I just got home from two weeks on safari in Kenya. (Did you miss me?) In Africa everything is eating everything. We saw animals snacking on other animals and I was rather impressed. But then I said, “Now I want to see them killing their food to eat it.” Well, that was the one thing I asked for that I didn’t get to see. Oh, there was also the mother lion carrying her kill while mating with another lion while the baby lions played together nearby that I asked for. We didn’t see that one either.
I almost skipped one afternoon game drive because I had been on like 60. I decided not to, because what if I missed something?! So I went and we saw the usual elephants, zebras, and various and sundry ‘lopes (gazelles, oryx, gerenuks, etc). My dad was yelling “Stop, a bird!” and our driver/guide Julius said something like, “We’ve seen that bird and you have taken pictures seven times; there is something important.” We very speedily drove to a spot where a couple other vans were parked, tourists seeping out of the tops. Before arriving Julius told us that there was word of cheetah babies eating. Sure enough, little fluffy-faced cheetah babies were hanging out with cheetah mommy, helping her with her dinner. They were too young to eat so they just licked dinner. There faces were red and totally fluffy and pretty damn cute.
We also took about 60 pictures of a lion lying next to a tree with a wildebeest carcass against the tree waiting to be finished off. She rolled over after her meal and it was just adorable. We also went nuts over the leopard eating wildebeest in a tree and the hyena chewing on wildebeest skin after it had rained so the old animal carcasses became tasty scavenger-jerky.
It sounds all a little morbid, right? Well, I guess it does to many. However, I got home and ate raw fish for dinner. I then spent the next day making the biggest breakfast I could possibly think to make. The day after I arrived home, a certain someone managed to talk me into walking in the cold to the Wedge Co-op where I drooled over everything edible and talked to @marcoscopic about what our huge breakfast was missing. He asked me if I was high because I was talking so excitedly about hashbrowns and blueberry pancakes and eggs and…everything. No, just jet-lagged and really excited to eat a real American breakfast!
Not only was there breakfast to prepare, but we were also planning to watch football. If you know me at all, you probably know that my interest in watching sports on TV goes only as far as me cheering “Sports!!” when there’s some sort of game or match or whatever on near me. However, you may not be one of the few who know the secret to getting me to watch sports: nachos. So not only were we planning breakfast, but also the most incredible pile of nachos that could be imagined. Of course pomegranate margaritas were needed to accompany the nachos and I managed to pull something together for those even though it was Sunday so I couldn’t visit the liquor store. (Hey, someone get that law changed, please?)
I’ve been home for less than a week, and two nights ago I had a dream about eating. Well, it was a dream about going to a holiday party. It was at a local clothing designer’s studio but in the dream she made jewelry and her studio was some kind of mansion. There was a dancing tent, a drink tent, and most importantly, a buffet, winding around the house, complete with every kind of food you could ever eat. My dream consisted of spending three or four hours at a party eating things and telling other people about the things they should not miss eating. We even grabbed a couple croissants on the way out to eat for the next day’s breakfast.
Last night I made gluten-free thumbprint cookies with @sloped and we put different types of jam in them. Another friend came over and we just passed cookies around each taking bites of them to try every cookie flavor. I was talking about the lions eating wildebeests and she pointed out all the eating we were doing. I realized that it isn’t so different. We certainly spend plenty of time going out to eat with friends where we stare at people with their mouths stuffed. We invite people over to cook and eat and drink or talk or watch sports or play games while eating.
So how are we different than lions? Well, for starters, we usually don’t make the effort to kill or harvest or pick or collect or gather our own food, except from the grocery store. We do often prepare and cut and wash and cook and arrange it though. But watching things eat is just a part of life. So, watch sports, eat nachos, and go to Kenya to watch lions eat wildebeests.*
*Why is it always wildebeests getting eaten, you may ask? Well, it’s because they’re stupid. They see a lion and they’re all like “Wut! Scary!” and they run away a little. About ten minutes later they totally forget the whole thing and walk right into the lion’s mouth and lie down.
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