Happy Boxing Day!

Dear all,

Happy Boxing Day, everyone! That's right--the day after Christmas is Boxing Day. It's not very big in the United States, but neither is dark chocolate, and, like the chocolate, that doesn't mean it isn't worth checking out. Get it?

Thus, for Boxing Day, M. and I went to the zoo here in Hattiesburg. It's a small zoo--it only costs $2.00 to get in, and animals have been known to escape (like today)--but it's fun, and it's good for an hour or two of diversion. Here are the pictures:



This is Orson, a ring-tailed lemur. M. named him one day after doing quite a bit of genealogical research--I guess I have a great-great-granduncle named Orson (or something like that). Orson (the lemur, not my relative) is from Madagascar. He likes to move it.



This is Orson's cagemate, whom we have named PJ. We were watching him in his cage, minding our own business, when PJ came over, climbed up on the fence in front of us, and unloaded in our direction. Man--that guy's a regular race horse, if you know what I mean. M. and I had to jump back in horror and try to get out of range (I'd say he had a good four feet of clearance). I was not very happy with the little dude.



Look closely--can you see the 'gator in this picture? That's Felix. He's a big galoot. I got talking with one of the zookeepers (he was tracking a brown pelican that had literally flown the coop) and he mentioned that, a while back, one of the zoo's ducks had the misfortune of landing in Felix's pond. By the time the zookeepers arrived, all they saw was a pair of orange webbed feet sticking out of Felix's mouth.



That's M. (she was trying to look serious; I just think she looks cute) standing in front of Norman, the tapir. Tapirs are kinda cool, in my opinion. They're like really, really big pigs with prehensile snouts. And they only have three toes--they could be characters on The Simpsons.

Anyway, it was a nice day, if a little cold. Happy Boxing Day, all.