Zoomanity

Ever go looking for furniture and find yourself at the zoo? This was the first time for me too. We (We = my wonderful, smart, well spoken, attractive, excellent cook girlfriend, Lindsay - who jokingly says I never mention her as my girlfriend in my blog) set out in search of a good deal on a couch, but being picky and cheap nothing materialized. However, somehow I found myself driving by the Seattle zoo (officially called the Woodland Park Zoo) and out of nowhere I drove in.

Why not? What a perfect thing to do on a cloudy Sunday afternoon. We had a great time, ate some zoo lunch (hamburgers), saw a ton of really cool animals and got in some top quality people watching. Sure, we both had some ethical concerns about keeping such majestic animals in such unnatural settings, and we had a good discussion about it, but in the end hoped that zoos were being used for education rather than entertainment. Then we realized what a buzz kill we both were over intellectualizing the whole thing and went to look at the apes.

All the animals were amazing, but the Jaguar was my favorite, it was laying really close to the glass and made long eye contact me with. The gorillas were also awe inspiring. The female (pictured here in the foreground) had been at the zoo since 1968, and was on birth control pills to prevent her from becoming pregnant as she had a bad kidney. I'm guessing the first plan, to use the intern to use to slip the condom on the male gorilla at just the right time, didn't work out. Birth control pills are probably much safer for everyone.

Speaking of birth control, what's up with this lost kid sign at the zoo? What's that kid doing? ON all fours with one leg up in the air? The zoo must not be very familiar with human offspring. I don't know any kids that strike that pose with lost. Weird.