And one more thing

While wandering around the National Zoo, Renea and I happened upon a family sitting on a park bench. We were trying to figure out if when they were on display, the wild lion tamarinds had really been on the loose with just radio collars on so that the zoo keepers would know where the "lions" were. We knew that they were no longer in the trees, we were just looking around and imagining it. In fact, if they were still out we might not have been there at all...someone was afraid of monkeys throwing poop.

In any case, out of one ear I hear, "and one more thing, there are no animals here." I am getting the quote wrong now. Try to hear the indignance in the voice of the rather small potentially 7-8 year old child. He had been addressing his parents in Chinese, but dropped that last argument in English. Then he turned to me and said, "they are in the small animal house." (he left out the "stupid" he really wanted to add to his sentence.) I knew that, I had read the sign, but it was fun to play along with his parents.

I asked him what the other things were, but he refused to tell me, and this really amused his parents. Finally, he gave up trying to reason with them, opened up his book, and sat down on the bench.

There they stayed as we went on towards more animals who were actually outside... I really did want to know what the other arguments were, though.

Other overheard comments:
"Don't stop until we get to the restaurant, we didn't come to the zoo to see animals!" -- I kid you not. She was pushing a stroller and surrounded by many other adults and children who really did want to stop and see some animals on the way to the restaurant

"Hippo!" -- imagine it yelled, over and over, loudly, as a way of trying to wake the hippo and get her (renea decided the hippo was a she) to turn over.

"Howling sound" emitted from small child as a way of getting the wolves to come out where we could see them.

"I guess that's where the saying, busy beavers, comes from" upon seeing a beaver working on a lock. It had been hooked on a little pole where the beavers could keep themselves entertained for hours. I cannot repeat the suggestions being made about one of the beavers who refused to leave the jets.

Adults on the loose in the National Zoo... we should have had cameras following us, some of it was quite good, on the other hand, there were no binobos.