Don't Mess With Mama Bear.

She plays rough!

Bear In The Bushes

In which Chubby Cubby rolls around, chews on the shrubbery, and eventually tries to stand on his head....

Cuteness Overload

Baby bears don't have thumbs, so they suck on their entire paws.

Thanks, as always, to the fabulous DoxieMom who "runs tape" almost every day on the live Pandacam.

Good News, Bad News

The good news: Got an unexpected message this morning from former co-worker Stacy, who was going to be in town for an appointment, and wondered if I wanted to meet for lunch. Long story short, we did, had a lovely chat, got caught up on all the news.

The not-so-good news: It's like I'm learning my job all over again, because today our work got transferred to a completely different software platform. The work itself is the same; but how we get to it, where we click, the shortcut keys, every single thing, is new and different. We were supposed to have migrated 2 weeks ago, and we were trained accordingly--but then the conversion date got switched back, so we all forgot every single thing we learned in training.

Are we having fun yet? No!

I think I'll go take a peek at what the you-know-whats are up to....

Ahh. Snoozing the afternoon away. Big surprise there.



Yesterday afternoon, Mama Bear was doing her headless panda act:

Bittersweet

Tai Shan, who was born over 4 years ago at the National Zoo, is moving to China next week. "His" humans will surely miss him.


(Image gratefully borrowed from Somesai at Flickr)

Best Line Of The Evening

"Ginny and I were going to start a procrastinators' club, but we never got around to it."

Sawdust Is Fun!

Sawdust-rolling is hungry (and thirsty) work.



Apparently it's a rather tiring proposition, as well.

Gully-Washing

If you see a large wooden boat taking shape in the front yard, you'll know why. I'm just sayin'.

Meanwhile... anybody got a snorkel and flippers I can borrow?

Baby Bear Gets Body-Slammed Again.

And some other stuff.

This movie consists of some brief clips from this morning's antics. I haven't taken the time to learn any fancy movie-editing techniques, so the transitions are nonexistent, plus Movie Maker apparently has no way to put text right into a frame. So here's the script, as I see it.

First... Yun Zi is minding his own business, when Mom just plows him under. He barely gets back on his feet when she goes by again--and you can see him back off so he doesn't get knocked down again.

Then he climbs onto the water fountain. He asks Mom how to get down, and she tells him, you got up there, you can get yourself down. So eventually (and a lot of footage has been cut out of the middle) he does get down--snout first.

Finally, he's sitting on the platform (which is also a scale) when a keeper comes into the room and tries to bribe him with treats. He plays coy for a while. Eventually the keeper picks him up and carries him out, presumably to put him into the public exhibit for his morning showing.

Enjoy!

UPDATE: Youtube has a means for putting captions into videos, so I made use of that.

A Word To The Wise Bear...

... do NOT climb into Mama Bear's water fountain.

Yesterday, Yun Zi learned that getting up is easier than getting down, and he never actually did figure out how to get down by himself, because Bai Yun apparently wanted a drink, and took matters into her own paws. Twice. Splat! Ouch!

Just Hangin' Out In The Tree.

It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it.

Baby Bear Climbs Mount Mom.

Immediately following which she rolls him off and does zerberts on his tummy.



Shortly followed by the dreaded under-the-chin koochie-koochies.

Press Debut

Mama and baby were introduced to the world-wide press yesterday. The little guy lost his grip and went splat shortly after this image was captured.



You can see that fall (and the fact that he got right up when he landed) on this video. The whoopsie happens right at about 2:18:



Again, I ask... was there ever such cute-i-tude ever, anywhere in the whole wide world?

He Goes Public Tomorrow.

I don't have to tell you who "he" is, do I??

I may get a chance to get down there myself in a couple of months, and see Himself in person. Woo-hoo!