Adoption

I adopted! I am the proud parent of three new family members, and I couldn't be more happy about it. For my birthday, two of my closest friends teamed up trying to think about what I might want for my birthday. It's hard to buy a gift for someone who might be leaving the country in a few months (you don't really want to clutter up their life). So they took into account all of my likes and dislikes, passions and curiosities and well, I guess in the end I made it pretty easy for them.

I've got this minor obsession. Well it's not really an obsession as much as it is a large place in my heart. Penguins. I love 'em. The way they waddle, and slide on their bellies, the puffy cute baby penguins, pretty much everything about them. I wouldn't go so far as to decorate my house with them or anything, but when I go to the zoo I could just stand and watch them for hours. And really, that's when it all started...

Before I left for France, a couple of friends and I took a trip to the San Francisco Zoo. When we got to the penguins I couldn't stop watching. Their little exhibit is really actually pretty pathetic, but there I stood with my camera snapping away and watching them swim around and cock their little heads.

Apparently I'm a trend setter. Since then, everyone has decided to copy me and start liking penguins (March of the Penguins, Happy Feet, Surf's Up, Good Luck Chuck). Well, I don't know how these two friends of mine knew I liked them, maybe it was the pink belt I bought with little penguins all over it? Or the way I counted down the days until the premiere of Happy Feet (which was sadly disappointing)? Or how at a holiday white elephant party this year, I nearly cried when the iPod penguin speaker (that flaps its wings, and waddles somewhat adorably to the music), was stolen from me? Or how my face lit up when my brother then went out and bought the singing, dancing penguin for me for Christmas? Well somehow my friends figured out that I just may like penguins...

So for my birthday this year, they adopted a penguin family in my name. Yes, that's right, I own three penguins!! My friends insist that I don't actually OWN them, but what do they know? Adoption is kind of like purchasing to own right? I think so.

Here's the only issue... when they told me they adopted a penguin family for me this is what I pictured: three specific penguins somewhere in Antarctica with my name on them. I'm thinking it's the penguin equivalent of sponsoring a child in Africa (or elsewhere). So, imagine my disappointment when I find out that I don't ACTUALLY have three specific penguins. I don't get to send them care packages filled with krill and warm winter coats, and I certainly don't get the accompanying picture of my little penguins to put in a frame above the mantel. Pretty much, I donated to the penguin cause... which really is just as important and still a wonderful gift, but it deflated my excitement a little bit. :) Turns out I don't even know which species of penguins are "mine" or where they live. BUT it came with a really awesome activity book filled with pictures that I can color in with my crayons (just got to work on staying in the lines) and an 11" plush cuddly penguin baby, which I think I might go ahead and put my name on (to make myself feel better about the disappointment).

It's an organization called The Wildlife Adoption Center (http://www.wildlifeadoption.org/). So thank you Sarah and Tracy, for my penguin family! I'm pretty sure we all know that I'm just going to claim the first three penguins I see (not the one's at the zoo though). I'm definitely going to be making a trip to either New Zealand or South America or Antarctica to find and claim my penguin family!