Scary

Yesterday (Christmas Day) was a mellow day where we dropped off a few presents to some friends and then took the kids out for the afternoon before going home. Here's the scary part. We visited the San Francisco Zoo during the afternoon. Yup! This is the same zoo where the tragic tiger mauling had just occurred. Fortunately, we left the zoo about an hour before closing (when the tiger incident was said to have occurred). So, if you don't know, yesterday after closing of the Zoo at 5pm, a tiger escaped from its enclosure and killed one visitor and severely injured 2 other people. Current reports are speculating that the 3, who were friends, may have been responsible for helping the tiger get loose. It's so sad that anyone has to die, but if this is the case where the 3 were responsible, it's even sadder as it could have been avoided. For us, it was scary as within that hour, we did visit the lions and tigers, because our little wanted to see the "RAAR!" (It’s his way of saying lion). The lions and tigers were out close to the edge of the moat as they were just done with feeding and enjoying the sun on a chilly day. For some reason, I had this thought of "What would I do if they got out? How would I protect my family?" I thought this only because about a week ago, I was reading about another Tiger mauling in India, where a man bled to death, due to his foolish actions of disregarding signs and zookeeper warnings. Because of this story, this thought had entered my mind. As I was thinking about it, I just couldn't think of how to react and protect my family, so I ended the thought by hoping they just don't get out. That area was where the young man was mauled to death. We then moved to see the bears (daughter wanted to see the grizzlies) and as we walked by that area, that was where the other 2 victims were attacked. So, we left around 4:15pm as we needed to meet our friend outside the zoo. Besides, we had to leave to go home and get ready for dinner as this was our first time that family was coming over to our house. We didn't know about the incident until a friend called and was shocked to hear that we were at the zoo and they told us about the tiger escape. I thought he was kidding...apparently not. So, I thought about it later that night, what if we didn't have a dinner or friend waiting? We have on occasion stayed in the zoo after closing and wandered out at a leisurely pace. OMG, if that had happened this time, I can't even begin to imagine what could have happened. So, yesterday, someone was watching over us...THANK YOU!!!

Epilogue: Paranoia sets in because after the party, I needed to go out to the backyard to clear out some food (ribs). But at that time, the news was stating that officials are still trying to determine if all was safe as they were still searching for more possible victims...and animals as they were not sure if there were more attacks. Here’s the thing, we live, literally, up the hill from the zoo (it’s a short hop and reason why we go to the zoo so often) and if the tiger got out (but SFPD killed it)…or another tiger or animal escaped, it could find its way to my backyard, especially with bbq ribs still sitting there. Let’s just say, it was a very quick cleanup.

We live less than a mile south of the zoo...just south of the Lake Merced.

News about the incident: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/26/MNEJU4SVN.DTL&tsp=1