L'Amore Is In L'Air!

So, I knew Valentine's Day was coming up soon, but I didn't even remember that it was today until the nice voice on the Sonic menu-com wished me a happy one. I'm not as excited over the hearts and flowers and x's & o's as I am with some other holidays, but it's a day that's all about love and I can't see anything bad about that so I think the occasion needs to be honored with a post of epic proportions and thanks to Lushie Peach over at Food With Eyes I've got just such a post for you today!

Lushie (and that is her real name, I've seen her driver's license) read the most recent of my Busch Garden's characters posts and promptly fired up her scanner and sent me over some truely amazing pics from a souvenir booklet that she picked up on a family trip back in the summer of 1980. Coincidently, this is around about the same time that my family began to frequent the park so I've naturally enough decided that we must have been there on the exact same day and most likely passed each other at some point during our visits, innocently oblivious to the fact that we would one day be linking blogs. I imagine that it was probably on that quiet, shady stretch of walkway that connected Hastings with Aquitaine back where the monorail to the brewery once stood. Perhaps our eyes would have met that day but for the fact that Lushie was probably distracted by a vendor's sign displaying a smiling faced Pig-In-A-Blanket wearing a kilt and playing the bagpipes while I was hiding from a giant beaver man.

The thing that is so amazing about these pics is not just the fact that the shy and noble big-headed creatures of Busch Gardens have been captured on film at all, but that the pics have managed to convey an accurate depiction of those critter's courtship and mating rituals! And offered further proof of my theory that they were all gayer than a Christmas tree wrapped in feather boas. Follow along with me and I'll point out all of the obvious sexual innuendo for those of you who's passe 20th century morals prevent you from recognizing it on your own...

Here's St. George and his life partner and future big game kill, Gordon the Friendly Dragon being serenaded with a lute by a pretty boy in tights (I know that it's a guitar, but we're in The Old Country now so pretend that it's a lute.) St. George hired the lute player as a special Valentine's surprise for his big green boyfriend, but from the knight in shiney armor's body language we can easily see that he has begun to regret this particular romantic gesture. Gordon is a little too interested in our lute-playing lovely. Perhaps we are witnessing the planting of the seeds of our loving couple's eventual, and rather dramatic, break-up?

Looks like they've kissed and made up! Here we see our couple tiptoeing happily through the dandelions while a very early version of the Cirque du Soleil and a hitman for the Rhode Island mob look on. I can't decide if what we're watching here is a sincere montage of true love's blossoming a la "Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid" or a tongue-in-cheek dissection of same a la "Annie Hall."

(And as an aside, may I please direct your attention to what a kick-ass dragon costume that is! Look at those layers of overlapping scales, those huge clawed feet and that great big giant egg tooth... I'd tongue kiss any one of those merry-melody-making doofuses in exchange for that dragon costume.)

And now here's Bebo, the non-alcoholic adult beverage shilling French fox being led away for a little of what those in the know refer to as "Midway Delight!" And you can see that he's none too pleased by the idea as he has very nearly torn his arm off at the elbow in an attempt to flee the grasp of Tracey Lynn, New France's own paper-flower-selling girl! And why is Bebo so reticent to 'tip the tissue paper...'

... because he only has eyes for Buford. Here we see that the Canadian lumberjack has invited the fox over to his sweat lodge for a little dry humping of the support poles. This is how a giant-headed costumed amusement park character lets another of his species know that they are ready to begin mating. Happy coupling, fellas!

From Butch & Sundance to Bob & Ted & Carol & St. George...

Looks like George has grabbed a pretty boy of his own and the two of them have hooked up with another couple for the evening. High fives for St. George! Everybody throw their lutes into a bowl and we'll get this funky renaissance started! That will teach that dragon to play with an armored man's heart!

Oh, this is all going to end so badly....

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And that's the end of Valentine's week. With our next post we'll go back to orange-colored text and less bawdy sex talk. I swear, it's only all the artificially cherry flavored ju ju hearts that I've been throwing back in the past week that have made me so naughty. They're worse than green M & M's.