Even My Knickers Were Animal Print

Before last Wednesday I owned one item of animal print clothing. Just one. And I was alright with that. I had no deep seated desire to fill in that gap in my wardrobe. But last Friday night we had the pleasure of attending Jazzoo! And you can't attend Jazzoo without some kind of animal themed or at a minimum, festively colorful garb. So I dragged my friend Wendy to Marshall's where we were inundated with a variety of hideous and tacky animal print options, including velvet zebra tank tops and bejeweled pink and black leopard purses.  And since I wasn't attending Jazzoo dressed as a hooker, I passed on those choices and went with a classic wrap.

(Accessorized later in the evening with a light up snowflake necklace, because we made a little donation 

to "feed the polar bears")

For those of you non Kansas City folks, Jazzoo is an enormous black tie fundraising event for the Kansas City Zoo. Held every year in early June, it's a night out at the zoo with endless food from 80 plus restaurant booths, potent beverages from 12 specialty bars, a gazillion guests (roughly 4,000,) multiple concert stages offering live music and an impressive supply of superior people watching opportunities. So when a good friend like Caroline offers you a couple of free tickets you don't say no.

Drink tray and map - genius!

Even if the weather forecast is for rain, 180% humidity and 195 degrees in the shade. Did I mention it was hot? Did I mention that though the zoo is large, cramming 4,000 hungry, free-drink seeking people into a fairly contained area only increases the heat and sense of impending suffocation? But at least it didn't rain. We had a great time, but if we attend again I will pass on doing the hair, the strappy sandals and go with a ponytail and flip flops, because damn it was toasty and stuffy.

The dress code for Jazzoo is black tie or creative black tie. Creative? What does that even mean? Well, we spotted everything from vaguely racist pith helmets, crushed velvet pimp jackets and hats, furry animal slippers, lots of animal print bow ties, safari jackets, vests and cummerbunds, men in tuxedo jackets and shorts, a guy wearing a t-shirt with the word ZEBRA printed on the front, ladies in leather hot pants, lots of cleavagy mini-dresses, and many many tastefully coiffed and clothed couples. But who cares about those boring people?! Bring on the lace up leopard print bustiers! Sadly, we are lacking in any great "creative" dress photos, it was dark and hot and we were busy carrying drinks and food and trying to scope out a breezy cool place to relax.

Some of us hopped on the carousel, some of us drank enough mojitos that we thought giving our wife driving advice on the way home was appropriate, and some of us had cinnamon rolls for dinner. Joe got to listen to several song stylings of The Orchestra, a sort of ELO (Electric Light Orchestra) group, made up of at least one original member of ELO and several new additions.

ELO is a band close to the Sands boys' hearts. If you don't recognize the name you would certainly recognize many of their songs from commercials and oldies radio. Joe was excited to see them and they were pretty good, but not quite ELO, more like a very good cover band. As Joe told me, if Jeff Lynne isn't in the band it's not really ELO. But you know who really likes ELO cover bands? Drunk, dancing 40 year old women in sundresses!

Thanks to Caroline and Kegan for inviting us to Jazzoo. We had a great time. And while I don't know if I feel the need to attend again anytime soon, I was thrilled to get the chance to experience the Jazzoo at least once. I was going to consider this "#26 -Attend a black tie gala for one of my favorite nonprofits." from the Bravely Obey in Action list. But I sweat much more than any lady should sweat while attending a gala, and as much as I like the zoo I don't think it quite qualifies as one of my favorite nonprofits. So I'm keeping #26 as something I still need to accomplish. Consider Jazzoo just a little practice session!