Monday Mornin’

Up at 5:30 AM for an early, early zoo shift. I love the zoo when it’s empty. I know that’s probably a horrible thing to say, but it’s so peaceful. The animals actually make a lot more noise when thre aren’t hundreds of kids screaming up and down the pathways. Saw the elephants out with their trainers and heard some elephant gossip!!! They were walking trunk-in-tail. Super cute. The monkey family, of course, is doing splendidly — if you’re in the DC area you should definitely make an effort to come see them when they are out. The babies are getting so big!

I also went to the bird house. How many hours have I spent at the zoo and never visited the birds? I made a special trip up the hill because I wanted to see some ospreys. There are ospreys in ROS(B) and I wanted to take a peek. No ospreys at the Nat’l Zoo though the keeper there told me they were all around in the wild if I was interested. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to go kayaking on the Potomac until this deadline is over.

(In passing, there are kangaroos on every street corner in Australia and that doesn’t stop their zoos from having them.)

The bird house? Amazing. I had no idea how amazing it was. I saw Stanley cranes protecting a nest (national bird of South Africa, and gorgeous) and wattle cranes with a young one, baby flamingoes like little grey puffballs on sticks, and these sunbathing South American birds whose names I’m kicking myself for not remembering right now. Sereni-something. Any bird watchers out there care to help? They had chicks, too.

I also saw a cassowary, or a flash of one, which, let me tell you, is plenty! Cassowaries are my least favorite animal, and quite possibly the scariest creature I’ve ever seen in my life. In Autralia, we were told that they will actually run into the road to attack cars. They’ll lose, but they will do it. Dinosaurs aren’t extinct, folks. We’ve still got them, and they are called cassowaries.

Run! Run from the Cassowary Before It Devours Your Laundry YOU!

(By the way, the website I got that picture from calls cassowaries “velociraptors with feathers,” which is the description I’ve been using for years to describe these monsters.)

Ah, the Zoo. Sailor Boy is mildly nervous that I love the zoo more than him, since I will be doing zoo-related activities three times this week. I think he’ll come to accept it in time.

And in other DC news, tonight, I will be going to see Casablanca on the National Mall. (Sorry for the About link, it’s all I could find.) Regular blog visitors know that this is one of my all-time favorite movies. I have to watch it every time it’s on.

Speaking of movies, I went to see Stardust last weekend. Now, I haven’t read the book. My only Gaiman is Coraline. So I can’t speak to that. But I liked the movie. Actually, I loved it, until a scene near the end, which made no sense to me whatsoever and left a really bad taste in my mouth, since instead of enjoying and reveling in the film’s conclusion, I was going, “WTF?” Very much violated the Chekov “gun on the wall” rule, as far as I’m concerned. And lest someone tell me that moviegoers don’t think about rules like that, I wasn’t watching this as a writer. I was watching it as a moviegoer (one turns off the internal writer when one is in love) and it didn’t make sense to me. THAT’S why Chekov’s rule works — you need that gun on the wall so the shooting makes sense to any old audience member.

I wonder if people who have read the book had a different experience, or if too much of the plot was changed so that it didn’t matter. It’s kind of like when I took my parents to see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkabaan and they didn’t get why Harry was so sure his dad would show up with his Patronus, but it was because the movie never really explained Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs. I feel like they just left out something at the end of Stardust that would have nailed it.

As for the casting, almost everything was as I expected. The hero was cool. Whoever did his costume/makeup design actually pulled off the whole “transformation” zero/hero thing quite well. All the secondaries were great. Claire was Claire. (Best comment in any review I’ve seen of the film is the one where the NYT reviewer asked how much better would it be if the part had been played by Gwyneth Paltrow.) The only performance that truly surprised me was Sienna Miller’s. I’m not a Miller fan. I think she’s vastly, galactically overrated, and horrible in every movie where I’ve ever seen her. She’s also always cast as this stunning beauty, filled with charm, devastatingly attractive to everyone she comes near, etc. etc. Never go it. However, here she was perfect. Cast as the mildly pretty (if pedestrian), but overwhelmingly vain, ultimately vapid, and easily outshone (no pun intended) by even Claire Danes… well, that’s the perfect role for her. Bravo, casting directors.

So, in all, not The Princess Bride, but very PB-esque. I will definitely watch again on DVD.

And now, off to finish ROS(B). What did you all do this weekend? Any big plans this week?