my media debut

Last Friday, as my busy week in DC was wrapping up, I decided to make a quick dash up to the National Zoo to bid farewell to Tai Shan, the now-4 1/2-year-old panda cub with whom I have had a minor obsession since he was born, who is about to be shipped "home" to China to participate in a breeding program. Somehow, despite all of my time in DC, I had never managed to pay Tai Shan an actual in-person visit, and despite how busy I was, I knew that Friday was my last chance.

This is all pretty boring, right? No one cares about my interest in a cute, adolescent panda.

Evidently, not so.

Yes, that's me. On Good Morning America. Talking about how much we'll miss having the panda in the U.S.

My quote?

"I am sad. I got a little teared up, actually, watching him today," Tanya Hester of Los Angeles told ABC News after watching Tai Shan saunter around his pen, munching bamboo shoots in frigid sub-zero temperatures on Friday. 

(And for the record, they spelled my name wrong, and it was most certainly not sub-zero. Sub-freezing, yes. But I am not hearty enough to handle sub-zero.)

You can see the whole thing here, if you are so inclined.

Some other highlights from my week.


View from my temporary office, of the Potomac and the Kennedy Center

Colorful veggies at Dean & Deluca, on my one out-of-office lunch outing

As gourmet as my week got, the "hotel homemade challenge" not withstanding -- red quinoa salad

At the National Zoo, visiting Tai Shan, before the ABC interview