On Saturday, I took my eight year old niece to the zoo. It was part of her birthday present. I had planned to take her last week, but it didn’t work out. And, of course, this weekend all the rain that everyone has been praying for showed up all at once.

Because we tend to keep a close eye on the weather forecast at home, due to The Hub having to be aware of how to schedule inside vs. outside jobs, I knew there was an 80% chance of rain on Saturday. I had planned lunch at the Rainforest Café in Towson as a back up activity….but, I rapidly began to think of it as “the activity”. After all, I was looking at The Weather Channel’s website, not listening to The Hippy Dippy Weatherman from the radio. Moreover, I could see plenty of clouds. Saturday morning it looked like it might rain at any minute.

M, my niece came in, all psyched up to go to the zoo. One of the nicest things about spending time with M. is that she is a very reasonable person. The larger part of this quality is that it is her nature, but her parents place an emphasis on problem solving skills. At times, I’m convinced that she and her five year old brother have more complex negotiations than some nation states over who will get to play with what toy, in what order. Sometimes I think they could be helpful in solving the Israeli / Palestinian issues. Then I realize that M and her brother are rational people, whereas I feel fairly sure that the Israelis and the Palestinians are not.

So, anyway, I explained to M. what the weather forecast said, and floated the idea of The Rainforest Café. “It doesn’t sound as good as the zoo” she said, neutrally. I think that’s a gift she gets from my mother: the ability to be totally honest without sounding the least bit unkind.

“Hmm. Well, lets go downstairs and check on the weather forecast again.” I suggested. So we did. And it said the same thing.

“But, Aunt Tea, you know, sometimes the weatherman is wrong.” She said reasonably.

She’s right. Sometimes the weatherman is wrong, but most of the time, he’s not. Of course, she wanted to go to the zoo, she hoped it wouldn’t rain after all, in spite of the clouds. But there was something else besides just “wishing to make it so” shining in her clear blue eyes: optimism. And that’s not a family trait, or at least not a natural one. We may strive for it, and some of us, through mighty striving have integrated it into our thinking. I think of myself as a kind of hybrid, like a rose tree. Alone I would have been sturdy and boring and completely risk adverse, but instead I took on the graft of new thoughts to produce beautiful flowers: maybe it’s not that bad, and in any case, it could always be worse.

What M. has is something different. The natural realization that the “chance of rain” doesn’t matter as much as the fact that it is NOT raining. That odds are only theoretical. The reality was that it was not raining, and that reality would not change at all, until the first raindrop fell.

“You’re right. Lets go to the zoo and see what happens. If we get there, and it starts to rain, then we’ll just leave and go to lunch.” I said, jumping on board. Far be it from me to put that kind of light out!

Though I took an umbrella.

And, you know what? Sometimes the weatherman IS wrong. And though it rained all over town for most of the day Saturday, though it poured buckets in Eldersburg, and rained so hard on our way home at 4:30 in the afternoon that I was up to the axles in standing water, not a drop of rain fell the whole time we were at the zoo.

M. is cautious in other ways. She didn’t want to ride the camel, or at least, not enough to ask me to pay the extra fee – though I offered. There were several exhibits that she asked to “come back to” – scary ones like the environment that was supposed to look like a cave or the inside of a tree, where snakes were on display. But we did go back to them, and through them, and she paused in front of each snake in her solemn and reasonable way, while I explained their habits and their nature. We went into “parakeet landing” where she studied the little blue parakeet that landed on her feed stick and carefully balanced it so as not to upset the little guy.

“You see that red headed bird up there? The name of that bird is Rosella.” I said, pointing out one of the larger, shy birds sitting up in the rafters.

“Oh. You actually know her?”

Well, she’s not the only one who suspects that I can sort of talk to birds.

“No, I mean that’s the name of the kind of bird she is.”

“I see.”

She tried cotton candy for the first time, and even felt confident enough to try a little “teacup” style ride. It was pretty gentle, thank God, because mild as it was, that was still pretty much the end of my balance for the rest of the day.

Still, the whole thing was a lot of fun. And I’m glad I listened to my niece rather than the weatherman.