You know what today is...
Today is Groundhog Day, that day on which Americans collectively cease exhaling until some rodent up north sees his shadow (or not) which is supposed to portend six more weeks of winter (or not).
Not that I desire to delve into Groundhog Day history, but it must have been awfully cold and boring to have wanted to celebrate that inanity the second year. "Say, Benjamin, shall we jocularly coax the groundhog from his den again this year? Maybe the petticoats will fly as they did last!"
It does help the TV news people, though, fill dead air between the hospital-bed interviews with the poor ladies who give birth to the first babies of the new year and the codependent, enabling postmasters who pay postal clerks overtime to stand curbside offering last-minute postmarks to the goobers who wait until midnight to file their taxes on April 15.
Count me as one who doesn't get it.
It has nothing to do with my like or dislike for the animal kingdom. Zelda has most people we know thinking that I dislike animals, which isn't true. I like animals just fine.
Faithful readers of this blog know of my love for birds. I delight in the folly of my feathered friends as they foray through forest and field. I have four feeders (alliteration continuation is coincidental) up now: one with birdseed, one with sunflower seeds, one with thistle seeds, and a suet feeder. This past weekend I was blessed with three different woodpecker varieties as well as a beautiful white-breasted nuthatch on just the suet feeder.
Last Saturday morning, as I was filling the feeders, I found myself exchanging stares with a four-point buck who was following a doe along the creek in the woods below. I ran back to the house and grabbed Dora so she could see them (she's big on Bambi right now). Our hearts pounded as we stood on the edge of the yard watching their white tails disappear up the hollow (ok, mine was pounding from running, but it thrilled me no less). Dora will never forget it.
I faithfully renew our membership to the Birmingham Zoo every year so we can pop in and out at will (well, during normal business hours). A couple of Saturdays ago, Lovett wanted to go to the library and Dora wanted to go to the zoo, so we compromised and did both. We made a quick pass through the large-animal house to smell, I mean, see, the hippos, elephants, and rhinos, who were all indoors eating hay and expelling digested remnants of same. Then we hopped over to watch the seals being fed. Eat like a horse? It should be eat like a seal. Those things scarf down dozens of whole, formerly-frozen fish without chewing. No wonder they flop around and bark.
I'm glad we got to see the elephants, because in this morning's Birmingham News comes word that Susie died Monday. Susie and Mona have been at the zoo since the 1950s. I marveled at them as a child, as my children have. A few years ago, before Dora was born, Zelda, Lovett, and I attended a fiftieth birthday party for the pair. Lovett loved it (hey, that rhymes). It was during the heat of the summer (it may have even been around July 4) and the zoo staff had prepared huge frozen fruit popsicles for the ladies to nosh. Nothing like a popsicle on your birthday.
And now, Susie is gone, Mona is alone, and Dora will be sad. She already worries about one of our gorillas who underwent heart surgery recently, and she was heartbroken when our grizzly bear grizzled away. I almost want to keep her detached from these animals to protect her but she must learn that death is part of life. I can't shelter her forever.
No, I don't dislike animals. They fascinate me. I don't, however, want to live in the same house with one. That opens a whole other can of worms (to mix a metaphor). I get the "bad daddy" stares from people when they see me turn a deaf ear to Dora's pleas for something furry to shed on my furniture and pee in my floor. I've learned to ignore the stares, though, and search for solace with kindred souls, as scarce as they may be. One solid and faithful soulmate blessed me the other day with her mirthful appreciation of the bumper sticker which says "My karma ran over my dogma."
We love-em-as-long-as-they-stay-outside-where-they-belong animal people gotta stick together.
Happy Groundhog Day.
Not that I desire to delve into Groundhog Day history, but it must have been awfully cold and boring to have wanted to celebrate that inanity the second year. "Say, Benjamin, shall we jocularly coax the groundhog from his den again this year? Maybe the petticoats will fly as they did last!"
It does help the TV news people, though, fill dead air between the hospital-bed interviews with the poor ladies who give birth to the first babies of the new year and the codependent, enabling postmasters who pay postal clerks overtime to stand curbside offering last-minute postmarks to the goobers who wait until midnight to file their taxes on April 15.
Count me as one who doesn't get it.
It has nothing to do with my like or dislike for the animal kingdom. Zelda has most people we know thinking that I dislike animals, which isn't true. I like animals just fine.
Faithful readers of this blog know of my love for birds. I delight in the folly of my feathered friends as they foray through forest and field. I have four feeders (alliteration continuation is coincidental) up now: one with birdseed, one with sunflower seeds, one with thistle seeds, and a suet feeder. This past weekend I was blessed with three different woodpecker varieties as well as a beautiful white-breasted nuthatch on just the suet feeder.
Last Saturday morning, as I was filling the feeders, I found myself exchanging stares with a four-point buck who was following a doe along the creek in the woods below. I ran back to the house and grabbed Dora so she could see them (she's big on Bambi right now). Our hearts pounded as we stood on the edge of the yard watching their white tails disappear up the hollow (ok, mine was pounding from running, but it thrilled me no less). Dora will never forget it.
I faithfully renew our membership to the Birmingham Zoo every year so we can pop in and out at will (well, during normal business hours). A couple of Saturdays ago, Lovett wanted to go to the library and Dora wanted to go to the zoo, so we compromised and did both. We made a quick pass through the large-animal house to smell, I mean, see, the hippos, elephants, and rhinos, who were all indoors eating hay and expelling digested remnants of same. Then we hopped over to watch the seals being fed. Eat like a horse? It should be eat like a seal. Those things scarf down dozens of whole, formerly-frozen fish without chewing. No wonder they flop around and bark.
I'm glad we got to see the elephants, because in this morning's Birmingham News comes word that Susie died Monday. Susie and Mona have been at the zoo since the 1950s. I marveled at them as a child, as my children have. A few years ago, before Dora was born, Zelda, Lovett, and I attended a fiftieth birthday party for the pair. Lovett loved it (hey, that rhymes). It was during the heat of the summer (it may have even been around July 4) and the zoo staff had prepared huge frozen fruit popsicles for the ladies to nosh. Nothing like a popsicle on your birthday.
And now, Susie is gone, Mona is alone, and Dora will be sad. She already worries about one of our gorillas who underwent heart surgery recently, and she was heartbroken when our grizzly bear grizzled away. I almost want to keep her detached from these animals to protect her but she must learn that death is part of life. I can't shelter her forever.
No, I don't dislike animals. They fascinate me. I don't, however, want to live in the same house with one. That opens a whole other can of worms (to mix a metaphor). I get the "bad daddy" stares from people when they see me turn a deaf ear to Dora's pleas for something furry to shed on my furniture and pee in my floor. I've learned to ignore the stares, though, and search for solace with kindred souls, as scarce as they may be. One solid and faithful soulmate blessed me the other day with her mirthful appreciation of the bumper sticker which says "My karma ran over my dogma."
We love-em-as-long-as-they-stay-outside-where-they-belong animal people gotta stick together.
Happy Groundhog Day.
posted by Chris @ 2:53 PM
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