Why We Avoid Canned Drama

Personally, I love drama. By that, I mean plays and other highly dramatic narrative art forms. I write what are essentially dramatic novels. I think a plot is essential to a novel, a play or a movie. Plots are built on conflict. When people say they avoid drama, I am skeptical. However, because Bow is so sensitive to even the slightest conflict, I have been avoiding watching dramas in front of him.

Bow, yesterday afternoon, relaxed and conflict free

If Bow sees two people in arm to arm combat, it makes him want to get in on the action. If he sees a car chase, it makes him very nervous. When we used to drive places together, if a truck got too close to us on the road, he would get very upset. We need to be the biggest car on the road, and others we do not know should stay far, far away.

I like to keep Bow as happy and relaxed as I can and to avoid getting him keyed up over nothing. But every once in a while I try to watch  something with him on my computer screen. It turns out that even what we might consider very subtle human drama gets his hackles up.

Take this scene from an episode of Enlightened: Two old ladies meet by chance in a grocery store. Each of them is shopping for food, but they recognize each other and stop to chat. They have not seen each other in a long time. First they talk about their looks. "You haven't changed a bit. You look so young." There follows an exchange where every compliment contains some kind of barbed put down. Then they start talking about their grandchildren. How many of them there are and how cute and talented and smart. One of the women has just been to see her grandchildren and shares pictures on her iphone. The other woman is estranged from the daughter who has children, and living with the one who has none, so she feels bad. After which they talk about their children, and about their children's spouses and careers. One woman is gushing with how great her children's accomplishments are, while the other feels bad because her divorced daughter is now living with her and is not doing well in any aspect of life. And then the subject turns to their own husbands. And that's when all emotional hell breaks loose, because it turns out that one of their husbands betrayed the other at work, leading the man to commit suicide years and years ago.

Because they are human and women and civilized and temperate, at no point do these two women raise their voices in anger, or pound on their chests or do anything that would seem like an overt act of aggression. But do you think Bow is fooled? He starts to watch this scene with me calmly, but as it continues, he becomes progressively more and more upset, until he can't stand it anymore and starts hurling himself against the glass. I hurriedly click it off and order is restored. But you can see why I would not even try to show him a movie about an ape revolt against humans.

That said, I totally support the right of another ape mother or father or owner or trainer to choose differently. I would never condemn someone because they chose to do something for or with their dependents that I would not choose to do with or for mine. I am not at all like Barbara J. King.

The reason CGI apes were used in that movie, rather than real apes, is that animal rights advocates like PETA and the Humane Society and all those other animal rights groups make a stink every time a real chimpanzee actor, such as Chance Rosaire, appears in a movie with a real human actor, such as Leonardo DiCaprio.

Now, Bow is not an actor. He wasn't trained to be one, and he seldom does anything unless he wants to. But I can definitely see that other chimpanzees have a different life story, and that forbidding them to earn their own living is not helping them to find a place in life. So, I think it is sad that we have to use fake chimps when we could have used real ones and contributed to their livelihood.

But on the other hand, I don't think we have to boycott those films that portray chimpanzees without using chimp actors. My motto is live and let live. And the people at Myrtle Beach Safari seem to feel the same way. They saw an opportunity to educate the public about chimpanzees and took two of their chimps to the movies with them.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2691748/Dont-ideas-Safari-park-boss-takes-two-young-chimps-Planet-Apes-movie-says-follow-plot-bark-bad-guys.html

Let's make no mistake: the photo op helps Myrtle Beach Safari to raise funds to keep its chimpanzees and the other animals who live there. They have to interact with the public, because the public means funding. People like Barbara J. King want for there to be only one source of funding for chimpanzees: the government. We know what the government has done in the past to chimpanzees. I find nothing humane about that.

The young chimps who were taken to see the movie posed no danger to the public, and they probably did understand the plot of the movie. I remember that when Bow at a similar age saw Jesus Christ Superstar he was able to follow that plot with no problem.

