Penguin Palooza

Once you get to know me well enough, you begin to realize that I am hopelessly, madly, and completely in love with penguins. I have a whole waddle of penguins in my room, ranging from stuffed animals to pictures to rubber or glass figurines. (Sadly I do not own a live penguin, but perhaps someday . . .) I even have a friend who can't think of me without thinking about penguins, which is a mental association I'm quite proud of, considering how wonderful penguins are. Those little creatures have an infinite capacity for making me smile whether they're diving gracefully, popping out of the water, clumsily waddling, or zooming down an ice sheet on their bellies.

So, needless to say, when I found out I was going to be able to go behind the scenes at the Living Planet Aquarium and hang out in the same room as my feathered friends, I was ecstatic.

Excited to go see penguins!

As we began the tour, our guide told us a little about the Gentoo penguins we would be seeing. Apparently Gentoos are "socially unsocial" birds, meaning they like to be in colonies, but if anybody gets to close to them a squawking fight ensues. I suddenly felt like I related to the little birds on a whole new level. (Not to say I'm always socially unsocial, because I'm usually more of an Emperor penguin and like company and social interaction, but I'm pretty sure we all have our Gentoo days.)

We climbed up some stairs into a refrigerated room attached to the penguin exhibit. The penguin care-taker (whose job I happen to envy a great deal) poured a bucket of ice on the floor for the penguins to play in, then opened the door to the exhibit. You know that feeling of silent laughter and joy that bubbles up inside you and makes you feel like all is right in the world and you could just float away? That's about how I felt as my little penguin buddies began waddling into the room I was in.

"What's this stuff?" The first three penguins in the room are intrigued by the ice cubes.

"Careful! Careful!" It was comical to see the penguins slip sometimes on the ice.

For the next twenty minutes I was in penguin heaven. I laughed at the antics of my new friends and enjoyed their very distinct personalities. Ghostrider was our most frequent guest, and he had a nasty habit of chasing all the other birds away. I cheered silently when Meg didn't let old Ghostrider bully her and she calmly stood close to us. And I smiled when the birds got along for a few brief moments. We witnessed a couple fights between those no-touchy birds, which were almost frightening - a lot of wide-beaked squawking and wing flapping, but no actual biting. Samson was a sweet, mellow fellow, even though he was much larger than Ghostrider and could have definitely stood up to him.

My mom was the penguins' favorite. They especially liked her shoelaces.

Because I wasn't allowed to actually hold a penguin, this is the best we could do.

The penguins were like little kids, and I fell even more completely in love with them as I watched them. But I refrained from asking to take one home as a pet. Which is probably good. Because they are very high maintenance. And they smell really bad. And they have sharp, serrated beaks. But maybe someday, when I'm rich and have a huge house with an aquarium in it, I'll own a penguin or two. And then I can play with my little feathered friends all day. But until then, I'll be content with my twenty minutes of pure enjoyment.