Lemurs rule

[firecat]

and the San Francisco Zoo's new exhibit for them, which I saw tonight with my sweetie kyubi, is very cool indeed -- they actually get to climb in real, mature trees. There were, according to the keeper, 10 male lemurs sitting in a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G and every once in a while they'd start chattering away in an enormous variety of voices, loudly, and sounding to my ear more like 50 critters than 10.

The exhibit mixes together several species; I don't know the names of most of them, but there were white ones with black faces, red ones with black faces and tails, and ring-tails.

It was the annual Members Night at the zoo. We got there late (my fault), so we only got to see the lemurs. It was foggy but that didn't deter the hundreds of families with kids. After the zoo closed we sat on a low wall near the exit and ate sandwiches and watched people leave. I told kyubi that any residual obligation I felt to contribute to the next generation of humans had been swept away. Lots and lots and lots of kids, walking and being carried and being pushed in single strollers and double strollers.

Sometimes when I see lots of kids being pushed in strollers or carried and I go to a kid-friendly place and see strollers for rent, I think about how it's seen as entirely natural that parents should let their kids ride in strollers even if they are capable of walking, but it's more rare to see older people out and about in wheelchairs or scooters, even though probably a large percentage of older people would benefit from them and would be able to go out and do more things if wheelchairs for adults were as casually available as children's strollers.

Comments

[dawnd.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this one always burned me, too! We had a leash for Allegra. It saved my sanity. Especially the time we went out on the tallship, The Lady Washington, in the SF Bay. Most of the time I was hanging on to her for (literally) dear life, but the leash was an extra measure of comfort, since there are many places on that ship that have holes plenty big enough for a 14-month-old to slip out of and into the ocean.

People are very strange about what they consider to be acceptable behavior with kids (and seniors, as you mentioned). Personally, I'm all for wheelchairs being able to be rented just like strollers. One issue I see is that a stroller is much narrower (most of them, anyway--double ones are pretty wide). Therefore, wheelchairs can be harder to navigate through exhibits than strollers. OTOH, I think that this just means we need to revise and update our various exhibits (zoos, museums, etc) for better access. I got to be a LOT more sympathetic toward mobility-impaired folks when I was pushing a stroller all the time. It is just *amazing* how many places are simply NOT accessible, or only through a great deal of extra effort ("oh, you just go over there, in the corner, and take that ramp, and that takes you to the opposite place from where you want to go, but that's the only way up there....).

[lcohen]

i wonder if wheelchair rental availability is somewhat different in different communities. when we visited ayana's mother in dallas in june, we took her to a botanic garden where they had free wheelchairs (if you left a driver's license or credit card as safe-keeping) so that we could push her around the gardens. otherwise she would have given out after a short time and not have been able to see nearly so much of the gardens. but i don't recall seeing much of that up here (chicago).