April 23rd

WHO'S THE MORON?

Today, it would be ME. I renewed my Zoo membership early because I wanted to beat the price increase. My new card came today, so I took that out of the envelope and threw the junk in the recycling bin.

Except it wasn't all junk. With a membership you get two guest passes and a bunch of discount coupons. I didn't even look at the papers before I tossed them. Fortunately it occurred to me later that the passes might have been in the envelope, and I was able to retrieve them. Bonus-they weren't covered in anything nasty because the recycling was picked up yesterday so the bin was clean.

SPEAKING OF THE ZOO

I went yesterday. I like the zoo, I get some good photos and it's one place that I will walk for a few hours. I don't like walking just to walk, but I will walk around the zoo or other interesting places.

I was at the gorilla exhibit watching the momma and her baby having a snack. The big male and what I think was a younger male were sitting with their backs up against the plexiglass, facing away from the people. The sky tram goes right over the exhibit, and someone lost (or threw) a baseball cap that came down right into the gorilla space. The two males both jumped up to go for it, but the young one got it first. The old male just sat back down and stared at him. The young one did his best to not look at the big male, perhaps hoping that he would go away. The big male just sat, and stared, didn't move at all. Finally the young male stood up, threw the cap on the ground and stomped off.

The big male inspected it, decided it wasn't anything worth keeping, and left it for the young male. When I left he was still carrying his prize around. It was really interesting to watch the interaction between the two.

It was also interesting when the baby got close to the edge of the drop off. The big male went over and gently guided him back to a safer spot. It was cute.