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February 20, 2005

When animals amuse

My husband and I have a friend, J., and between the two of them, they have the most insane animal-related stories. So insane, in fact, that I would buy them this, if the CEO of Vermont Teddy Bear didn't have to quit making them and resign.

Here's some of the top stories, recently revisited over homemade mac'n'cheese and ale:

1. Dad's fishing in a small boat, a killer whale bites salmon that's just been hooked, pulls Dad's rowboat on a mad, aquatic spree and almost under water until Dad somehow manages to cut line free. Dad also manages to videotape entire incident.

2. Hibernating bear discovered in the basement of friends' cabin while friend is fumbling around in the dark for circuit breaker. Bear is huge, smelly, and fortunately, a sound sleeper.

3. Drunk friend passes out in yard, awakened by a beaver eating his boot.

4. Drunk husband-to-be walking home from Halloween party dressed as Jerry Lee Lewis. Opossum chases sequined husband-to-be down road, bites heel. Husband-to-be shrieks like a girl in love with her cousin.

5. Dog dressed as hobo discovered in backyard. Dog is rumpled, slyly grinning, and wearing pink fingerless gloves. Backyard searched for empty Dinty Moore cans, none discovered.

Speaking of animals, the Bean and I froze our baboonies off today and went to the zoo for an hour or so, since his new thing is to make the baby sign for monkey at me all the time and I thought he might want to see some real ones. The gorillas looked bored and sad and beautiful and the Bean couldn't stop looking at them.

As far as zoos go, the Woodland Park Zoo is a pretty good one in that they try and make the habitats as natural as possible, they have a breeding program to help endangered animals, and they do lots of fundraising and outreach for animals. The Bean loves going there and seeing all the animals from his books in real life, but it is still pretty heartbreaking to watch three elephants pacing around a dirt cage and looking almost frantic with boredom.

I didn't mean for that to end on a bummer note, so I will close by saying that the Bean is cutely, unnaturally obsessed with...owls. Owl, owl, owl. What kid, I ask you, cares about an owl? The Bean does, that's whooooo.

Posted by Max at February 20, 2005 12:31 AM