Animal Crackers In My Soup

My apartment is currently in such a state of flux I don’t even know what to do with myself. Life has overturned itself fairly quickly in the past month as to my great sorrow (but to her great delight), my wonderful friend and roommate Wicked Cool Riley announced she was moving in with her boyfriend The Loveseat.

Since then it has been a whirlwind of temporary roommates, juggling bill payments, moving in, and moving out that I just want to throw my hands up in the air and shout, “I love you all, but sort this amongst yourselves!” On top of all this, the apartment is a cluttered mess and while I don’t actually mind clutter or mess, my brain tends to break apart when confronted with both at the same time.

Anyway, I meant to blog about my trip to the Bronx Zoo I took with my (soon-to-be new) roommate Rachel and our friend Jen took on Monday and have only just mentally gotten my shit together.

White-Harp at the Bronx Zoo

I haven’t been to a zoo in years so I leaped at this chance to go see the animals, as well as do a bit of live-sketching. (Pictures and sketches beneath the cut.)

You must forgive the quality of my scanner. Either it’s great or it’s shitty, I can’t quite decide which.

A lioness at the zoo.

I would have loved to get a quick sketch of the male, but he was lying down, facing entirely away from me. As all cats do, he was napping and not inclined to model for me.

Giraffes, or as I like to call them, cameleopards.

Interesting tidbit about the giraffe: in Korea, we call them 기린 (girin), or…unicorns (according to Diana Peterfreund‘s RAMPANT). They were once identified with the mythical Chinese beast called the qilin.

A mandrill, like Rafiki from The Lion King

Rachel positively adores mandrills. I’m less sold on primates overall (they look too much like people, and as we all know, I don’t find humans that attractive as a whole), but mandrills make for pretty awesome models.

A gorilla sitting peacefully.

Gorillas, on the other had, are kind of adorable. This guy was the best model ever. He sat like this the entire time. He even had a tiny smile on his face.

As it was taking too long to sketch every animal at every exhibit, I soon gave up and turned to photography instead, although I didn’t take a picture of every animal I saw either as most stubbornly refused to stay still long enough for me to snap a decent picture. One of these years I will buy a halfway decent SLR camera, but until then, I will have to make do with my point-and-shoot.

Select Animals at the Bronx Zoo

Rachel, Jen, and I happened to luck out with an absolutely gorgeous day. Summer seems to be on her way out, thank goodness. Yesterday was cold enough to warrant a sweatshirt. Yes, I know I’m a wuss. You can take the girl out of California, but you can’t take California out of the girl.

Off to see my Teddy Bear tonight! And revising on the train. I am about two and a half chapters from the end, I think.