On Sunday Chris and I went to the zoo, like we’d been wanting to do all summer, and so what if it’s not summer any more? There are only two slight disadvantages to going to Brookfield Zoo in the fall, which is that the flamingos are in storage and Baboon Island is deserted. (You really need to see Baboon Island. It’s like the animal equivalent of MTV Spring Break. And do they even air that anymore? I have no idea.) There was a sign that said “The Baboons are having their annual medical check-up,” and I imagined all the baboons lining up to board a big school bus driven by a kindly nurse. Mentally I am still eight years old when I go to the zoo.
We saw the monkeys and the penguins, like probably everyone else does, and we saw a traumatic video of a giraffe being born. (It just falls out! In this bag! Like chips in a vending machine! Only freakier!) We saw this little African deer thingy, I don’t rememember what it’s called, standing practically sideways on a rock, chewing and chewing and chewing. We overheard all kinds of hastily made-up animal facts from parents of little kids. (“I think the rhino is getting ready to hibernate, Tyler, and that’s why it won’t come out.”) We followed around a peacock (aka Nature’s Bling). We stayed until just before dark, when the zoo grounds were getting deserted and spooky and lovely. I have so much to do, so very much to do, so many things every single freaking day these days, but I liked Sunday.
One of the many things is swimming. When I was at Ragdale last month I started going to a pool at a nearby college in the mornings (well, okay, so I went twice), and I liked it so much I started using the pool at my gym. I like it because all you need to remember to pack is your suit, and when you get to the pool there is no aimless wandering around like on the gym floor; there is no thing you have to get on, or wait for; no TVs or magazines that you feel you should look at while you’re waiting to get off whatever thing that you waited to get on. When you’re in a pool, the only thing you have to do is stay alive. And it turns out I’m pretty good at doing that.
I was excited to hear that you visited Ragdale, and restrained myself from making some sort of lame/stalker-ish comment about you being close to where I live. But now that you visited the very pool where I have spent hundreds of hours of my life, I don’t feel as bad about it.
I’m kind of surprised you found out about the college. I sometimes feel the townsfolk have the same feelings towards us students as they do towards the hidden burger king.
That’s cool that you’re swimming. Josh and I swim 2 or 3 times a week. In fact, we swam today. It’s a very zen type of excercise isn’t it?
Now I’m never going to look at vending machines the same way again.
There is a such thing as Flamingo Storage?? Why can’t you tour the storage facility? Is it climate controlled?
I’ve been away from the zoo for way too long.
Are you sure they weren’t away on monkey business?
Thank you for your posts. I read your book then followed it to here…you’re inspirational in a real way.
Amy S.
http://www.windycitymamma.blogspot.com
Hmmm… I was at my zoo this weekend and the flamingos were standing around in their little pond, all huddled together. Strange, since our climate here in Des Moines would approximate that of Chicago’s. Perhaps our zoo just isn’t large enough to have their own flamingo storage…
Klipspringer antelopes. That’s what they were. See http://www.brookfieldzoo.org/0.asp?nSection=11&pageid=&nLinkID=32&sHTTPLink=sitemap.asp
i’d like a klipspringer antelope for christmas, please.
(a day of Anne-related name posters, eh?) The other great thing to do at Chicago zoos in the winter is the LP Zoo’s “Zoo Lights” around Christmas. It’s free, for one, and they give you these crazy paper glasses that, instead of seeing things in 3-D, you see every “point” of light as a hologram snowman. I swear to god. I still have my glasses.
Does the giraffe get change back from the “bag o’ chips” birth? What if the bag gets stuck?