It was Burke’s birthday. She is blurm-bling-years-old and so a day of enjoyment was called for to celebrate this inauspicious number and event. The idea was: zoo, cake, burger, cake, air conditioning.
The pluses with a summer birthday are clear. Your range of activity is way open. You can drink outside, go outside, walk outside, play outside. When you’re an October birthday like me, your range of places to drink are limited to: a pub.
As far as I am concerned, the problem with a summer birthday is the heat. But this doesn’t seem to be a problem for the summer-born people. Those people born in summer seem A-okay with the sun activities. They enjoy the feeling of baking shoulders and prefer their beverages to be consumed in the al fresco. The summer people are like human charging ports, a day in the sun energizes them and allows them to glow warmly and happily. They are psychopaths.
I am an autumn-born person. My idea of fun is avoiding the sun at all costs. I drink my beverages indoors and with a wall or even a few walls between me and the orb of discomfort. Most of my shots are quietly dedicated to the fact that I live in a place which the sun avoids for six months of the year. I get a charge from the shade.
But it is not my birthday, it is Burke’s. And she has decided on the zoo.
It should be mentioned that I am for this plan in theory. I like walking, animals, and beer and hotdogs. All of these things can be found or done at the zoo. But in practice, and as an autumn-born, what I really want is to hide in my coolish flat for this hot day and watch movies. Maybe we could just let me hang out at home, eat, drink, and watch 30 Rock while animals pass by the flat and watch me. I would be OK with this. Nevertheless, when it’s your partner’s birthday, pitching these fanciful (read: stupid) ideas are not an option. Also not an option is going along with the plan and being miserable. You have to sell it. You have to be into it. I shower. I practice my smile. I remember there will be beer and elephants and my smile becomes genuine.
It’s not unbearable. We arrive in late morning so the weather is not terrible. But the dog and I take advantage of the misting ports. I introduce her to this little slice of heaven, holding her belly-first into the cool misty water. Dogs can’t really talk much, so I can’t be 100% sure she loved it. That said, when I put her back on the ground, she definitely has a this-is-what-it-sounds-like-when-the-doves-cry look on her face.
She is shocked by all these other little beings running around behind glass – prairie dogs, badgers, porcupines. The novel scents drive her to overloaded realms of curiosity and information henceforth unknown. I hold her up to watch the hippo swim – which it does in slow, enviable, languorous motions. I can feel the hippo’s comfort. The dog stares at this monster and can’t put to terms what she’s seeing. The elephants inspire a similar feeling.
After the elephants, we hide in the shade and have a beer. We water the dog and feed her biscuits. The temperatures are climbing. It’s just after noon. We decide to hit the giraffes and the gorillas and call it a day. The zebras and some of the giraffes are hiding under shade. You’d think they’d be more used to the sun than other animals, but since they were probably bred in Brno and not Kenya, I’m probably wrong. Some of the giraffes twitch their ears and nibble branches. An elephant roars from behind us and the dog sits up straight.
As we make our way to the gorillas, I wonder at the cruelty. I don’t want to dislike zoos, though I do hate the idea of incarcerated animals. I know the issue is nuanced and I’m not here to sway us one way or the other. I do worry about the animals in this heat. Still, would they be better off in a savannah somewhere? I don’t know. It’s pretty hot there, too.
The gorillas are like members of my own family. I often forget how humanlike they can be in mannerisms and am only reminded when I see them in person. Today, to a gorilla, they are lounging in the shade and moving as little as possible. One guy scratches his head and looks like one of my uncles. Another guy cozies into a cool stone and I fully understand the motion. It occurs to me that I am jealous of these gorillas. They are doing exactly what I wish to be doing. I look for a female gorilla who may pester them to leave their shade and go do things in the sun, but it doesn’t happen. They simply exist and let us pass by in our overheated world.
Later, at dinner, we sit at a table in the large window overlooking a baking square. We sip frozen margaritas and munch burgers. People walk by in the unrelenting sun that brightens the stones. Some are soaking in the rays, unperturbed. Others walk in stuttered steps and wipe sweat from their brows with their short sleeves. Their desperation is palpable. One guy, clearly a fellow autumn-born, glares in at me. I yawn. I snuggled into my cool seat. I let the people pass me by in the hot world and enjoy my incarceration.
