POINT DEFIANCE

No, this is not about my tween daughter and the Facebook incident.

This is about Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium in Tacoma, Washington. Perched on a bluff above Puget Sound, it's part of the larger Point Defiance Park. It's a lovely little zoo, worth a visit, particularly if you have young grandchildren along, as I did yesterday.

Garrett and I made the two-and-a-half hour drive north with Zach and Nate, where we met up with Genevieve, Nolan, and Gavin, who had spent the night in Tacoma with Scott, who is working there this week. We were lucky; the weather was dry and cool, but no problem coats and hats couldn't handle. After lunch in the parking lot, tossing Annie's chocolate bunnies to the peacock, we began our exploration.

Creature highlights: the blind walrus that spits

the Himalayan tiger, who paced just behind the glass, eye to eye with the enthralled humans

the huge porcupine, who scampered across our view in a prickly flash

the elephants, who lifted their feet to get cleaned, then opened their mouths for their treat

the enormous tapir, who stepped into his little lake, swam around, then emerged, leaving behind big floating turds

the weedy seahorses, looking like sticks amongst the kelp

the baby puffins, scared to step on the scale to get weighed by the workers

the hermit crab in the hands-on tidepool

I love sharing the planet with so many interesting creatures. I watched the polar bears yesterday and worried about their cousins, drowning in the arctic seas for lack of polar ice. The bright little tree frog is living a safe life in Point Defiance, but what of its Amazon kin? What of the tortoise from Madagascar, who is designed to live twice as long as we do, but who is endangered because the people of its island home need to eat?

This is clearly a point of defiance for us humans, we who are stewards of the earth. There are
many people working hard to save our planet, whether it's in the area of animal protection or world hunger, energy solutions or politics, women's and children's rights or artistic endeavor.
We may not agree on what needs to happen, or in what order of priority, but I'm sure we all agree that the future of life on our planet is endangered. Maybe it's always been so. But this is our time to seek solutions, to act, in whatever capacity we can, to unite our small efforts. Because the small choices we make each day matter to the larger world. Our small donations count. We can make a difference. You've heard it before. Do you believe that you can change the world?

What are you doing to save the planet?