Amazing April #atozchallenge

Please join me as I Travel Through Time and Space on the first day of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge to a playground in the Bronx, New York City, on a mild April day in 1959.

A group of girls are gathered in a circle.  One bounces a clean, pink Spauldeen ball and starts to chant, standing on her left leg as she swings her right leg back and forth over the bouncing ball:

"A my name is AM,  I come from Arizona, and I sell apples!".  AM passes the ball to the next girl, who bounces it against the sidewalk, chanting "B my name is...."

Many of us have childhood memories.  Some are happy, some are not.  But when we grow up sometimes travel to places we never would have dreamed of ending up in.  

The little girl from the Bronx never would have dreamed that every day now, we travel all over the world, carried by electrons and the interwebs, to even more amazing places.  Hence, my theme, Travel Through Time and Space.

Today, on the first day of the month, thanks to the Internet,  I blog about a giraffe called April.

Who ever thought a pregnant giraffe named April, living in an upstate New York animal park about 30 minutes from where I live near Binghamton, would become an Internet sensation?

After the owners of the park decided to train a webcam on her during the third week of February, hoping she would give birth any time, April the giraffe, as they like to say, went viral.

At any one given moment, upwards of 210,000 people from all over the world watched April and her caregivers.  Thousands participated in chats on their site on You Tube.

And now, all the signs of labor ready to begin are there.  What could be more fitting on the first day of April?  Here's a link to the live, official April channel on You Tube.

I couldn't believe I was spending an hour each night watching a giraffe's butt, along with those  thousands of other people.  I was learning about wax caps, udder filling, how giraffes give birth, and how endangered these majestic creatures are.

I learned to tell the chief zoologist, Allysa, and the other giraffe caregiver, Corey, apart, just by viewing their hands (as they fed April lettuce near the web cam).  I watched interviews with them, and with the owner of the Animal Adventure Park, Jordan Patch.  I learned about young Ava Patch.

What an incredible journey this has been for Jordan and his family, and for all of us who have bonded over a webcam.

Life takes us to many unexpected places, and that's no April Fools.  And that's how the Spauldeen bounces....

Are you part of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge?  If not, here's a quick rundown.  The title of this post starts with A.  On Monday (we have Sundays off, except for April 30) my blog post title with start with B, and so forth.  On April 30, a rare Sunday for A to Z, my post will begin with Z.

"A" on the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.  My theme: Traveling Through Time and Space.