And That’s How We Beat The Heat, Short-Nose

It was hot in July. Really hot. So hot that my visiting friend, Adrian, and I couldn’t help but comment on the fact, repeatedly, as we walked through the zoo.

We weren’t the only ones holding this opinion of the weather, either; most of the animals, too, were considerably less than energetic.

["It's so hot."]

(Although the flamingos, cool in their pond, did find the energy to squabble and display, and the scarlet ibis had some kind of beak-clashing altercation with a roseate spoonbill, possibly over who was pinker).

Each of the two female elephants responded to the oppressive weather in her own way. One, after swinging her trunk forward and backward and through her legs in some sort of complicated, reminiscent-of-OCD pattern, splashed herself repeatedly with water,

and then crammed a trunk-full of water into her mouth.

The other elephant, who had been grazing for a while in a desultory manner, suddenly flung a clump of hay onto her head:

…And strolled on.

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