Pre-adolescent chimpanzees are tolerant that way, but I think it is probably not a coincidence that any older chimps at Myrtle Beach Safari stayed home. The desire to actually do something about upsetting situations does seem to grow with the supply of testosterone available.

Unlike many older women I know, I do not think we would have a better world if men had less testosterone and wise old crones ruled the world.  People can do more damage with underhanded comments that destroy another person's reputation than with out-and-out violence. That's why I think that the practice of dueling which was prevalent in 19th century and is described in my Theodosia and the Pirates novels spared us from a lot of ugliness. The possibility of a duel to the death really does cut down on snarky comments.

That said, I want to keep Bow safe from harm. So he is not going to the movies, and he won't be watching any planet of the apes movies any time soon. But I would fight to the death to defend another chimpanzee parent's right to make the opposite choice.

As the Grass is Mowed

During the spring, summer and early fall, the grass, in those portions of my property that I keep civilized, has to be mowed every two weeks at the very least. I mow the back yard with a reel mower, but I have the rest mowed by others. I save a lot of money by keeping the pasture mostly natural, with only a narrow path to walk on.

Bow is not thrilled with the mowing. When I am in the back yard with the reel mower, this does not make much noise, and he is tolerant. Also, I pause every once a while in my mowing to notice a ladybug or an unusual plant.

The other day I spotted purple clover growing in the tall grass by the generator.

The rabbits on our property like it when the grass gets a little taller, and you can see more of them out during those periods.

When there are two of them together, they take turns running from me. While one is running, the other stands still and watches. They don't go very far, either. I expected the bigger one to run straight into the woods as soon as I went after her, but she was actually found hiding just the other side of the closest tree.

Bow can be remarkably calm and quiet for long periods of time, even if we have a spider suspended in the air of the outer pen. But when the mowers come and make lots of noise, he feels compelled to puff himself up and display.

When the mowers are weed eating on the other side of the fence, Bow watches them warily, his hair standing on end.

But he also knows when they are leaving, and he watches them drive away  with an almost wistful expression.

It's as if he were thinking: "You had to make all that noise, but you couldn't find time to play with me?"

Sometimes We're Happy

Some people watch the videos of Bow displaying, and they say weird things about how he seems depressed. Sometimes they even preface their comments with "you don't have to be a primatologist to see that..." Well, I don't know about being a primatologist, but you at least have to have seen some other chimpanzees displaying before you make that judgment. It's a normal behavior for chimps, whether in the wild or in captivity. They don't do it because they are angry or sad or depressed. They do it because there's an urge to do it, and chimps are very uninhibited. When they have an itch, they scratch. When they feel a need, they find some way to meet that need. They are not embarrassed to show how much they enjoy food. They are not embarrassed to show how big and strong they think they are, either.

Which is not to say that Bow is never depressed. Sometimes he gets depressed. Sometimes I do. Now, by this I don't mean clinical depression, but a momentary sadness. Neither of us are getting exactly what we want all the time. Most humans -- and most chimpanzees -- don't. Our desires are frustrated. Our hopes are crushed.  Sometimes we get upset, and sometimes we express that, but then the feeling passes, and we move on to a different kind of mood, a different emotion, and we have a whole set of behaviors to express each one.

Yesterday, on my walk, I noticed that the phlox was in bloom again. This reminded me of my children's book, In Case There's A Fox. "When Sword goes for walks, in the fields full of phlox, she is always concerned that she might meet a fox."

There was no fox, but I did see the first ripe blackberry of the season.

I picked the blackberry and proceeded on my way to the road, where I noticed some calves in the neighbors' pasture.

One of them got spooked, as he felt I was getting too close. So I went turned back, and on the way to the house I picked another, smaller blackberry.

I washed the blackberries by the rock garden outside.

Then I went back into the pen and gave the blackberries to Bow.

Of course, those two blackberries were just symbolic. It's a way to share every aspect of my walk with him. I also showed him the videos. For lunch, among other treats, we had fried bananas.

Is Bow super happy every moment of the day? No, but I don't know anybody who is.

We change our feelings many times a day, just as we change our posture. Right before dinner time, I noticed Bow doing something unusual. Something I had never seen before. He was walking around in circles, with one finger on his face.

