Welcome to Louisville, Qannik!

Welcome Qannik, the newest resident of Louisville Zoo's Glacier Run.  The poor sweetie was abandoned by her mother in Alaska in April.  She arrived at the Zoo via UPS late last night.  The Zoo is officially tweeting Qannik's experience at @QannickTheCubLZ, but there's a cutie-pie unauthorized tweeter at @QannikBear.

I haven't been back to the Louisville Zoo since Scotty the baby elephant died. That wasn't really a conscious decision, but I was utterly heartbroken when Scotty died.  Then Misha, the sweet little gorilla baby who had to be transferred to Columbus when she was wounded by other gorillas in Louisville, died.  And, I've always been of two minds about zoos and aquariums, you know? (That being said, when I was looking for a job post-Katrina, I applied to the education departments of every zoo and aquarium I could think of... never got a single call back.  I guess they want you to, you know, know something about animals/fish.)

But not only do we now have a wee polar bear for the newly reopened Glacier Run, we also have a new baby girl giraffe born last Monday.

So it's time to go back to the zoo.  Welcome, Qannik!  Sorry it's so hot. Just you wait til December, dear.

Summer To-Do List: Swim

Let's just get this out of the way: no one really wants to see me in a bathing suit. That's cool. I'm fine with that. I had my salad days of being the girl with the smoking body.  I did. Those days are over. Maybe not for good (but probably for good), but at least for now.

But that doesn't change the fact that I want to swim. I want to hang out by a pool. And I need to make that happen this summer.

Lakeside has become my Xanadu. My Dulcinea. My Holy Grail.  Oh my sweet swimmies, I want to be invited to Lakeside just to see it. I don't have to swim. I don't have to sully your pool with my ordinary-person juices. I just want... to see it.  Awesome Louisvillager, Brigid Kaelin teaches swim classes there.  And plays gigs there.  Swoon... that just makes her 100X cooler in my eyes.

I don't want to join a gym or community center.  So I think my next best bet (indoor pools don't count, BTW) is to book a night at the Galt House, the only downtown hotel with an outdoor pool.

Or I can go to the Quarry.  Which I know nothing about but has been a looming mythologized presence for the past few summers.  When Roommate gets home from his Florida adventures, I think I will enlist him in a road trip.

Summer To-Do List: Louisville MEGA Cavern

Welcome back to the summer to-do list. Last time I blogged about something practical: a clothing resale shop called Clothes Mentor (that's an odd name, isn't it?) Today I have something more fun in mind.

I can't believe I haven't been to the MEGA Cavern yet.  I'm a cave nut.  I'm the opposite of claustrophobic.

One of the best-- if not the best-- memories I have is spelunking in an underground cave in New Zealand. It was a six-hour expedition, and we were outfitted in scuba suits under jumpsuits, helmets with headlights, knee pads, elbow pads.

Rappelling down underground waterfalls.  Swimming underwater through underground tunnels, not knowing if the tunnel would end before you ran out of breath.  Drinking hot cocoa, halfway through, in a cave lit by glow-worms. Ascending, finally, at the end of the expedition by climbing an underground cliff-face and out of a literal hole in the ground and emerging in a grassy meadow full of cows.

Night had fallen when we were in the cave, and when we squiggled out of the narrow hole, we were confronted by a night as dark as the cave, lit only by the brightest field of stars I've ever seen.  Amazing.

Of course, Louisville MEGA Cavern is nothing like that. Not really sure what those caps are all about in "MEGA."  Nor have I ever understood the difference between caves and caverns.  But there are 17 miles of caverns located under Louisville.  Many of them man-made, at that!  And Louisville MEGA Caverns will take you on a Jeep tour of many of them. And if you "check in" on Facebook and show them you've checked in you get $1 off your ticket price.

So, that's totally on my Summer To-Do list.  Go visit Louisville MEGA Caverns.

Bless their hearts, but here's something that's NOT on my To-Do list: in July they will open a huge, underground Mega-Zipline.  Awesome, original, exciting.  And I'll tell you more about it when I hear more about it.

But I will NOT be giving it a test run.  My fear of heights is insurmountable.  Really.  Paralyzing. Awful. I can't even climb a ladder to paint the tops of my 12' walls. Really.

That being said... on that same trip to New Zealand, I bungee jumped off the first commercial bungee jump spot in the world-- and the second highest at the time-- on the bridge above the Kawarau River with the AJ Hackett Company.  Yes, I was trying to impress a guy.  No, it didn't work... at that moment (probably because I cried and swore like a crab boat captain on the Bering Sea during the whole experience). But I did end up dating him a couple of months later.  Hey, I was in my stupid twenties. It is what it is.

Summer To-Do List: Clothes Mentor

It's beginning to look a lot like Summ-er, every-where you go... 

Why have I had Christmas songs in my head all week?  Tonight's carol is better than last night's, which was: Summer is coming, this Lou has gotten fat/Please Lawd let no body else notice that./If you haven't got a diet, some exercise will do./ If you're unwilling to exercise, then God bless you."


Seriously. I know you didn't ask for a glimpse into my odd little noggin, but there you are.

Anyway, summer approaches, and I am working on my summer to-do list. Lest you think I'm an organized, ambitious planner, I just told someone on Twitter that I will make this list tonight and consult it again on August 16 and then sink into a deep depression.  At least, that's how previous years' lists have gone.  Best of intentions... yadda yadda.

But I wanted to share some Louisville things that are on my to-do list.  (If I ever manage to complete a majority of things on my summer to-do lists, I'm gonna start calling them "summer ta-dah! lists.")

So tonight I'll start with: Sell some clothes to Clothes Mentor.

I don't iron.  Like, ever.  I own an iron and a steamer, but not an ironing board.  So I made the decision this year to donate or sell any item of casual summer clothes that doesn't come out of the dryer ready to wear.  I'll still iron or steam the fancy stuff.  But pants, skirts, shirts that come out of the dryer accordion-pleated?  Gone.  I estimate that I have marked 25% of my summer wardrobe for donation or sale.

Good news:  the blog 502 Fashion, brought this info to my attention-- the first women's clothing resale shop is opening up in St. Matthews.  It's called Clothes Mentor, and it differs from a consignment shop because they pay you up front for the clothes. Which I love. I've had some really shady dealings with consignment shops, locally.  See more about Clothes Mentor over at 502 Fashion.  And while you're at it, check out the rest of the blog.  Good, fun stuff.