Ramblings, rumblings, grumblings, and rambling grumbly rumblings.

I used to live about 4 blocks from the National Zoo in DC. On many nights, we could hear the gibbons hooting from our apartment. I used to walk home from school THROUGH the zoo (free admission, being part of the Smithsonian) & eventually I joined FoNZ (Friends of the National Zoo), which meant that I got to do things like volunteer for night pregnancy watches on the red (at that time "lesser" pandas) & see special showings of King Kong in the newly renovated Great Ape house. I learned that elephants prefer sugar cubes to peanuts, & that giant pandas are the dullest, most tiresome, & greatest-resource-consuming-for-little-value critters in existence.