Tuesday, March 29

9:30 pm
Living Room

Just put my 7-year-old to bed.  My Little Guy.  Not so little anymore.

Dorothea and Cate are in the kitchen chatting over wine.  Cate seems pretty relaxed... I suspect she took a pain pill before that glass of wine.  I'll have to keep an eye on her.  But hopefully she gets a little relief tonight and can get some decent sleep.

D's staying over tonight and tomorrow we'll all head back into the City, probably in the afternoon.  No reason to be up and about early.

Romeo had the Best Birthday Ever, ha ha.  It really was cool, something he'll never forget.  I gotta hand it to my Wife, she done good with this one.

Cate knows the guy who is Head of Security for the Aquarium in Camden.  She was talking to him about some dignitary visit or something a few months back and he mentioned she and I should bring the kids to the Aquarium and he'd hook us up with a behind-the-scenes tour.  Well, she remembered that and got back in touch with him to see what he could do.  And Man, did he ever take care of us.

The Aquarium started doing these "experience" packages awhile back, kinda like the "trainer for a day" thing Sea World does.  See the animals in their habitat, feed 'em, get 'em to do tricks.  Like our Backstage VIP deals--you can get Davey to do all kinds of tricks with the right treat, ha ha.  Anyway, the experience packages are really limited and usually are only offered on weekends, plus there's an age limit for most of them.

Well, Cate and her Pal set up a special one for all of us and got the age limit waived for Romeo.  In lieu of charging us the ticket prices the Aquarium Director suggested Cate make a donation to their Marine Rescue program, which Cate gladly did.  In fact, she made a big donation, much more than they expected.  So we were treated like royalty, ha ha.

When we pulled up to the Aquarium this morning Romeo was about to bounce out of his seat.  I didn't think he'd be all that impressed:  we've been there before and he just spent a week touring Sea World and the San Diego Zoo and every damned animal-related museum and park in Southern California and Vancouver.

But there's no stopping that kid.  You should have seen his face when our tour guide told him what he was going to do.  It was priceless--the kid was literally speechless, which is a hard thing to accomplish.  Cate got it all on video.  We watched it when we got home -- it's hilarious.

Anyway, we spent the whole day at the Aquarium, about 5 hours doing the encounter stuff and another 3 just wandering through the exhibits.  And Romeo still didn't want to leave when it was closing time.  He had the time of his life.

The first thing we did was visit the Sea Turtles.  One of the keepers took us on a little tour of their facility, then let the kids feed and do some training stuff with them.  I had no idea turtles could be trained, but apparently they can.  The kids all got to touch the turtles and hold some babies.  It was really neat.

Then it was off to the Seal enclosure.  There a trainer taught Romeo how to give hand signals and get the seals to do tricks.  And he got to feed them fish.  After the Dolphin thing at Sea World, you can imagine how excited he was about that.  It was so freakin' cute.  Romey even got Cate to come up and help him with the "training".  I got to run the camera and you can bet I got all that on video.

Next up was my favorite part:  the Penguins.  Romeo LOVED that part.  We went into the exhibit and got to walk around on Penguin Island with a flock of about 30 of them.  Romeo got to feed them, standing right there in the middle of the herd with the trainer, tossing out the food.  Then we went back to the Penguin House where we met a veterinarian.

She was very sweet to Romey and let him help her give a female bird a physical exam.  She also let Jakey and the big kids help with a couple veterinary-type things, but Romey was the only one who got to put on the white lab coat and gloves.  He loved  that.  I had this little flash-vision of him in Veterinary School.  Who knows?  Could happen.

After the penguins we went to the Africa exhibit where they have--of all things-- Hippos.  What the fuck Hippos are doing in an Aquarium is beyond me.  But they have 'em.  In Camden New Jersey.  I gotta hand it to Mayor Booker... he's really making some change in that city, ha ha.

We didn't get to feed the hippos but we got to get up close to them and touch them.  The keeper told us about their breeding program and that they hope to have a little hippo someday soon.  Cate and I shared a sweet little chuckle at that.  Not that I'm comparing my wife to a hippo or anything.

After the hippos we got to see some of the other animals in Africa exhibit like porcupines crocs and lizards.  And Romey got to hold a couple different kinds of birds.  There was some kind of parrot who was fascinated by Steph--he kept watching her and hopping from bush to bush to follow her.  She was a little creeped out, ha ha.  Especially when he kept whistling at her.

Well, by the time we got through all those backstage tours we were starving.  Our guide took us to this private dining area where there was a nice lunch all set up for us, right next to the shark tank.  We watched the sharks and rays swimming all around us when we ate, and we laughed when Romeo asked if we get to swim with them next.  Not quite, Buddy -- you're still snack-sized.

He decided that was okay when our server brought out birthday cupcakes.  Somehow he forgot all about the sharks when presented with frosting, ha ha.

After our experience we just kind of wandered through the exhibits and of course had to see every single tank and cage and enclosure.  It was nice because a lot of the exhibits were dark and Cate and I got to sneak in a covert smooch or a snuggle here or there.  It was very sweet.  Hell, I was so happy just to walk along holding her hand.  I missed doing that while we were apart.

So finally we closed the place down and headed back out to Red Bank.  Dorothea met us there and we all went out for pizza and birthday cake.  Romey of course got tons of presents, more toys than any kid could ever need.  But no ferret.  He seemed a little bummed about that but he got so much other cool stuff that he wasn't too upset.

I guess Russell gets to remain an Only Pet, ha ha.

So now here we are, Birthday Boy and his brother in bed, big kids off somewhere doing something, and me in here by myself while my Wife and Ex-Wife are out in the kitchen undoubtedly plotting against me.  But that's fine.  I'm not stupid enough to wander into that.

Feels good to be home, playing Hubby and Daddy again.  And it will feel even better when Cate is all mended and I can give her a proper welcome home shag, ha ha.  Meanwhile I'm just gonna be content to lay around and be lazy and drink my wine and watch TV.

Doesn't suck to be me.