Jamie’s a clever woman. If you’ve been following us for any length of time at all, this isn’t news. We have the great privilege and honor of getting to hang out with her every day and yet, she is always a delight and a surprise.
Sometimes it’s easy to make the ridiculous human mistake of thinking that Jamie is acting in a random manner without intent and purpose. When that happens, it’s usually because we just can’t figure out what she is trying to tell us, it’s not immediately apparent to us. But I guarantee you she always has something in mind.
This afternoon she headed out on a walk around Young’s Hill, her cohorts happily falling into line behind her for an after lunch walk around the hill in the sunshine and fresh air. But Jamie wasn’t just out for a stroll in the sunshine and fresh air. She’d been thinking and had a plan in mind. Once she completed walking the perimeter of the chimps’ outdoor habitat, she made a beeline for the bamboo in the center of the hill and immediately began collecting sticks of a precise kind and size. Jamie had been thinking about the fact that a volunteer caregiver had spilled peanut butter on her scrub top earlier in the day (which Jamie had politely pointed out) and if she had a perfect size tool she could get the peanut butter off the human under the guise of asking to groom her. The peanut butter had been washed off, but no mind, if you’re Jamie you never know when you might need a good bunch of sticks. You may feel like grooming the humans, attempting to poke an unsuspecting human, collecting a piece of gum just out of reach outside the caging, or maybe just taking a good selfie.
As I type this I can see Jamie in the camera, watching me from atop her barrel. She is kicking the wall to get my attention and saying, “Just hurry up and post my blog because I have a task for you!” It’s been merely a couple moments and I’ve been speaking to her the entire time, but Jamie gave up on the dawdling humans and took matters into her own hands. The task she had in mind was that a piece of gum had fallen into the crevice of the drain cover outside the door. Chad walked in to check on her and discovered a tool in the drain cover and now we can see Jamie in the camera chewing gum.
The boss lady calls again! So here you go, folks. And yes, she took this selfie with her stick :):
