Typing that title,
I remember standing at the blackboard (in the dark ages, before white
boards were replaced by smart boards) and arguing with the teacher
that traveling had 2 L's, not one. I was fairly adamant about
it, as was she. Richard Levine opened the dictionary and told
us that we were both correct as I watched the teacher shake her head
and erase my extraneous (in her eyes, at least) L. She was the
teacher, she was in charge, what did we know, anyway? Fifth
grade was a hard year.
Travel(l)ing with
a leg and a half is hard, too. Brother and 2 of the 3 women in
his life took me to the National Zoo on Friday morning. It was
60 and sunny in DC; the rain clouds were gone by the time we met up
at my hotel and it was a glorious day for a walk. By the time
we got to the end of the hotel's approach road (it was much too long
to be called a driveway) I was exhausted. We piled into a taxi
to save my hip for the hippos. $10 to cover 4 blocks;
disability is expensive.
We saw the
cheetahs stalking the zebras. Their habitats are next to one
another, which seems vaguely hostile. The zebras were calmly
munching their hay as the cheetah paced and sniffed and watched and
was thwarted by the moat and the electrified barrier separating their
domains. I know that they exist beside one another in the wild,
but this just seemed mean.
The great apes
were in rare form, pulling lettuce out of balls-with-holes suspended
from the ceiling. Extra-long pointer fingers are very handy
when your palm is the size of a large paperback book and the hole is
3" across. The baby grabbed lettuce and shared with the
grown-ups; good manners are apparently a cross-species trait.
Staring into the
eyes of the silverback, thinking about the Harry's Law episode where
the client wants to establish an ape's personhood so
she can adopt an escapee, Brother and I pondered the joy and the
sorrow of watching our genetically related neighbors living behind
plexiglass. Zoos do that to me - I am never sure just how I
feel about the whole on exhibit thing.
The zoo, like
Washington itself, is not flat. The animals have lots of room
to roam, the paths are wide and nicely paved, and there are benches
along the route. That was a good thing for my achy hip and me.
Brother began to worry as the sweat began pouring down my
cheeks; was I in pain and keeping quiet so as not to disturb our
lovely morning? Not at all; walking is sweaty exercise for me.
I feel every muscle, every insertion, every contraction and
expansion. I compare and contrast as I attempt to duplicate on
the right what my left side is doing without effort; sometimes I
actually succeed. Being questioned about my rolling gait serves
to remind me to balance my hips and use my foot and ankle.
Strolling didn't
used to be this hard.
There's an O-line
between the Great Apes's domain and the Think Tank. I know. I know.
That sentence doesn't make much sense. It would have been equally
opaque to me before Friday. The O-line is a series of towers and
wire-ropes over which the apes travel to the research station 200
yards away. In the Think Tank, keepers and scientists are analyzing
the thinking patterns of their charges. With computerized
picture-matching exercises the animals behind bars perform for those
uncaged. It wasn't very crowded and we were an interested audience
as the volunteer docent followed us from area to area, bringing us up
to date on the latest in primate research while holding a plastic
ape-skull under her arm.
The only thing
missing was Daddoooo. He would have loved it.
The clouds had
rolled in while we were inside, and Kyle-the-orang utan (yes, it's
two words in Borneo-ese and, respectfully, at the Zoo, too) had to be
coaxed outdoors. Across the wires he went, resting on the towers
with their electrified bases to keep him atop and not on the path
below. The keepers warned us to stay out from under the wires; orang
utans urinate at will and she didn't want us to take a smelly shower.
I
was, once again, delighted and sad. Kyle was swinging and loping and
stopping and looking and doing the bidding of the humans who keep
him. The science being done at our National Zoo will change our
perceptions of what thinking
really is. I just wish there were a way for our genetic neighbors to
help without being held hostage.
On the other hand,
there aren't many predators lurking in the shadows, waiting to snatch
an ape-baby for brunch. Like most of life, it's a trade-off.
I had to be back
at the hotel for a 1:30 meeting so we started uphill at noon. Sweaty
and smiling, I set benchmarks for distances I would travel. If I
could get to the next intersection I'd allow myself to rest. If I
could get to the benches I'd let myself sit. Brother and the ladies
were accomodating and understanding and appropriately sympathetic.
There was no coddling, but no one was pushing me, either. Good
relatives are to be cherished.
We
rested while watching the cheetah (or chiquita
as one employee called them) pace and the zebra chew and I had a
chance to marvel at the wonder of a free animal exhibit right in the
middle of town. Washington's full of magnificent freebies, but I do
believe that the National Zoo is my favorite.
Oh,
yes, we did take a cab back to the hotel. My hip was definitely done
for the day. I didn't feel sorry for myself, though. I'd walked for
two hours and heard Brother wonder why I was setting such a speedy
pace. Impressed that I was confounding and not annoying, I merely
smiled and reminded him that I was, in fact, a
speedy little devil.
I guess Daddooooo
was around after all. That's what he used to call me.
