Today at the zoo, we had the park to ourselves. Really, with so many of the exhibits closed, the number of animals to see wasn't many.
Despite this disappointment, the kids loved what they did see. Consistently, the bird house is a favorite because birds fly around a large room that doesn't cage the animals. In that old, beautiful building that resembles architecture from a Curious George book, the kids hoped a bird would land on them.
At the flamingos, I switched into teacher mode requiring the kids to take turns reading the plaque and asking them questions about the information. For example, did you know that some flamingos live the cold Andes mountains?
While the kids focused on the animals, I was observing more. My large group of 8 kids wasn't so strange next to the large Hasidic families, who, despite the heat, covered their appendages in black. All the women wore ankle length skirts and scarves in their hair.
Of course, they didn't look so out of place next to the Muslim women in berkas. At least the berkas I saw today were colorful. Picture a vibrant purple covering everything but a pair of eyes and orthopedic shoes.
The Muslim women might have been covered in fabric, but there were a few rough folks hiding their skin behind piercings and tattoos. To these, I just harkened back to a time when such fashion statements actually were alternative.
Tomorrow the kids will write reports about flamingos asking Google to show us pictures of their whale-like bristly teeth. Research skills will be honed. Grammar and spelling will be checked. Handwriting will be perfected.
And mom's catalogue of the unusual will stay active to note anything of interest.
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