I was getting ready to prepare dinner, so I was not inside with Bow, but I decided to go in and investigate. I was worried that something might be wrong. Bow kept going around with the finger on the side of his face, close to the nose. I asked him why, and he did not answer, but he let me remove the finger from his face. There was nothing wrong with the finger -- or the face. He seemed to be doing it just for fun, because he could. Afterwards, he decided to groom my big toe.

I have seen Bow playing blind man's bluff by himself before, covering up his eyes and walking all around the pen. The finger on the face seems to be a variation on that. It's called playing.

After dinner, and after everything was cleared away, Bow was very playful with me, wanting me to chase and tickle him, before he lay down to sleep, on top of one blanket and covering himself to the waist with the other. After that, I sang him our song, and he grunted happily as I wished him a good night.

We all have moods. We all get sad sometimes, because of the things we cannot have at the moment that we might like to have. Bow is no different. But all in all he is emotionally resilient, and his life is pretty happy. Could it be better? You bet! And it's in the hope that it will get better that we carry on each day.

Too Many Bananas: Call for Recipes

Yesterday was my day off. Bow had a nice time with Lawrence. After displaying at him ferociously for about five minutes when Lawrence arrived, Bow signaled to Lawrence that it was now okay to come in, after which they started grooming and playing together and had a great day.

The delivery lady came by, and Bow hid from her in the corner, but she coaxed him out. "Can I see your blanket?" she asked him. Bow went to where he had left his blanket and brought it closer to her, so she could look at it. When she left, she waved goodbye. Bow doesn't generally wave, but he did raise his hand in response to her gesture, just as if he intended to wave.

At the local grocery store, I picked up some bananas to buy, the ones that were the least ripe, but the store owner told me: "Aya, you can have all these bananas. They came in too yellow." Since they were offering them for free, I went ahead and took them.

But now I need some recipes. Bow can't possibly eat all these bananas before they spoil. We will have to eat them as a family. If you have recipes for using bananas -- hopefully not involving flour or sugar -- please post them in the comments. We will give them a try!

The Taste for Life

In order to survive, all of us have to have a taste for life. Which also means a taste for food. And here is an open secret: all food comes from other living beings. So a taste for life includes a taste for other life forms. We don't eat them because we hate them. We eat them because they are delicious!

All forms of life are imbued with some degree of intelligence, even plants. Did you know that plants can sense when they are being eaten?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2677858/Bad-news-vegetarians-Plants-hear-eaten.html

Empathy is sometimes touted as a way out of all conflict. But it does not work that way. We can be perfectly aware that the cow, pig or lettuce we are eating has feelings, that in many ways all flesh and even all living beings are kin, but we still need to eat in order to survive. And they -- the other beings we eat -- still need to eat, too.  So we feed our families, our pets and our livestock. And life goes on. It could not go on any other way.

On the fourth of July, Bow had ribs and mint ice cream, in addition to his staple foods of apples and a banana.

He separated the ribs and savored each one. He knows what ribs are. He called them by name.

The ice cream was good, too.

On Facebook, I see all sorts of really silly arguments about who is more "pro-life" -- those who want to protect unborn babies at other people's expense or those who want to protect babies who have already been born at other people's expense. What would you do if you were actually paying for it? You would protect your own babies, and leave the protection of other people's babies to other people. You would be for life, but your own would come first. That's how it works around here, both within my house and in the fields and woods all around it.

An ant carrying its prey up a wall

 Everybody is pro-life, but nobody is willing to fight for every life, because it's impossible. Resources are scarce, and even though you may empathize with all living things, you have to pick sides in the battle for existence. So the question is not do you like life or living things, but which life has a priority for you. Life is messy. You have to make choices. And some of us believe that in the choices we make to benefit our own kin and our own kine, even those who are our antagonists eventually gain,  not individually, but collectively.

I found a feather yesterday. I think it belonged to a blue jay.

Did it fall to the ground naturally? Was there a struggle? Birds do eat other birds. There is no solidarity among them, and primates eat other primates in the wild.  But don't get me wrong. They are not cannibals. They don't eat their own. Not normally.

