I had to wonder at the zoo who's looking at who?

This is my wife Marieta, the parrot whisperer. Actually, this may not be a parrot but you get the basic gist. Each year she likes to go to the zoo for her birthday, or maybe walk a nature trail, and what with our busy weekend soccer schedules, school, my music and work, the heat, the cold, my overarching grumpiness, etc., we usually wind up celebrating this aspect of her birthday several months late (her birthday's in June and we went to the Kansas City Zoo in October). This is how my wife looks when she's happy. We had fun and enjoyed the animals, including the miniature Hipster below. I personally thought he looked like a wee Bluesman, kind of a mini-Blue, what with the shades and cabbie hat, but my wife spotted his "yo, yo,yo" hand gesture so I am going with the Mini Hipster label.

I am more of an animal-in-nature guy than a zoo lover, but frankly the crop of chimps in Ray County is very thin this year what with the early summer flooding, the July-August heat, mountain lions and the fact that everyone's too busy trying to make a living to go for this kind of monkey business. The handsome lad above (left) is Isaac, our son ... aka The Boy Wonder ... with his new friend Mugsy. Actually, Mr. Mugs was right outside the window and TBW's sitting against the glass. I like chimps because all their actions seem intended as parodies of human behavior, kind of like a hairy Curly Howard of The Three Stooges. My two favorite things at the zoo (not including the hamburgers and topping bar near the Carousel) are the boat ride on Lake Whatchamadingy and the newest attraction, the aerial ride. For two bucks you get to ride more than halfway across the zoo. How cool is that? I had a car to myself (not that unusual, given my Magical Lone Commuter posture), but I turned around several times to get a shot of Marieta and Isaac. Below is the only one where Marieta isn't grimacing out of fear that The Clumsy One would drop his camera. No fear, my dear; had the strap around my neck.