January 1st is a good marker for people to use to start anew, but without the concept of a calendar system, it's really just another day that happens to occur soon after the winter solstice. Life is cyclical, so lucky us, we get lots of opportunities to start over. Even so, leaving 2010 behind feels good. I can't help but think that 2011 will be so much better, and not only because my birthday this year falls on 2-11-2011, a nice neat number. I bought a Salvador Dali wall calendar for my bedroom and a calendar of tall ships for my office. I've been thinking about Dali a lot lately after having a few weird dreams set in landscapes that would make any Surrealist painter proud, so glancing at his artwork every day feels fitting. The calendar was made by a European company, so the week starts with Monday, not Sunday. It also denotes the holidays for a number of other countries, including Japan. Turns out that my birthday falls on Japan's National Foundation Day. As for the tall ships, I wanted something totally random to hang in my office cave, and I like tall ships, with all of their masts and sails.
It seems like every year, I spend time thinking about what I'm going to do in the coming year, how I'm going to improve myself, which interests I'm going to dive into. But not this year. I'm not making any resolutions or goals. This year, I don't care. At all. And that makes me very happy.
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Today was a neat day at the zoo. I got to watch the rainbow boas being fed. They each get a dead rat that has been frozen, thawed, and warmed slightly. Not so exciting for us humans, but when the keeper wiggles it around a little, the boa (which eats only every few months) snatches it up, coils tightly around it, and slowly gulps it down through its long body. After a holiday season full of hearty food and a little too much beer, eating like a snake sounds about right these days.
After my shift, I wandered up to check out the lion cubs, who were all outside with their mothers on this cool, damp day. Good God, are they cute. Whoa. Serious kryptonite. Combine the curiosity of kittens with the rambunctiousness of puppies and the exotic draw of the African bush and you get seven African lion cubs in a park in the middle of a big city. Sorry, panda-lovers, these guys are way cuter than Tai Chan. Whoa.
