The other day, sister sledge said to me, “You know, me and my sweetie just don’t do stuff. We talk to other people about the neat things they do, and we say, ‘wow, we should do that,’ but then I remind him, ‘but, we don’t do stuff.” After some prodding and offering of examples, such as “hiking,” we managed to confirm that this conversation was about being a homebody as opposed to someone who goes out into the world, and wrests fun from its still warm body! Or something.

At any rate, I immediately felt the urge to cancel my rigorous schedule of Exalted-reading, Babylon 5-watching, and picture-drawing, and do something. Whether this was a lofty goal or merely petty oneupmanship I leave as an exercise to the reader. So on Labor Day, Matt and I went to the Zoo. ‘But, Felicity!’ I hear you say, ‘the Zoo? On Labor Day? DO YOU VALUE YOUR LIFE!?’ Well, I could not love life, loved I not foolishness more.

So we went to the Zoo! After sailing our bark through the treacherous Straits of Excursion and Narrows of Yukon, we finally lighted upon the famed Parking Space Available, concealed in the confines of the Children’s Museum Auxiliary Lot. And so we came at last unto the Zoo, and as we are members of the not-so-secret Zoo Cabal, we did pass into the zoo unharried by queues and taxation.

The sunshine was running about having one last day of utter indulgence before the school-year started, and a fairish number of undergrown humans were following suit. Blessedly, the bane of zoo-going, Bad Parenting, was less evident than usual. I will note, however, in passing, that I abhor the use of leashes to tether children. I even found a new reason to abhor their use—an overweight child at an age where she should be running and playing any excess off easily, constantly TRYING to run and being stopped by the leash her (admittedly, morbidly obese) parent/guardian was holding. Kids need exercise. They also need to understand about behavior in public places, I admit, but a leash certainly doesn’t teach them to restrain themselves. ‹/rant› If anyone wants to tell me how they were leashed like a Jack Russell Terrier as a child and are the better for it, they are at liberty to do so.

The animals were surprisingly active, for such a hot day. The female Siberian tiger was stalking around their habitat, investigating grass-patches with her nose, scratching up trees, and displaying her muscles in occasional languorous leaps up the moat-stairs. The elephants were outside, giving themselves dust baths in a fashion that made my nose itch just looking on. The wolves in the Alaska Tundra exhibit were variously napping, watching the visitors intently and intelligently, and stalking back and forth as if to remind the other two that wolves had legs.

The real highlight of the trip was Winged Wonders, the butterfly exhibit. I love butterflies. They give me complete and utter ferret-shock. And this place was full of butterflies. You followed one with your eyes - and then another distracted you - and another—back and forth. Black and red “small postmen” drank from flowers, great brown “Owls” sat still against the trunks of trees or swooped like small birds to a new resting place. The brown-bottomed, blue-topped common morphos flew in squadrons of four or chased each other in dipping lines of two or three. They were everywhere. They flapped up against their reflection in Matt’s sunglasses, rewarded my long stillness with a perch on my skirt, and tickled the back of my legs with their wings. It was gorgeous!