I saw a katydid outside the pen yesterday. There was a fly next to it. I did not quite understand the relationship between the two. Were they predator and prey? Or friends and allies?

The rabbits in my fields are moving closer and closer to the house. I like to see them, but I am also glad that there are coyotes out there that we hear at night, and feral cats whose eyes shine in the headlights of my car as I return home from late night grocery shopping, and maybe even an occasional fox.  That's what keeps our rabbits healthy and hopping!

If you love life, if you have an appetite for it, and you want to keep all of it around you happy and healthy, then you understand that balance comes not from empathy or universal love, but from a healthy antagonism towards others. Celebrate diversity by all means, but please understand that life feeds off life.

Turtles for Posterity

Today was my day off, and after running errands, my daughter and I found we had time for a walk on the property. I went without my camera, and when we saw wildlife, I did not take a picture. We saw a rabbit behind the house, and on our return there was a magnificent red-faced turtle on the ledge of the rock garden by the front porch.

The turtle had its neck stretched forward and its arms and legs out, and it seemed to be very relaxed. I wanted to go get my camera. But Sword said: "Couldn't we just look and not take a picture?"

It's true that I have trouble just being in the moment. When you're taking a picture, you are not completely there. You are too busy to fully see. So I restrained myself, and she went over to the turtle and patted it lightly on its back, and the turtle didn't even blink. Okay, maybe it blinked, but its head stayed out.

It was an amazing moment. Just us and the turtle. And of course, as soon as Sword went back into the house, I rushed in to get my camera. I can't help it! It's a compulsion. I had to get a picture of the turtle. And you know what? The turtle waited patiently till I got back!

By then, there was a commotion in the backyard. The dogs were barking, and Bow was vocalizing, and still the turtle seemed very calm and let me take its picture and film it.

Why was that red-faced turtle there? Was it because of the mosquitoes that are swarming here after the rain?

Was it for the big, black ants that kept speeding past it on the ledge? The ants seemed much faster than the turtle. How would he ever catch them?

Eventually, the turtle decided to climb down off the ledge.

I went to the back yard to see what Lawrence, Bow and the dogs were up to.

Bow was very calm, but the dogs were quite active.

Are you the sort of person who enjoys the passing moment? Or do you have to record everything? Bow is the type who just lets things happen. As for me, I like to record turtles for posterity.

Welcome Back

I was away for two and a half days, on a trip to St. Louis. Lawrence stayed with Bow. Did Bow miss me? Yes, and no. I told Bow when I would be back, and for the first two days of my absence, he was perfectly fine with that. It was not until the third day that he started asking Lawrence when I would return.

This morning, Bow saw that I was reading a book called "The Mainspring of Human Progress" and he immediately wanted to read it, too.

Then he noticed that the door between the two internal pens was ajar, so he decided to work on tightening the lock.

Then we went outside, and Bow was playful rather than aggressive. He invited Leo to play chase with him, and he tagged me a couple of times, wanting me to follow along.

A couple of things you may have noticed in the outer pen: one, the floor is perfectly clean, as Lawrence has swept away all the dead leaves and sprouting plants, and two, the pea plant is really on its way out of existence.

Other things that I noticed when I got back: the common milkweed has finally bloomed, and it seems to attract bees, rather than butterflies.

There was a single bee buzzing about there yesterday.

Also, the rabbits are back. On the day I left on the trip to St. Louis, I saw that someone had taken all the carrot sticks I had scattered, but I did not see any rabbits as I drove away. Last night, I went for a walk and I saw a rabbit close to the garage who led me on another of those slow chases.

There were two much smaller rabbits in the vicinity, and I am pretty sure this rabbit was trying to protect them, hence the circuitous path that it took to lead me away.

There are lots of very young rabbits in evidence on the side of the roads this time of year. They may seem as if they are all alone,  but I think they have parents supervising their activities and making sure they don't get hurt.

It was nice to take a trip to the big city. I enjoyed my time away. But it is also very good to be back.