One of the best things about growing older is that I can spend weekend nights at home without feeling like a social outcast. I'm still not old enough to handle being alone in a laundromat on a weekend night, which would obviously stamp LOSER on my forehead in bright red ink. Or maybe PSYCHOS APPLY HERE, in which case I'd be a two-sentence item on the news the next morning. I live in a city; you never know.

In any case, I'm here, and I'm pretty content. I went to the gym (plenty of people, no scarlet letters) and put in some time on the elliptical machine, which I found out is the actual name for that stair-runner thing I've been using. I indulged in a good, long stretch, which was an entertainingly catty thing to do next to two women with perfect little cupcake butts and no flexibility. I'm in lousy shape, but I'm as limber as a gymnast.

I picked up some Cricket food and cantaloupe on the way home and chatted with the cashier, who wants a cat but her kids have parakeets. She hates the birds. I told her she should get a cat and let them fight it out. Natural selection. But she'll keep the birds, because her kids love them. I thought about my parents, who put up with years of guinea pigs during my childhood. One of them lived to be eight years old. Eight. That's, like, ninety in human years. Incidentally, while researching the life span of a standard guinea pig, I found a Listserv for guinea pig enthusiasts called Cavy-L (cavy being the technical name for guinea pigs). Stranger than fiction.

While I was in California with my parents, we saw the largest cavies in the world. We went to the San Diego Zoo. We would not have gone to the San Diego Zoo if we had known that the driving distances map showing that San Diego was two hours south was off by an hour and change, but by the time we figured it out, we were well over halfway there. The parking lot is a two-day hike from the entrance to the zoo, which struck us as sort of long, but we're from DC, where you never have to walk uphill from the subway to the National Zoo if you know which stops to take.

We took a thirty-five minute tour on a big open doubledecker bus, the thought being that we'd get to see a lotta exotica in a short time and we'd get to sit down. Our driver/guide had a gentle voice and a whimsical sense of humor, and she knew a lot of weird shit. We found out that a pissed-off hippo can snap a crocodile in two and that rhinos have such poor vision (and small brains) that they'll charge rocks. I was all wide-eyed; I felt like a little kid. Fran, you're my hero.

This is where the giant guinea pigs come in. As a kid who owned guinea pigs and devoured books, I read all about them. Their largest living cousin is the capybara, which is the largest rodent in the world. And the San Diego Zoo's got 'em. They look just like guinea pigs, but the size of a smallish Labrador. Unreal.

After the bus tour, we walked until they kicked us out at five. We checked out the cats and the bears, in particular. I kind of doubt that lynxes make good pets, but they're very cool. I like the black tufts on their ears. While I was standing there grooving on the cat, a couple of younger high-school kids showed up with someone's little brother in tow. Loud, gum-chewing kids. One of them tried to line up a picture of the lynx, and it stopped grooming itself, turned around, and lay down with its back to her. I sympathized. "Throw something at it," someone suggested. Excuse me? "I hope they get eaten," my mother muttered.

On our way out, we paused for a rest stop before our hike to the car. I sat on a bench next to a pond full of ducks. One of them wandered onto the path in my direction, presumably looking for a handout. We looked at each other. A peaceful moment passed. Then a child, maybe six, appeared on the path and, ignoring me completely, ran toward the duck, waving his arms and yelling. The duck fled for the water, and the kid took off before I could trip the little bastard and teach him a few new words. It's the story of my life, people. Someone's always scaring my ducks.

Which is basically what happened over the years to make me happy enough, usually, to stay home. Unless I'm at a show (like Entrain), people don't want to just let each other be. I got tired of fighting for my space. It's a bad vibe. I can hang out with my cat, instead, and tell her about her cousins.