Wild Thing

I like to read George “Where the Wild Things Are” because he is Max. Especially in the picture where Max chases his frightened dog with a fork, then his mom calls him “wild thing,” and he threatens to eat her up, so she sends him to his room.

This is why our dog is currently staying with Mimi because George wouldn’t stop charging the 12 pound dog like a fucking rhinoceros. My mom fell in love with my dog so, if George becomes a tad more civilized, she’ll be willing to grant us joint custody, although I think this would be to the dog’s chagrin, since he currently spends most of the day on her warm lap.

George’s behavior, although psychotic if done by an adult, is within the realm of hyper little boys. That’s even what his teacher told me once after he got in trouble at preschool, “This can be common for boys.” Because of his energy, we can only give him the teeniest bits of sugar. If he gets too much he’ll go bonkers. His body is in tune with this disastrous combination because he has the weakest sweet tooth. He is the type of kid who will hold his ice cream cone till it melts, or hoard his Easter candy, just petting the foil and talking to it, as we all look upon waiting for him to wander away to steal a piece or two.

Comparing George to my daughter who is not violent, unless provoked by him, we move from conventional barbarianism to nonclassified. People don’t say, “That girl, she’s a thinker!” I tend to get the off comments, “Have you spoken with her doctor about…”

And it gets me stressed out, although I’m sure she is fine, and I’ve spoken with her doctors and they don’t believe there is any problem either. She is just a little different. She thinks about things deeply, and it causes her to have bad anxiety at times, or just seem to be “head in the clouds.” This year I see her out growing the most peculiar of her behavior, spinning to music in her head, getting centimeters from someone’s face to talk with them, and needing to be in complete control.

She was a huge zoo fan as a toddler. We went all the time. She knew all the different duck breeds and could point them out; North American wood duck, Red Head, various mergansers. It was pretty fucking impressive how she’d remember this shit, but one day, she just decided she wouldn’t walk one foot further into the zoo, and made us leave. She thought the lion was going to attack us, and had a full blown panic attack, where her body was frozen in fear, but her mouth and voice were in high operation, screaming in warning. So we left, and didn’t go back until two days ago.

After three weeks of heavy rain we needed to do something outdoors, and easy, so we thought, lets give the zoo another go. The Sacramento zoo is pretty cool. I get emails from them since we used to have a membership. It’s gone through a bout of bad luck lately. The very publicized giraffe’s baby was a stillbirth, after getting a new tiger it was killed by another male tiger, and an otter from the very cute otter duo died. When we were frequenting the zoo, the lions had babies, and we’d see the three cubs. Now the cubs are grown and need to be separated from dad because he’ll kill them for getting in the way of his dinner.

After getting in the zoo my son had to use the toilet. My daughter and I wandered the zoo while George and dad were in the bathroom. After twenty minutes I sent a “what in the blazes tarnation is going on in there?” text. George likes to take his time, if you know what I mean, and apparently he doesn’t feel the need to rush even when in an uncomfortable cement bathroom with no heating.

My daughter and I spent most of this time by the otter exhibit. There was a docent there, and she answered some of Kiki’s questions, and told me that the lion cubs will probably be shipped to other zoos within the year.

Then I brought up the New Yorker article from a week ago, The Culling. The article talks about Denmark publicly culling (it’s not called killing, but that’s just what it is) zoo animals. Denmark decided to remove any shame from the act of killing the animals to control the population, by being vocally unashamed of doing these acts. The kill is then turned into a learning opportunity because the animal is dismembered and dissected in front of a viewing audience, the first row saved for pacifier sucking three-year olds.

After telling the docent, I received the type of reaction you’d expect from someone who voluntarily gives up her time to stand around the zoo unpaid and answering questions in order to promote animal awareness, she was appalled. Her solution, these zoos should stop breeding if they don’t intend to keep the animals, follow the normal model, keep the animals on birth control.

The article said that the Danish zoos allow animals to mate since it’s one of their few pleasures being that they have to live in a zoo (really this is why birth control was invented), and that birthing a child is a natural right of the animals, one they ought to have the pleasure of experiencing.

What convoluted, considerably anti-abortion, thinking. Let the animals fuck without birth control because it would go against their nature to not birth a child, and we’ll abort it 7 years from now.

Mostly male animals are culled because they don’t play well with each other, an opposite to the Chinese gender-genocide. Females are needed to birth, and well, with the man, just a dab’ll do.

This article, and the article The Death Treatment, makes Northern Europe look extremely emotionally detached, the latter being a brain sticking article on euthanizing non-terminally ill humans. Maybe it's a smear campaign to offset the Frozen effect and keep American tourists at bay.

On the way home from the zoo we stopped by the deli to pick up sandwiches and fruit for dinner. My husband went into the store and the kids and I stayed in the car. They were playing video games when my daughter shouted, “I have to poop!”
She is on antibiotics, and has the touchiest stomach, so when she makes this announcement, it means it’s time to haul-ass to the ladies room. We rushed into the store, and the ladies room was locked, so we ran into the men’s. She thought this was funny. I didn’t because it had the stink of a men’s room. Everything appears to be coated in a thin layer of dried pee. After trying not to breath in any airborne urine, and constantly reminding her not to touch anything, we returned to the store. I took a deep breath and looked upon the long butcher counter, all the meat displayed behind clean glass windows.