30 Days of Turning 30: Day 22

I've never been to a zoo. When I was about six or seven years old, my parents wanted to spend the day going to visit the cemetaries in Brooklyn where my paternal grandfather and my maternal grandparents were buried. They promised my brother and I that we would go to the cemetaries in the morning and then go to the Bronx zoo afterwards. But because of traffic (traffic in New York, what a shocker!) we were never able to make it to the zoo that day. I remember crying because I had told everyone in my class on Friday I would be going to the zoo that weekend and I had nothing to show for it. And now twenty some years later I STILL have never been to a zoo. It used to bother me but I've come to realize that I don't really like the idea of animals in cages and I think going to a zoo would just make me sad. When I was in New Orleans and had my tea leaves read, my reader told me I had a very strong empathy for animals which explains my reaction to our boat tour through the swamps in NOLA. One of the tour guides dug a baby alligator out of the mud where it was hibernating so that everyone on the boat could ogle it and pet it and the whole thing just rubbed me the wrong way. I would have been happier just seeing them swim around in their natural habitat. Today I went for my morning boardwalk run and decided to try a different route which lead me to Spring Lake where I had the privilege of seeing something amazing. No more than a quarter mile offshore was an enormous whale putting on a private show for me, popping out of the water every few minutes, sometimes straight up in the air, sometimes in a graceful arc over the water. I stopped to watch for about fifteen minutes and then he finally disappeared from sight for so long I assumed he had swum back out and my show was over, so I continued on my way. But as I was running I could sense something out of the corner of my eye and realized my buddy was back, but instead of circling, it was almost as if he was keeping pace with me since we were absolutely parallel for the next two miles back to my house. At which point about six dolphins suddenly appeared and were also prancing about in the water. My only regret was that I didn't have my camera to capture it. There was no price for admission and the best part about it was the stars of the show did not have to go back in a cage afterwards.

That's it for Day 22! Heading off to bed, when I wake up, I'll be 30....