Did anyone besides me read the book George and Martha when you were a child? It was one of my favorites, especially the story about Split Pea Soup and the one with Martha in the bathtub. You should know that George and Martha were best friends and hippopotamuses. It just occurred to me that they were named after the first President and his wife. Hmm. Sometimes the “adult filter” turns up the strangest of things from childhood.*

Anyway, the Martha-in-the-tub story was one of my favorites, and involved George learning not to be a Peeping Tom. Actually, the summary (as I can find it online, and I remember this being the subtitle) is: Story Number One: The Tub Martha teaches George a little lesson about privacy. And I remember that the last line was, “George, there is such a thing as privacy!” because I quoted that one a lot. Including into my teen years, actually… There’s that “adult filter” again.

There’s a point to this long introduction. I promise. And now we’re there.

Today as I was leaving the zoo for my lunch break, I stopped at a few exhibits to look at the various animals.  And then I saw this:

Can you tell what it is? Want a closer look?

That is some big splashing happening in the elephant exhibit. The old elephant exhibit (they’ve got a new one under construction) has a pool on the side, and I’ve seen the elephants wade in it once or twice, but really that was all.

At any rate, I got a kick out of it and thought you might, too. Here she is, climbing out of the bath with her “bath toy” that bobbed in the water around her the whole time.

So that was the fun thing I saw today. I also saw the young lions go on exhibit together for the first time which was nerve wracking and exciting all at the same time. I didn’t get any good photos of them together, though, so that will have to be another day.

*The TV show Zoobilee Zoo, for instance. I woke up one morning with the theme song playing in my head so I looked it up online, then called my mother to share in my nostalgia kick for a show I remember rarely watching because (in my own kid-logic) it had obviously gone off the air. Much to my surprise, I discovered that the reason we never watched the show wasn’t that it was off-air, but that my mother found it beyond annoying. I understand; the Wiggles scare me. A lot.