No, it’s not a fable like the tortoise and the hare.
This is a true story, and it just brings a big smile to my usually frowning face. (I’m getting really noticeable frown lines between the eyebrows. I’ve got to find more to smile about.)
According to the AFP, in a heart-warming piece here:
A baby hippopotamus that survived the tsunami waves on the Kenyan coast has formed a strong bond with a giant male century-old tortoise, in an animal facility in the port city of Mombassa, officials said.
The hippopotamus, nicknamed Owen and weighing about 300 kilograms (650 pounds), was swept down Sabaki River into the Indian Ocean, and then forced back to shore when tsunami waves struck the Kenyan coast on December 26, before wildlife rangers rescued him.
“It is incredible. A-less-than-a-year-old hippo has adopted a male tortoise, about a century old, and the tortoise seems to be very happy with being a ‘mother’,” ecologist Paula Kahumbu, who is in charge of Lafarge Park, told AFP.
“After it was swept and lost its mother, the hippo was traumatized. It had to look for something to be a surrogate mother. Fortunately, it landed on the tortoise and established a strong bond. They swim, eat and sleep together,” the ecologist added.
“The hippo follows the tortoise exactly the way it follows its mother. If somebody approaches the tortoise, the hippo becomes aggressive, as if protecting its biological mother,” Kahumbu added.
“The hippo is a young baby, he was left at a very tender age and by nature, hippos are social animals that like to stay ! with their mothers for four years,” he explained.
It’s not exactly the lion lying next to the lamb, but doesn’t this just make you smile and wish we could all coexist like that?
But then there’s that other subject of constant frown-inducing discussion:
Question: “Mr. President, what is your position on Roe v. Wade?”
Answer: “I don’t care how people get out of New Orleans.”
Ba da boom.
Now, I knew if I went over to Ol’ Hoss, I’d find something to get a real guffaw out of me. His post, linked above, sent me over to Just Ask Judy, where I found this:
Hospital Chart Bloopers
HOSPITAL CHART BLOOPERS:
Actual writings taken from from hospital charts:
1. The patient refused autopsy.
2. The patient has no previous history of suicides.
3. Patient has left white blood cells at another hospital.
4. She has no rigors or shaking chills, but her husband states she was very hot in bed last night.
5. Patient has chest pain if she lies on her left side for over a year.
6. On the second day the knee was better, and on the third day it disappeared.
7. The patient is tearful and crying constantly. She also appears to be depressed.
8. The patient has been depressed since she began seeing me in 1993.
9. Discharge status: Alive but without permission.
10. Healthy appearing decrepit 69-year old male, mentally alert but forgetful.
Those are just the first ten. Go over there and join me in laughing out loud at the rest.