What is with Sundays? - 12/30/2001

At the zoo, anyway....

Last Sunday was the bird-bat falling shelter day. Quite a while ago there's an entry about Mikey nearly killing himself ("Aren't Sundays supposed to be CALM?!" I think)

And today!

Wake up to a zoo without power.

Hey, animals just live in enclosures, so no problem, right?

Wrong.

Does the class know how much the zoo depends on power?? *just, laughing, really*

The cash register. Can't let visitors in if you can't give them change.

The bathrooms. Most visitors like to see in the bathrooms.

The hotwires. Can't let the bears into their enclosure without that protective measure. Not to mention the backup generator didn't kick up either (helluva backup, eh?) so we couldn't even let the bears OUT as their new fangled doors are electric and we don't have the backup handcranks installed yet (...... well, little late now, eh?).

The hotwires also keep things (read: wild rat toons) from climbing on the outside of the enclosures from 6pm to 6am, who knows how long the power had been off and what was coming by to molest out birds.

Heat lamps. Many of our mammals outside are aged, so they have heat lamps or heating pads to make them comfortable during the night. Many could have gotten too cold and moved on to the next level (luckily, none did, but they were quite irate when we were making morning rounds).

The reptile house. No lights, no lights in the displays, basically can't open it to the public. Not to mention that's where we make our food, write our logs, keep track of things, and whatnot. Hard to do in pitch blackness (yes, in construction, no one thought of skylights because the RH is actually subterranean with this lovely hill and waterfall on the outside that leads to the turtle pond). And the fridges and freezers were out, so who knows if any food was going bad as the RH is kept at 80 degrees for the reptiles' comfort (which is really nice in the winter, too, then becomes a/c in the summer when it's three digits outside).

Needless to say, we were a little stressed.

Talked to the director, and he let us know that PG&E had notified him that the power would be off and we'd have it back by 9 (it was 905 when we called) and it had only been off since 3. THANKS for letting us know this, as well.

Luckily we got it back on by 1030 or so, and the day could return to normal even if we were already an hour and a half behind.... there's only so much you can do with flashlights..... but nothing detrimental had happened.

Whatever happened to Sundays being this big deal day of rest, relaxation, and all around good karma, huh?

Guess that's for the people that -don't- work on Sundays.....