It's all about the water buffalo ... and Thai Elvis

This weekend we headed down to Trojan territory (USC-adjacent, that is) to visit the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History. My friend Kirstin from work was kind enough to give us a family membership for C's birthday, and man are we going to swipe that card 'til it smokes.

It's great, kid-friendly. In fact, there seemed to be more kids there this weekend than adults.

They have cavernous halls dedicated to animal life scenes that included lions, musk oxen and bears (oh my). C was a little nervous around the giant elephants and water buffalo, but at some point, it's time to introduce children to real life, no?

Actually, she was fascinated. She pointed to the animals, asking "What's that?" for each one. There was lots of running around (and truthfully, if you're going to build cavernous halls where fascinating animals are hidden behind glass on the sidelines, you gotta expect that children are going to run around happily untethered, confounding their parents the entire time.)

We even got to stop by the members' lounge, complete with stuffed dinosaurs, animal puzzles and coffee and chocolate for entertaining parents. C loved it. Loved exploring everything, loved running into older kids who wanted to touch, see and know about each animal. She was fascinated, which made me happy.

On the way out, I was wondering where her beloved "pink" blanket was. If you don't know C, she's attached to her now-filthy blanket as if they'd bonded in the womb. She wails without it. When I didn't see it, I thought maybe we, luckily, had left it in the car. As we were walking back the parking lot, though, I happened to look down and see it -- wait for it -- in the dirt. Dirt! And it blended in so well I had to look twice.

It wasn't some shiny pink oasis amid a sea of brown. No, it was very close to the color of the ground. I was actually too ashamed to take a picture to upload here. But I picked it up, shook it off and reluctantly brought it back to the car. I can only imagine what kind of disease is living in that thing now. Even after a good washing. And, the horrible thing is, she saw it, which meant I had to give it back.

After shamefacedly picking up that bedraggled-looking homeless blanket and not throwing it in the trash (trust me, people were looking and judging), we headed back to the car. On the way, we passed this sticker pole, on which people have unloaded their museum admission stickers. (It actually looks kind of cool in the picture.) Then we had dinner at Palms on Hollywood. We missed out on Thai Elvis ... but not his statue. (Still not sure if the statue is of the real Elvis or the Thai one. But, honestly, with food and entertainment this freakishly diverse yet perfectly delicious, who are we to judge?)

High-five, Kirstin and David! Couldn't have had this day without you.