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Sunday, Jun. 01, 2003 / 6:28 p.m. ~Overheard at the Zoo, and Options~ I wonder if I'm the only one who finds the whole first half hour, at least, of "2001: A Space Odyssey" nearly impossible to sit through. The 'apes' look so much like people wearing ape outfits, and the thing with the bones, and the funky pigs, and the obalisk, or however you spell it. Maybe I don't get it? Maybe I'm not intellecutal enough to grasp Kubrick's meaning, or maybe I just think it's crap, no matter how many times I try to watch it. Just now, I had to get up and leave the room. It was the part where one ape starts beating on another with a bone, getting all excited at the idea of beating on another ape, of killing, I suppose. Oh, is that it? Ape's first act of malice? No, still it's crap to me. And I wanted to see the infamous and directorially masterful (so they say) bone turning into spaceship scene, but had to get up and come here instead. I kept meaning to write some overheard comments from my Zoo excursion earlier this week (oh no, almost LAST week, it's almost over.... depression sinking in - along with the dreaded PMS onslaught, deadly combination). One woman kept telling her children, whilst standing looking at one of the Lowland Gorilla habitats, "Look, look at the Monkeys!! Look at the Monkeys, Look!", and I wanted, so very badly, to say, "They're GORILLAS, they're not MONKEYS at all, idiot!", but I didn't. She had a little girl with my name, and tended to shout it out at different times throughout the day, in her nasal-y Brooklyn accent, causing me to turn with a start. Most people had Northern accents, which struck me as odd, that no native Southerners were making the trip to the Zoo, like maybe it's just a tourist thing, or maybe this city is composed totally of transplants at this point. After all, I'm a transplant too - but after so many years you're considered 'practically a native' by the locals. Another comment, or series of, was said by a girl, maybe 11 years old, maybe a tad younger, at the Panda exhibit, and this was when the docent was there, explaining why the female Panda was pacing around, why she seemed to want to go inside, and this was becuase she did want to go inside, it's her routine at the end of the day. But the little girl wasn't paying any attention, not even taking note that it's rare to get to see the Pandas, either of them, when they're not sleeping, or sitting very still, or just chewing on their bamboo. No, she said, "Okay, enough of Pandas, I'm bored, they're boring", and her mother said, "Well, if we put you behind glass and watched you we'd think you were boring too. 'Oh, look, she's reading another book, how boring. Oh, look, she's watching TV, this is SO boring.'", and I guess the girl got the point. How jaded she is already to think that it's so common to sit next to a Giant Panda, even if behind a pane of glass, that it's become a Giant bore. Sad. Very, very sad. Does she even know how few there are, in the entire World? They only live one place, they survive on pounds and pounds of bamboo, but there isn't much bamboo around anymore, so they might not survive long enough for her children to be bored looking at them in a Zoo. And the female only goes into estrus one a YEAR, and if she doesn't want the male to screw her, we're screwed. No more Pandas. Now that would be boring, a world without them. Another interesting comment was made by a little boy, again, not too good with ages, but we'll say 12. He was rather defiantly trying to get his mother's attention to tell her the differences between the male and the female ostrich. This particular habitat was sort of a Serengetti-type place, with two of every animal, Gazelles, Giraffes, Rhinoceroses, etc. He pointed out the male ostrich had the dark gray, almost black feathers, with the yellow underneath, "See, see?", and the female had the light gray. And I could tell you this is typical of most birds, the male has to be attractive to the female (peacock anyone?), to make her 'choose' him. And last but not least, the woman who insisted on teaching her kids about all the animals. This is great, but she was sort of militant about it. "And what is that at the end of his tail?" (about the elephant - which was quite obviously a 'she', not a 'he'), "Hair", "Good! What kind of hair?", (huh? elephant hair, you idiot), "Like horse hair, right, good!", (no, like elephant hair), "And what is that all over his (HER!) body? What is on your head, what is on his head and all over?", (ruffling one kid's hair), "Um, hair?", "Yes, hair, he (SHEEEEEE!!!!!!) has hair all over, doesn't he?" Ugh. Yesterday I ate so well. Blueberry/cream cheese croissant, Cajun turkey sandwich, and an amazing salad for dinner, with cucumber, orange tomato, celery, green onion, snow peas, Thai-flavored smoked tofu, mushrooms, green leaf lettuce, in a vinagrette I made myself, with extra virgin olive oil, garlic vinegar, and lemon juice, etc. Yum! And during the hockey game I berried out, with fresh blackberries, strawberries, raspberries, and blueberry sorbet. Orgasmic. And berries taste so different, each kind. I even watched the very suspenseful tail end of the National Spelling Bee on ESPN, but what was with the woman commentator? She kept talking over it!!! Pissed me off royally. Very exciting though, more exciting than the game, although watching Broduer let that one goal in because he lost his stick, was priceless. Oh, how they laughed, Emilio Estevez included. And now, "2001", but there are other movies on in a bit. I finally went out for my Wal Mart run, finally got my friend Amy a card to celebrate the birth of her little girl, uh, only a month late, but hey, better late than never. And my vitamins are restocked, so this is good. Everything is pretty good, really. The weather is beautiful, I'll open the windows again as soon as it cools off a bit more. Back to work tomorrow, but I'll deal. Cainer says I'm due for drama and change, major, this week, but that I will have no regrets about the new direction taken. Lately his horoscopes don't seem to apply to me at all, but the last time he predicted something like this was when I came REALLY close to walking out of my job. So maybe this will be the week, who knows? Oh, for dinner? I have broccoli, shiitakes, baby portobellos, green onions, tomatoes, Italian sausage and bacon, tofu still, I'm thinking pasta, or maybe a pasta salad, or maybe just saute it all up and go crazy. Right now I have so many options it's hard to choose. And this is how it should be. (One year ago today, I was recovering from getting inked, and experiencing a bit of 'buyer's remorse') Cost of the War in Iraq
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