Leaping Lemurs!

This capybara went on record as saying "Baroo?"

The Biodome is pretty much my favourite place in Montreal. Not even Schwartz's or Basha comes close, lacking as they do in puffins and capybaras. Want to know how much I like the Biodome? You see, like many a kinda-hetero woman, I have my wedding already planned. Instead of having a Vera Wang dress or tea roses every which way though, I only have two kind of odd desires. The first is that it must be at the Biodome. And the second is that the sloth will be our ring bearer.

Penguins already come with tuxedos, perfect for any wedding or formal event.

Yeah, so the ceremony might take hours, but it's going to kick ass. I still haven't decided whether the reception will be sorbet in the penguin area, or canapés in the Laurentian habitat.

Hyacinth macaws

So, every year I make a pilgrimage to the Biodome, where I check in with my old friends. This time I dragged a human friend, Frances, along. She got to hear me wonder the same questions I always do, like "What happens when one of the animals die?" "Do they feed it to the other animals?" "What would traumatize little children more- seeing a lynx eat Bucky Beaver or a caiman eat Zoboo?" Sadly, these questions were again not answered in the twenty-minute presentation "Les Secrets du Biodome" Frances and I attended to improve our French. My french must be getting better, because I understood most of it. Then again it's pretty easy to translate from the French "The capybara eats the placenta" when you're actually seeing capybaras. Eating. Placenta. The movie was more interesting on a fasion note than an educational one. The lovely Geneviève, our presenter, had those great cargo pants that zip off into shorts. The ones that always seem sexy on women... but only women in certain professions. Biologists, archaeologists, can all rock them and look like the fiery love interest of some adventurer. I, a lazy English student, always look like a comfy but sturdy turnip. Not to self: go all Single White Female on Gen-Gen's lifestyle. It will probably lead to face time with tamarind monkeys.

Porcupine up a tree.

The big draw for me this year were the lemurs, also known as John Cleese's favourite animal. I almost wrote Chevy Chase there, which is weird. One's American, one's British, one's funny, one... not so much. Plus, I'm quite sure Chevy Chase's favourite animal is his own ego. Cleese, at least, has better taste in movie projects and animals, as I found out yesterday. Lemurs are very keen-looking creatures, even when they're not jumping around the trees and just hanging out. Their big yellow eyes always look a little overwhelmed. Or maybe over-stressed, kind of like a student in the middle of exams. I sympathize. Since they're only visiting, their habitat is just a big shack in the middle of one of the hallways, done up to look like a Madagascan home, and you shuffle past the lemurs and then out into the gift shop. They seem to like to hang out together, and will clean each other like cats. Speaking of cats, don't tell the big guy, but I kind of want two lemurs of my own now. One for cuddling at each end of the sofa.

My lemur buddies. I've named the one on the left Margo and the one on the right Captain Franks.