another rea­son to stop smok­ing, or Our Day At the Zoo

--December 30th, 2006--

What, you might ask, do these con­cepts have in com­mon? I too was igno­rant until this afternoon.

There we were, in the mon­key sec­tion of the Lon­don Zoo in Regent’s Park (although with Annabelle, Avery and Elliot around, pretty much any sec­tion qual­i­fies as the mon­key sec­tion). One of our fel­low tourists was just about to light up a cig­a­rette when the lit­tle zoo guide elf per­son stepped quickly and effi­ciently for­ward. “Sorry, madam, we do ask that you refrain from smok­ing. The mon­keys will think you’re putting food in your mouth and they will just go for your face.”

That was worth, as they say, the whole price of admission.

Truth be told, zoos alter­nately drive me crazy and bore me to tears. I sim­ply do not care how many vari­eties of an awful lot of crea­tures there are. Crea­tures in the cat­e­gory of how many there are I don’t care about include all insects, most birds and nearly all fish. Now, big cats, there I’m inter­ested. Even meerkats. But rep­tiles? But­ter­flies? Don’t care.

Glad to get that out of my sys­tem. We sent John home to take a nice nap and then pro­ceeded to mar­tyr our­selves to all this fauna, plus an unbe­liev­ably unap­peal­ing hot dog in a baguette (we’re not in Paris any­more!). Then, some­where between the chain-smoking pri­mates and the pen­guin pool, it started to rain. Which neces­si­tated vis­it­ing the parts of the zoo that are even less plea­sur­able than pri­mates and pen­guins: things indoors, behind glass, under water. Grrr.

Finally home to pop­corn, a nap for Elliot, a good gos­sip ses­sion with Alyssa who sat on the floor of my study while I looked up restau­rants for tonight. Oh, Happy Anniver­sary to us! Sev­en­teen years ago tonight, we got mar­ried at the Junior League House of Indi­anapo­lis, Indi­ana. Why? I don’t remem­ber. Wait, John wants me to point out that I remem­ber WHY I got mar­ried, I just don’t remem­ber why at the Junior League House! So noted.

Avery is going with every­one else to see “Dick Whit­ting­ton and His Cat”, a clas­sic “panto” which Alyssa was deter­mined to put every­one through before they left. Mean­while, John and I will revisit, if not our mis­spent youth, then at least one of the restau­rants where we spent a lot of it: Wodka. Lovely Pol­ish food and lovely Pol­ish vodka. Can’t wait. And… put out that cigarette.

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