as usual my predictions for a crappy day were totally wrong, more evidence that i get bent out of shape for no reason

it was a GREAT day at the zoo.

first, we saw the sea lions. i am from california, and so i have seen seals, sea lions, and elephant seals probably more times than anyone from other states. but this was the first time that their size and unexpected underwater grace really took hold of me. out of water, it was obvious that they are intelligent, boisterous, and probably pretty fun to care for, but they are awkward and ungainly. underwater they were beautiful. i think that word is used too often, but it really was true in this case. it was like they had coreographed it beforehand; they swam in sync, and were obviously showing off. it was very impressive.

then came the otter, who was also a showoff. we got to see him get fed, retrieve a stick, rub his belly, and do a bunch of flips. it sounds mundane, but it was way, way cute.

then we saw the polar bears. jake has this habit of sort of rushing through things like the zoo, especially if there are children around. he was done with the star wars exhibit probably 45 minutes before i was, and he was the one saying "let's move on" after we saw every animal. but he was just entranced by the polar bears. when one went into another part of the habitat, he wanted to go to a different window to follow it, and the dozens of children screaming at the bears to play with the ball or play with each other or roar didn't bother him at all. when the biggest one dove into the water to tackle the smaller one, he cheered along with everyone else, and we even went back to see them again later. i found out after that that after his grandparents retired, they drove around all over the country, including alaska, and took pictures of bears. i was really glad for his enthusiasm because then i didn't end up feeling like i had dragged him there for an afternoon of me oohing and awing over everything while he stood around and waited until i took him home. the grizzly bear was asleep, though - we went back three times to see if maybe he had woken up, but no luck. that was pretty much the only disappointment.

the hairiest part of our trip to the zoo was the "flooded rainforest" section. when we got there, a couple dads were talking about the caiman that was staring at a toucan that had fallen in the water. i thought maybe they had seen this earlier, because i could see a toucan hopping around on some branches above the caiman. then, just as we were walking past them, i saw the caiman go for something behind a tree; i just couldn't see the toucan from where i was standing, but he was stuck in the water and the caiman had gotten some of his tailfeathers and was right behind him, hissing. i flipped out, and ran toward what i thought was an information booth but turned out to be an abandoned cafeteria. i grabbed what looked like a maintenance guy and tried to explain what was happening, half-crying and pretty hysterical. he couldn't understand me and apparently didn't work there anyway, but he ran behind a door and came back out with a guy wearing an apron. since i was hyperventilating and pretty much incapacitated, jake explained the situation calmly to the teenager in the apron while i made frantic hand gestures. the guy sort of laughed at me and said he would "call". when we went back to check on the toucan, someone was using a rake to shoo the caiman away, and then he took both toucans out of the habitat. i don't know whether he took both out because they like to be together - the mobile toucan was pretty obviously concerned when the other one was stuck in the water - or because this incident made someone realize that it's not safe for the toucans to be in there with the caiman, but either way i don't think it's a good idea for all those animals to be in there together. i mean, some of them are endangered, and they're at the zoo to be protected! when jake first pointed this out, i was sure that zoologists, or whoever works at the zoo, would never put animals that have a predator/prey relationship in a habitat together. but even if the caiman doesn't usually prey on toucans, most carnivores are opportunists and if something goes wrong for someone else, like falling in the water and not being able to get out, something bad is going to happen. on the other hand, maybe this just happens sometimes and the toucan is going to be fine - i do tend to really freak out about stuff like this. the frustration i feel about the global political situation is nothing next to my desire for a toucan not to get eaten by a caiman, at least not somewhere where i know it is happening. sometimes i care so much about animals it makes me feel crazy.


this is what a caiman looks like. creepy, right?

we also saw the elephants doing their stretches and the giraffes eating. we went through "lorikeet landing," where you feed these lorikeets a bunch of nectar and they land all over you. they must have them specially trained or something because i have never seen a single person get shit on.

one really encouraging thing about going to the zoo was seeing all the animals hugging. the polar bears hugged, the sun bears hugged, pretty much all the monkeys were hugging each other, the hippos can't really hug due to lack of any sort of functional appendage but they were snuggling, the elephants kept touching trunks, and there was a pretty obvious relationship between both the musk oxen and the toucans. maybe it was just a chilly day, but it was an awfully nice thing to do for valentine's day.