Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Zoo, zoo, zoo!

UPDATE: OMG!!!! Baby animals!!!! So cute!!! (Yes I am a Ph.D. and a grown up. Why do you ask?)

No, not Kalamazoo. Not this time (though I have one more post to write about the conference). Rather, my post title refers to what was once known as a zoological garden. (Side note for the language history geeks: look around at the web sites for all the zoos you can think of and you'll see that "zoo" has become the standard. When did that happen, I wonder? And I don't just mean in common parlance -- in which "zoo" has been the standard all my life, at least -- but in the official titles of the zoos, too. It's like Federal Express changing to FedEx and Kentucky Fried Chicken changing to KFC.)

Anywho, I'm all excited because this afternoon Bullock and I are going to the Zoo to see the special new babies who've just come on display. They're rare, they're cute, and there are three of them, all born as some suprise to the keepers. Two are twins and the third was born to another mother at about the same time as the twins. It's quite a rare treat and I'm sooooo excited! (I'd tell you what kind of animal, but that would make it way, way, WAY too easy to pinpoint exactly who I am. If you want to spend your day figuring out which midwestern zoo has had a boom in rare-in-captivity babies to the count of three, well, you've got too much time on your hands.)

Also at the zoo currently are an abundance of baby and toddler-age primates and some other very special young ones spread around the zoo. Yay baby animals!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Okay, I'm a geek, but I checked out the baby animals, and melted into a puddle of babbling goo. So. CUTE! I am so jealous!

Bardiac said...

Cool! I hope you have a GREAT time!

For my 30th birthday, one of my friends took me to the local zoo where he was a docent, and the elephant keepers took me behind the scenes and I got to feed an elephant some carrot bits and be breathed on and sniffed. I cherish the memory!

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Wow, just wow!

Sisyphus said...

Have fun petting the dinosaurs!

No? Sabre-tooth tigers? Wooly mammoths? Giant Emus?

Man, I gotta get out more.

Anonymous said...

The babies are totally cute!

I don't know when "zoo" became standard, but I've been realizing lately how very quickly "car" became standard, which I found interesting.

I hadn't actually realized that FedEx was now the official name!

Anniina said...

Yay for animal babies! I actually trek far and wide to zoos with baby animals, sometimes driving as much as 4 hrs, if I hear something really adorable is born.