I don't mean yours wssn't great. I don't mean you didn't have the BEST damn food and great company and hilarity ensued. I don't mean yours was full of fun and love and generosity and blessings and people you love.

But MY Thanksgiving included seeing a 4 week and 2 day old baby gorilla. And you can't top that.

We had Thanksgiving at the Woodland Park Zoo, thanks to our friends Luke and Julie who went last year and asked if we'd be interested in going this year. We instantly were psyched by the idea - go to the zoo, see the animals and have Thanksgiving dinner. Not that I didn't have a whole bunch of sorrowful feelings because i can't handle preparing the meal anymore (and I make a mean T-giving dinner) but they are such good company and we've been trying to do more social stuff with friends and social stuff around food always seems to be good - you get to talk and share food, hey! We asked two other friends, Loren and Lauryn (yep. I've known HIM for well, over 20 years, only met her relatively recently) so the 6 of us arrived at the zoo 2 hours before our seating (they had 3, like a very busy cruise ship) and I was sort of bouncing up and down because the newspaper had a photo of the baby gorilla about a week ago. We knew it was unlikely she'd be out but her mother had been making some social appearances in the recent afternoons.

Woodland Park Zoo houses 2 gorilla families. the first one - well they were out cold. They looked like they'd had their turkey and hadn't been able to fight off the nap. One couple was just heartbreakingly sweet, with one "arm" outstretched and the other one's head resting there, and the other hand on her/him like well, like anyone snuggles. The zoo employees were bringing the other family in because it was frigging COLD out (this was in the "tropical rainforest" section of the zoo. It was at BEST 45 degrees out yesterday) (we @#$%@*%^$*$*! FROZE) but they came out to say "hey". The dominant male named Vip (gorgeous animal), Amanda, the female who had the baby, two younger gorilla females she'd borne and the baby who clung to Amanda like those toy baby animals whose paws are lined with velcro.

There is nothing cuter. Nothing more awwwww-inducing, more beautiful. The baby just clung to her mom - you had to look really carefully at times to see where the baby was hanging. The cutest was when she clung to her mommy's leg, and Amanda just walked along with this little kid stuck to her. As cute as you can imagine? It was all that and more.

And the food was excellent - as good as a restaurant, where I'd expected less. And we got to see a few Humboldt penguins as well. And an owl who was being taken out for a stroll or somehting by a docent or employee - beautiful bird.

Having Thansgiving with good food and good friends is great. Having Thanksgiving with all that AND a baby gorilla? You can't top this.