The Os Away From Home

Recently, Mr. O and I took a trip to Boston’s Franklin Park Zoo. We must acknowledge that it is not the most impressive of zoos, but it’s still respectable.

After we got out of some sort of Tropical House (gorillas, no-show dwarf crocodile, hiding tree-frogs, snakes Mr. O was too scared to look at . . . ) we had a close encounter of the feathery kind:

Mr. O and a peacock

Why was the peacock wandering around? We’re not sure.  But there it was.

Now, I, like my Dear Friend KDN, hate birds.  Really. As in: will not go into the House of Birds, do think pigeons are rats with wings and should be exterminated, do not think seagulls are a charming addition to a summer seascape.

Peacock, without Mr. O

However, I do think that peacocks are pretty to look at.  Also, penguins are very cute, but they’re hardly birds, right? Flamingos are ok from far away, but close up they’re kind of scary looking. And that’s all I have to say for now about birds.

Mr. O wants you to know that the highlight of his zoo trip was learning that in Boston, there’s no ‘r’ in ‘tiger.’

The highlight of my zoo trip: Giraffes!  Giraffes, otters, and buffaloes (North American; I persist in calling them buffaloes and not bison for personal reasons.) make up the trifecta of my favorite land mammals, and the latter two were not available at this zoo location.  So giraffes were the big draw.  There were two Masai giraffes at the zoo, one tall and one not-as-tall-but-still-twice-as-tall-as-me.

Here’s the tall one.

Giraffe!

I love giraffes. Mr. O knows it, and thanks to his generosity, we welcome Horatio to the coffee table, at least for now; we’ll probably move him somewhere else — maybe the sun room would be best for a beastie used to the savannah?

"There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."