Zoo tunes

No pun in the post title this time around; it's an actual event put on by the local zoo each summer, where a bunch of great bands are brought in to perform on the zoo's broad grassy lawn. Apparently this isn't particularly unique to Seattle, as last night's performers mentioned they'd played another zoo the night before. Anyway, when the schedule had come out a few months ago, Meh saw that a fun-sounding group of Newfoundlanders was performing Celtic music, so she'd grabbed tickets for us, mima, and papa. We successfully fought our way through evening rush hour traffic as a car caravan, and the parking karma was decent when we reached the zoo shortly before the concert. We parked our chairs (and Zachary's stroller) in what we thought was the back of the field to enjoy a lovely picnic put together by mima before the music started.

There wasn't an opening band or anything; after a brief intro by a local DJ, Great Big Sea came out and started playing -- and while it wasn't deafening, it was a pretty loud and amplified opening. Alas, both Owen and Zachary got immediately unhappy with this, and Zachary and I had to take a walk around the perimeter of the field to get adjusted to the (very fun!) music. I'd forgotten that the zoo's carousel is right there as well, so Zachary was insistingly saying "I want to go ah horse!" and nearly laid himself out when I suggested we just watch for a bit. But all's well that ends well -- after our walk, we returned to the rest of the family and both boys seemed to do better as the set progressed; Zachary chilled out eating his dinner and then snuggled on my lap while Owen smiled at everyone.

The only remaining hitch was that we apparently weren't quite far enough back; a police officer asked us to scoot back (instigated by folks who had arrived even later than us, and had sat even closer to the garbage cans). But it was all good; we switched spots with them and enjoyed the rest of the set, wrapping up our evening with a nice walk back to the car and abbreviated baffy time back at home.