Thursdays of Begrudging Respect: the zoo.

We have a zoo in Rhode Island, and it's pretty great. Zoos in general tend to depress me, but the Roger Williams Park Zoo is spacious, clean, and none of the animals seem despondent, which I've seen way too often at zoos. There's even a little farm with rare livestock breeds where goats will nibble on your hand. If you want them to. It's so close to route 95 that in the winter and early spring, when the trees are bare, you can catch a glimpse of zebras and elephants as you drive past.

I can't remember the exact name of the bird in this picture, so I'll just call it a West African Crane of Awesomeness. Part of the cranes' enclosure is a pair of picture windows through which they watch the people watching them, and if you touch the glass, they'll peck at your hand from the other side. When my daughter tapped on the glass with her little Mater, my first instinct was to tell her to stop, but a docent standing behind us said, "No, it's okay. He's zoo-raised, and he loves that game!" So for the next ten minutes my daughter tapped lightly all around the glass with her little truck, and everywhere she tapped, the crane pecked. When it was finally time to move on, the bird gave her a look that said, "Hey! Where are you going?"

A few weeks ago, one of the giraffes had to be euthanized. The oldest living Masai giraffe in captivity anywhere, he succumbed at age 21 to arthritis and old age in general. His mate and child were in the giraffe house instead of roaming outside, which seemed odd until another docent explained that "they weren't taking the loss well," so the zookeepers were keeping them inside for a little while, where they felt less stressed, to grieve.

I see us going to this zoo a lot as my daughter grows up, and I'm all for it.