Birthday Bliss, Part II

As if my birthday present on Saturday night wasn’t enough, Sunday completed a weekend of birthday merriment.

On Saturday, Erica had mentioned that she regretted not telling me to head up to Nashville early enough to eat at one of her favorite eateries—The Loveless Café. I had heard her mention it and its wonders before, so I was immediately disappointed as well. Wouldn’t you know that Sunday morning, Lauren pokes her head into my bedroom to say, “Hey, there’s this place just down the road called the Loveless. Were you planning on sticking around for lunch?” As it turns out, the restaurant closest to Lauren and Ivan’s is the Loveless Café.

With this little piece of fate sliding right into place, I knew it was going to be a good day. We headed on our merry way over to the Loveless to begin our one and a half hour wait. At some places, this would be outrageous, but at the Loveless it’s pretty standard business. With that in mind, the café has turned the parts of its campus that were once an adjoining motel into a country store and other merchant booths. So we spent our hour and a half sipping Coca-Cola from an old-fashioned glass bottle and sitting on the porch of the country store. I also picked up a few little happies there—a combo package of a Moon Pie and RC Cola and a trio pack of the Loveless’ famous fruit preserves.

Inside the Loveless, I at last encountered what Erica must love so much. They start off the meal with made-from-scratch biscuits that could give my Great-Grandma Vice a run for her money—she’s past on now or I wouldn’t dare say that aloud—and a sample dish of preserves: peach, strawberry, and blackberry. Alex and Lauren agreed that their favorite was the strawberry, but I leaned more toward the peach. I think my mom’s going to love the blackberry, though, so I splurged on the trio pack, as mentioned. After an appetizer of biscuits and preserves, I slid right on into my chocolate chip pancakes. Oh. My. Word. I love you, Huddle House, but please get with it. Alex created a sample platter of breakfast-meat biscuits from the a la carte menu, and Lauren had the steak biscuit with a side of hashbrown casserole. I helped myself to a little sampling of both of theirs, and I was pleased with all of it. Well done, Loveless. It was worth the wait.

It was hard to move after our lunch-gorge, but we pressed forward with our next big adventure: the Nashville Zoo. Alex and I have been talking about going to a zoo for some time now, but we’ve been waiting for a weekend that wasn’t sweltering hot. On this Sunday, the weather was, of course, ideal. ‘Ideal,’ in fact, seemed to be the theme of the weekend.

When we arrived at the Zoo, Alex wanted to park in the elephant parking lot, and I insisted that we find the tiger parking lot, so we compromised with the gibbon parking lot (that’s a monkey, if you haven’t brushed up on your zoo animals lately) and made our way to the entrance. As we waited to buy our tickets, I stood by and listened for a moment before realizing that everyone else was speaking another language. As my eyes drifted toward the memo kiosk, I saw that it was Latin Family Fun Fest day at the Nashville Zoo. With mariachi bands playing over the PA system, Alex and I felt right at home all day long.

My greatest take away from the zoo is this: I can’t wait to talk to God about it. Throughout the day, Alex and I tried to guess what God was thinking about when he made these creatures, like a tortoise that looked like a s’more with marshmallows bubbling out of its shell. We marveled too that it was no wonder that the snake was the vessel of Satan in the Garden—every slither of this particular animal looks deceitful and intimidating. I get shivers just thinking about it. And I would have loved to have discussed the spiders with Alex, but someone had to skip to the next exhibit each time we encountered a spider. But I won’t name names.

My favorite exhibit, as it has been since my parents took my brother and I to the Atlanta Zoo, was the meerkat exhibit. Cutest. Animals. Ever. These adorable little creatures vacillate between supremely alert—sitting back on their haunches with their little arms drawn up to their chests, peering around at the intruders in their midst—to lazy and lounging. We watched as one meerkat reclined on his back on a sunbathed rock, his eyes slowly shutting every few minutes just to fly open when his head snapped back with full-on sleep—it reminded me of trying to sit through “Big Church” at my grandmother’s church as a child.

I had looked forward to seeing my Tiger brethren all day, and was delighted to alight upon them just in time for the keeper’s talk. Unfortunately, my bubble of interest in these giant kitties was burst when the keeper told me that the tigers, ripping and shredding chunks of meat in their little “jungle” home, were dining on horsemeat. I asked him where the zoo found said horsemeat and was told that, since horse slaughterhouses are illegal in the U.S. (for good reason!!), they imported the horsemeat from Toronto. Apparently, the horse meat is closer to what the Bengals would be eating in the wild, but I was happier thinking that they dined on some equally delicious mystery meat, harvested painlessly from a non-existent animal.

By the time we got to the African section of the Zoo, where the giraffes, zebras, and elephants were waiting for us, we had hiked what we guessed was about 3 miles. Before, we had thought that parents pushing their kids in strollers were promoting slothfulness. Not so—these parents were, in fact, preventing hours of whining and complaining. Three miles or so is quite the little journey for such little legs. Duly noted.

After a short break in the bamboo forest to rest our weary feet, we had only the African safari left to conquer. The elephants were truly breathtaking. They look so gentle, and yet they’re so large and magnificent. They get an extra large section of the zoo since they need that much more roaming space, so we were able to view them from multiple vantage points, and I was fascinated and each and every stop.

Our last stop in Africa, and before the exit, was the giraffe exhibit. Their bizarre proportions make them absolutely fascinating, and their affectionate behavior had me ooh-ing and ahh-ing before we even came to a complete stop. It wasn’t long, however, before I recognized this “affection” for what it really was. As the smaller female giraffe stood innocently by, the larger male would cozy up behind her. He stood there quietly for a moment, like he was giving her time to acclimate to the closer vicinity. Then he would nudge a little further forward, at which time the female would casually walk away. At first, I thought that the male was about to force his will on her, but it soon became apparent that the female was flirting, as she nuzzled the male’s neck as she walked away. After a few moments of this mating dance, it seemed that a little, shall we say, “animal husbandry” was inevitable, and Alex wasn’t sure he could stand by and watch. After having my own tiger dreams crushed, I decided his perception of the animal kingdom as sweet and miraculous was better left spared.

So as far as we’re concerned, tigers eat giant kitty treats and giraffes are brought by enormous storks and zoos are the perfect way to end a perfect weekend.