A Day at the Zoo

Isn't this lion just adorable? I managed to snap a few pictures of her sleeping. She looks so peaceful, ignoring the scads of obnoxious eople watching her.

Well, there was one large cat who definitely didn't ignore those obnoxious people.

A beautiful, white Bengal tiger paced his cage, back and forth, back and forth. My daughter was in awe. She loves tigers and this one was less than three feet away from her. She eagerly demanded I get a picture, but I thought I'd do better than that - I started videotaping him. He largely ignored me, still doing his pacing, and my heart broke when I thought of how he undoubtedly longed to be in the wild, hunting some poor antelope or unsuspecting rabbit. What power, I thought. What majesty.

Until he turned around, lifted his tail, and sprayed me with pee.

And I caught it all on film.

He let me know, in no uncertain terms, that he didn't want to be videotaped and he didn't want me staring at him in all his "majesty."

Everyone got a good laugh out of it, including me. After all, not many people can say they've been peed on by a white tiger. ;-)

There were lots of other great exhibits. The penguins were awesome with their swimming and diving antics (which I managed to videotape sans pee). We also saw jellyfish, sea otters, giraffes, elephants, and sharks.

But I'll always remember the white tiger. In fact, I plan to immortalize him someday in a story.