this week i’m hanging out in indiana/michigan with my mom, auntie sarah, and cousin fiona. sarah, fiona, and i flew in monday evening and hung out that night and all day tuesday, then left with mom tuesday evening. fiona and i went to barley island, the local brew pub in noblesville, to have a couple drinks and meet up with some of the noblesville crew. it was pretty awesome, just chatting with DK and saying hi to a few choice others. we finished the night with a little hook, banjo cuddling, and much needed harry potter reading…
tuesday morning the real fun started. sarah, fiona, my dad, and i went to the indianapolis zoo. i hadn’t been to the zoo in indy for years and i had been looking forward to this trip for months, ever since tasha told me about the new interactive shark exhibit. now, for those of you who don’t know, sharks are possibly my favorite animals… i find them fascinating, intimidating, and beautiful, so naturally i was totally stoked about the opportunity to interact with them. the oceans building at the zoo is all remodeled and new since the last time i was there (maybe a zoo sleep-over with the rainforest group or girl scouts?). when we first walked in we saw a large tank with 20 to 30 bonnethead sharks, which look like small hammerheads. they were about the size (give or take) of a foot long sub, plus some fins and teeth. then, after seeing some jellyfish, unicorn fish, and hogfish, we walked around the corner into a large open room, filled to the brim with children and adults alike surrounding a large, low, open tank. we found a opening around the other side and knelt down to get closer to the water. in this 4 foot salt water pool (i tasted it to make sure) swam 20some smallish sharks. it took some patient waiting for the sharks to swim up to us so that we could touch them, but eventually they began to take laps, swimming by us several times so that we could dip our hands into the water and pet their rubbery skin. it was so awesome! their strangely soft, smooth skin seemed to slither under our hands as they swam by and with each passing i think they enjoyed it more and more… and so did i! the small ridge on their backs was surprisingly hard compared to the rest of their bodies, and you could see the veins that ran through their dorsal fins. as we sat hoping to get another hand on a shark or two, we noticed some very peculiar behavior… the sharks would swim around with their heads out in the air, wiggling up out of the water in the way that dolphins do. it was very strange… a zoo worker told us that predatory sharks do this to catch seals and other prey (you may have seen this on planet earth), but since these lil guys are bottom feeders they aren’t quite sure why they do it. the leading guess is that they are just being playful, trying to get attention, like a little kid jumping up and down or pulling on your shirt sleeve. now thats f’n cute. a shark wants my attention, and i’m more than willing to give it.
then after some other oceans animals like penguins, seals, sea-lions, and a bored looking polar bear, we went to a dolphin show. again, i hadn’t been to a dolphin show at the zoo for years and years so i was pretty excited, but didn’t expect anything i hadn’t seen before. much to my surprise, the dolphin pavilion was completely remodeled with a sort of theatre set of a boat house and dock sort of thing. it looked pretty cool, if not a tad bit hokey. then the trainers came out and the dolphins were awesome, just like i knew they would be. they flipped and flopped, jumped 30ft out of the water to tap a hanging ball with their noses, splashed a bunch of little kids, and did synchronized tricks. the set didn’t really do much for me, but i just like to watch the dolphins swim around with big smiles on their faces while we clapped for them… i hear they respond to applause and cheering (i wouldn’t be surprised).
of course the other parts of the zoo were cool… the snakes! red pandas and kodiak bears, hidden tigers, and meerkats. the zoo is always fun, although sometimes i am struck with great sadness as i walk through the exhibits, watching the poor captivated animals pace or swim back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. i want to go to australia and visit the sydney zoo. i hear that the animals have much more room, are able to roam a bit more, and there are many more opportunities for human interaction with the animals. (terri and bindi irwin told me all about it on Ellen.)
morgen and i were just sittin around stalking people on facebook when we came across a picture of our dear friend, sean lawrence. we haven’t seen him in a while, and we were pretty sure that nothing much could have changed. no major physical differences or body modifications, and i guess for the most part we were right. now, we’re not exactly sure what goes on and the changes that can happen to a young man if he spends too much time in rural canada, but now we’ve got a pretty good idea. beer drinking, pocket-exposed jean shorts, and cowboy hats. now we’ve seen it all. so we’d just like to say, DIVERS: we miss you, and we wish you were here with us… cut off daisy-dukes and all. 
so the hotbox hasnt been too crazy lately… no wild parties, no recent seducees, and a pretty consistant use of the usual recreational uppers (if ya know what i mean). anyways, yesterday something new, exciting, and frankly creepy happened here at the ole hox (thats my new nick-name for the house).
