally"

 He is brave enough to force me out of my safety zone on multiple occasions and fun enough to make me enjoy it.

 And when I introduced him to my brother with Down's Syndrome I watched him like a hawk to make sure he was able to pass the most important test of all, but no problem.  He loved Lance and Lance still adores him.

 When his big sister died, he wasn't ashamed to cry, and when my Dad was dying, he was there to be strong.  When I never knew what I needed he always did.  The first time my parents came to visit, and I sobbed like a baby when the left, He took me camping

 When my Dad died and we were 1300 miles away he took me to the beach and let me cry until the salt on my face was more tears than spray.

 He cares about his parents, siblings, children and friends with a depth and an honesty I had never seen before.  Not that the men in my family didn't love their family, but they might pat your head, not gave you the kind of open honest feelings my husband makes so easy.  In fact he taught my whole family to express themselves more lovingly just by hanging out with them and saying "I love you" until no one could doubt it

I told him I'd love him and grow old with him.  I know I will. But I also know I was too proud, and too scared and too stupid to have made it this long, without him always being more interested in repairing the relationship than in being right.

Thank God for men like Greg in the world.

Happy Birthday.