Rock and Roar

What's the best part about having a boyfriend with socialite parents? Everything.

J's dad gave us tickets to a fundraiser called Rock and Roar at the zoo for Saturday, and after checking out the website I got really excited. I threw on my snow leopard print cardigan and we hit the zoo ready to party, unprepared for 4 large male peacocks to cross our paths as soon as we passed through the gates. It seemed scripted.

There were animals everywhere (lions were behind fences, no worries), and women were donning their best animal prints. There was a steel drum band, along with a rock band, but mostly everything was very African themed. All the hippest restaurants in town were there, serving I guess what you could call a tapas buffet (read: we ate until we almost burst). Martinis were served through an ice luge...it was a huge Finlandia vodka bottle which is hard to see, but was very pretty with real slices of oranges frozen inside. And there were a LOT of martinis flowing through that puppy.

And then came the silent auction. Perhaps I should interject here that my boyfriend loves animals. Scratch that, he loves nature. So when we walked through the exhibits that were open for the party, we came across the African Red River Hog...or as the world calls him, the warthog. Pumba, if you will, and J just fawned over the little guy. He sat and stared at us long enough for me to remember I had my camera, and then he strolled away. So here's his bum.

He must've been tired from all the painting he'd been doing in prep for the party, because when J and I saw his artwork for sale in the silent auction, we couldn't help but bid. And then we got into a little bidding war with another couple, but we came out on top and and we won. I say "won" as code for "spent to much money," but it was all for a good cause. The elephant artwork was very pretty too, but most of it was done in very bright (read: fluorescent) shades of yellow, reds, and greens, and more than anything I was turned off by the idea of having to decorate around a highlighter palette. J was turned off by their pricetags.

It's in a beautiful natural wood frame and has a little picture of him with a blurb about his painting style, and they named it "A Dozen Red Roses." In a flurry of mauve and teal hoof prints and snout smudges, Gregory (we asked what his named was...I think it suits him perfectly) provided us with a charming story about our first piece of joint property. Behold.