t 'n t luoma

On sermon titles, a colleague once lamented, “Do we have to be clever every week?” Note that this was not a question as much as a statement of what is generally accepted. Sermon titles, it is felt by an apparently large number of people, should be clever, sort of like the titles of novels. Personally I’ve always preferred descriptive over clever when it comes to something like the title of a book, something which tells you a bit about what to expect, perhaps even a keyword or two that I might find when searching Amazon.com by title. But clever has won the day. And terse. Terse and clever. If you can throw in enigmatic, all the better. Be clever, but don’t let people know what you are going to be talking about (or writing). Make them at least open the dust jacket (for a book) or at least tune in to the opening minutes of the monologue (for a sermon) or scan the text of the article (for website posts). The reason for this is that if you are overly descriptive, people may opt out. They may choose not to listen or read do whatever action you were hoping to entice them into doing.

If you are clever and terse and enigmatic, they may read the dust jacket (which transforms the pressure from 2-3 words to approximately 100) or listen to the first few minutes of the sermon or read the first few paragraphs of the website page. That gives you further opportunity to draw them in with more cleverness and enigmatism.

Which brings me to my next point (or perhaps the conclusion of my first point, or just the vain hope of bringing this to a conclusion), that no one who has any interest in a book being sold should be allowed to give it a title, or write anything on the dust cover, or solicit quotes for the dust cover (which, hopefully everyone knows, are often just put there to boost the visibility of the quote-giver. I’d link to the article I was just reading about that but I can’t find the URL). Book titles, dust jacket descriptions, and quotes should all get to the point of what the book is really about and whether or not it is worth your money, and more importantly, your time. The same is also true for movies, in case you were wondering.

By this point most of you have already stopped reading and are just scanning down looking at the pictures, aren’t you? Well that’s ok too.

For the two of you who are reading (probably my mom and maybe Tracey’s mom), we went to the Woodland Park Zoo today, and had a blast. Judy came with us, which made it all the more fun. Judy is our friend from the beagle list who is hosting us while we are in Seattle, for those of you who have lost track. Since most of you haven’t met Judy, all I need to tell you is that Ethan has taken a shining to her, and if Ethan likes her (and she seems to like him plenty too!) then you know she’s “good people.”

It was a bit drizzly today at the outset, and a little cool as well. Ethan had a long sleeve outfit on, plus a sweater, plus a coat... poor soul could barely bend at the arms. As we were driving there, I wondered if we ought to have a backup plan... what do we do if it starts to really rain down? Should we try for another day? Would another day be better weather? (Wunderground and Seattle Times both said no.) Would there be enough to do to fill a day?

The answer to the last question was definitely yes. We arrived at the park around 11 a.m. and left at 6 p.m. only because the park was closing, and there were still more things that we could have seen. The park actually closes at 5 p.m. and some of the exhibits closed then.

There is so much to see in this zoo it was really amazing. I have never been a big fan of zoos or aquariums, but I think even though Ethan isn’t quite old enough to really “get” some of it, I still enjoy watching him which makes it fun for me.

The first thing we saw was the peacock pictured above (by the way, the pictures look a lot better if you click on them and get the full sized versions). She wasn’t in a cage, just sort of roaming the grounds. She let us get fairly close, but still kept the option open of jumping up and maiming us whenever she felt like it. We saw her again just before we left. Apparently she is the nightwatchman..err...peacock.

We saw, unsurprisingly, a lot of different animals, most of whose names I either did not learn or soon forgot, because there is, after all, a limit to the number of things that one can remember, and I have a hard enough time with things like my keys and wallet, so remembering the name of “the animal we saw that looked like a dog” will just have to wait for another life when I have a flawless and unlimited memory.

What I can tell you is that they were all cuddled up together much like dogs do, and looked very much like housedogs, except they had really long skinny legs. The “dogpile” was especially cute because one stayed curled up when the other got up (“Hey! Where are you going? You were my pillow!”) and then when he came back he decided that he wanted to use the other one as pillow.

The animals were clearly a bit cold except the penguins, who were swimming around like drag racers and making their funny honking-penguin noises.

The hippos, for example, never even got out of the water, except their noses, which they used to take in fresh oxygen in exchange for their spent breath, which was bad enough to make Tracey cover her nose and she has changed roughly 8 billion of Ethan’s diapers which, sad to say, do not get better over time.

There were definitely some animals which kept our attention for longer than the others. The jaguar, for example. We must have stayed there and watched him pace his area for about 20 minutes.

He looked soft a cuddly like many of the other animals. You kinda wish that you could just sneak in there and curl up next to them and cuddle against his big soft fur, because that would feel so nice you might not even notice when he bit off your head as a late afternoon snack.

Two funny things happened with the jaguar.... the first is that there is a small hole in the rocks which look into his lair which you see when you first come around the corner. When we came around the corner, all you see is a hole in the rock and a jaguar sitting there like “Hi, I’m gonna pounce on you now, you made a wrong turn and I’m out of my cage and no one noticed yet. Hope you had a good breakfast because you’re gonna be a great lunch.” I wonder how many other folks have come around that corner to see him sitting there and had that moment of fright before you realize that he’s totally behind plexiglass and can’t really get you, he just likes to play with the tourists.

