Zoo thoughts and park observations

I need to come with better titles. I hear that the headline writers at the Times are better paid than the reporters. Don't know if that's true, but it makes a good story. And makes sense. Facts are just there, while headlines need to attract people to actually read the facts.

Anyway, two big boxes on the beach. Not empty, but with rolls. I dumped the rolls and put the boxes in the trash. Note: NOT feeding the animals, just dumping the rolls. Interesting that although the geese came over, they had very little interest. Many little birds started to happily peck at the rolls, while we wandered up Lookout Hill. NO CRACK BAGS TODAY! What is going on? Have people stopped doing drugs? We did see some interesting monkey graffiti on the sidewalk, with rude comments suggestive of drug advertisements.

Tony and Fannie and Jupiter were in the Peninsula, having taking a few days off to avoid stepping in the poisons. His dogs are 12 and 15 years old - caution is recommended.

Meanwhile, I keep thinking about yesterday at the Zoo. The zoo no longer has any big, dangerous animals. That stopped in 1987, after 3 11-year old boys climbed into the Polar Bear area to tease them, and one of them was bitten by a bear and died. They closed the zoo, killed the 2 Polar Bears, and got rid of the rest of the dangerous animals. Sent to other zoos, not killed. At the time I was not really into animal rights and still thought that was wrong. I was sorry about the boy, but the bears were just acting normally and naturally.

Anyway, it has since been reopened as a mild, gentle zoo. Great for educating small children and very pleasant. But I was there a couple of years ago with my class, and now it doesn't seem to be doing so well. The cafe is gone, replaced by a vending machine room. Only 2 machines with actual food, one of which was broken. No special arrangements to take care of them on Sunday, the "day of 1000 visitors" so most of the machines were empty Similar story with the gift shop, or "gift closet" as I'll now call it. Small, few things. I was talking to the girls running it. I think they're young enough to be called girls. They said there had been financial cutbacks. So, why did they cut back on money-making activities, I wondered. So did they. I said they probably could have at least made a call and gotten some hot dog trucks for the hungry children. They had such things 2 years ago, but eliminated them, I was told.

To be fair, the Wendy's down the block was equally unprepared for the numbers that came. Although they didn't run out of food, they did run out of straws and ketchup packets. It was a nice salad anyway.

I did get two really cute snake bracelets, will send them to my grand-nieces.

If the zoo fails, will Bloomberg sell the location to condo-builders? One wonders.