Early morning boredom

so here I am, at the zoo, having my mid morning snack (yes, 930 am has become mid morning, since breakfast is sometime between 530 and 6) of graham crackers, m&ms, penuts and raisins (my my quite tasty).
so these are my days: arrive, wait for paul to open the door (cuz intern person, sara, isnt here... shes in kenya... lucky), chekc my email. that leaves me ready to do somehting by 7. so i fill in data sheets, fill in the weather sheet.
then i go walk around a bit, cuz the birdies are cute in the morning. v awake and lively and v calm, cuz no screaming kids yet (please tell me i wasnt that loud as a kid!!!!)

these are two of my fav: the hammerkopf b/c it hoots like a monkey and has an awesome head, and the tawny frogmouth, cuz htye've got awesome mouths (check out frogmouths, really... pretty awesome species).

Other cool ones are the kiwi (duh) which i got to pet :), my buddy the diabetic toucan, and the guam rails which are extinct in the wild (cuz of the introduced brown tree snake), which are feisty lil creatures, and oh so much fun!

One of my fav stories is one of the storks who is sitting on a squash for aobut three weeks now... waiting it to hatch i guess. they try to take it out, but get attacked. ah, motherhood.

Speaking of motherhood, on monday, may 8th (not done purposely) I went to the holocaust museum here in dc, which is absolutely beautiful (if that can be used here). so much, spent 4 hrs in the "permanant exhibit" alone. I think the most touchin story was the one told by this old lady (lets name her Ida for the purpose), who told the story of what happened when she got to Auschwitz.
Ida and her mom's railcar is opened by some of the prisonners, who tell them "heraus" (get out in german), but who also whisper to them in yiddish, that it's best for them to hurry, and any woman seen with a young child will be sent to the gas chamber.
Ida's mother, without Ida even realizing, runs over to her older daughter (we'll call her Clara) who has a young son named Danny. The mother takes Danny, telling Clara that it's best if she takes the child, b/c anybody who has a child is exempt of hard labor, and at her age it's best for her to not have to do hard labor.
That been said and done, without Ida or Clara having any idea what's happening b/c its goin to fast, the mother is sent, with Dannyto another line - the one goin to the gas chamber. The last words Ida heard from her mother was, "take care of clara".

Another horrifying story is when one girl asked where her mom was after having arrived at the barracks, people just pointed to the smoke coming out of the crematorium.


It was extremely depressing, yet motivating. If ppl survived, fought to survive in such horrible conditions, we should all have the courage to live in our conditions, b/c there is absolutely nothing wrong with them, they can even be called quasi perfect for the vast majority of us.