The other funny thing was Ethan, who stood just on the other side of the plexiglass for the entire time we were there. As the jaguar would walk past they were probably no more than 2 feet apart. Ethan just stood there (as seen in the picture here). I imagined the jaguar coming around each time thinking to himself, “Please let the kid be on the inside of the glass this time.... rats, ok, I’m going to come around again, maybe this time...”

This was funny because people kept coming by to see the jaguar and would see Ethan sitting there like the Aryan poster child and they all commented on his cuteness. What neither the jaguar nor the other tourists knew was that he spent most of that time in that Baby Gap pose totally filling his diaper with something which smelled so bad from several feet away that Tracey and I nearly resorted to Rock, Paper, Scissors to decide who would have to change him. I fully believe that had he managed to get into the jaguar lair before we changed him, the jaguar would have cowered in fear from this diaper. [Note: That was after this picture was taken, so no need to let it detract from the cuteness of the moment... after all Everyone Poops.]

This fellow was sitting in the window apparently waiting for someone to come along and sit down to chat.

It was just after lunch (for him) and he was sitting there with such a kind look on his face that you wished he could have told you what he was thinking. He definitely had a look like he had something he wanted to share, and you wouldn’t have been at all surprised to find out that he had just finished reading a book that he thought was particularly interesting and would you care to hear his thoughts on it?

Or maybe he had an idea for a great book that was unlike anything that had ever been written before, and he even had a good title for it that was clever but not enigmatic.

A little while later we came across the gorillas, and there was some interesting social/family dynamic going on there, let me tell you.

There was a momma gorilla and a baby gorilla. Their roles were pretty clearly defined. Then there was another female gorilla, and we’re not sure exactly how she played in the social structure, but it was pretty clear she wasn’t all that thrilled about the presence of the baby gorilla. We’re going to call this gorilla “Tonya” because she didn’t have a name and it is a heck of a lot easier than calling her the other female gorilla. No offense to any human Tonya is intended, with the possible exception of this one.

When the baby gorilla finally left the momma alone for a few minutes, Tonya came over and started giving her a hard time. Momma didn’t appreciate that, as anyone who has seen a new mother who finally has a few minutes to herself might expect. Momma didn’t have to say much, but Tonya knew enough to not push it too far.

But at one point Tonya got Baby Gorilla away from Momma, and started to act like she was going to harm Baby. Tonya rolled Baby around and generally seemed to be trying to get into a Jerry Springeresque smackdown with Momma, which we all would have liked to have seen because it was a relatively slow day at the zoo and most of the animals were just cuddled up and sleeping. Momma didn’t take the bait, though, she just took Baby back and walked away. Clearly Momma had dealt with Tonya before and felt it was best just to ignore her.

That’s Tonya up there who Ethan is looking at through the window in the picture above — and yes, those are his tools on the ground near his feet. He does occasionally let go of them, but not often.

The next stop was the Tropical Rainforest, which was majorly cool featuring everything from several different kinds of (sorry Mom) snakes and birds and poison spitting frogs (too cool!). Did I mention the toucans? They were also very cool. Well, actually they were fairly warm, as the exhibit was like 70° or 80° Farenheit. That was a particularly enjoyable part of the visit on a cold and damp day.

Oh! I almost forgot about the elephants.

They were in a special building to keep them warm, and there was one elephant that was alternatively dancing from one foot to another (think about a Junior High slow dance and you’ll get the idea) and then trying to hide behind a support beam.

About the only thing that was actually hidden behind the support beam was his trunk but he kept doing it in such a way that it really seemed like he thought he was hiding. Ethan was mirroring the elephant dance and having a grand ol’ time, but he did wonder how the elephant could possibly think he was hiding behind that beam.

(By the way, I totally wanted to Photoshop the pictures of Ethan with the elephant and the hippo and change the colors so that they looked more realistic and see if I could fool anyone into thinking he was that close to the live versions, but my Photoshop skills are fairly limited and it’s already getting late, so just imagine I did it and that you were really fooled there for a minute.)

One of the last things we saw was the little petting zoo area. At least we think it was the petting zoo part. Well, put it this way, there were animals, there was petting, and there was really no one there to stop us, so there.

The goats were really happy to see us, however I’m fairly sure they would have been happier if we all happened to be carrying some carrots or other food items, because while baby fingers are tasty, there’s really not that much meat on them, and these are growing goats, for goodness sake!

Last stop on the tour was this tractor, which was really a good thing because if Ethan had seen this when we had first arrived, we might not have been able to see any of the rest of the zoo, which would have been a shame because we all really enjoyed ourselves and I’m sure we will all sleep extra well from the several hours of fresh extra moist Seattle air.

A good time was had by all, and not once did Tracey mention that the weather was so much better on Monday and would have been much warmer if only I hadn’t forgotten my wallet. But then we would have had to leave early to get to the harbor cruise, and Judy couldn’t have come with us since she was busy that day, so it really worked out OK in the end.

Tomorrow, the science center! I may have to bring my laptop so I can download pictures during the day :-)

By the way, we are totally loving the Canon Powershot A80. This may be enough to sell me on Canon digital cameras for many years to come, and keep me away from Olympus. The Canons have been much easier to use and get good pictures with, while the Olympus models seem to have a lot of features but are just too hard to use.