Animal Jam

A week ago, my cousin Emily, who is a second grader in Oswego, Illinois, sent me a letter. Inside was a cutout drawing of a little boy, and an accompanying letter. Their second grade class is doing a creative writing project about a story they read in class about Flat Stanley Lambchop, who was flattened by a bulletin board. Since he was flat, his folks mailed him to California to see a friend. As such, the second graders have mailed their versions of Flat Stanley to various people they know, and our job is to write a letter back and talk about what Flat Stanley did on his vacation to our hometown. No surprise, they chose New York City. Smart, Emily.

Well, Russ and I take these kind of projects seriously, so we decided to give Flat Stanley a one day journey into Manhattan. There are so many things to choose from, but we opted for the Central Park Zoo. Why? Because it's a zoo in the middle of a ginormous park.

We arrived right in time for the Sea Lion feeding. If you have not been to a sea lion feeding, I suggest you hightail it to the nearest Sea World, or hop over to the Central Park Zoo, because I am telling you this shit was awesome. The habitat is really nearby, so you are feet away from the very social creatures. The zoo itself is not huge, but it has a lot of showmanship. We watched the seals eating for a while, and then went inside and watched the penguins being fed. I don't know about you, but I could watch mammals all day long.

Next, we walked over to the Polar bears. There are two, and it happens to be Polar bear mating season. The male was sort of following the female around, snuggling her from time to time. Then, it happened. A full-frontal view of polar bear sex. You could hear all of the nearby parents' brains screeching to a halt as they try to explain what is going on and hope their children don't ask why the big bear is on top of the little bear. Funnily enough, after the deed was over, the male bear got sleepy and tried to fall asleep on the little bear's ass. When she got up to go stalk around, he dutifully followed her all around the habitat, like, where'd my snuggle pillow go?

The zoo really was fantastic. We left around 4, right before they close, and then caught the subway back to Union Square to get a bite to eat, making sure we took pictures of Flat Stanley in the subway. Adults everywhere were wondering about our sanity.

After looking at a zoo full of animals, it made me miss my own. I decided as I was snuggling my dog, Toby, on the couch that his face needed trimming (all of him needs trimming, this is just all I can do on the couch). After the umpteenth time that he breathed his death-breath in my face, I asked Russ to get some toothpaste so I could dab a little on his nose. (They lick it off, and their breath gets better). After Russ sees me do this with Toby, which was pretty entertaining, he dabs a little on Leo's considerably smaller nose. OMG. Leo starts chewing and the paste starts foaming in his mouth. I couldn't figure out what was going on, and probably wouldn't have, except my husband alerted me to the hilarity that was happening between laughs/wheezes. I turn around to see the foam dripping from Leo's teeth, and a perfectly formed bubble come out of his mouth. It was all I could do to not pee.

Anyway, the dogs are clean, and their breath is Colgate fresh. And Flat Stanley got to go to the zoo. Really, it's all about Flat Stanley.