Cute

I'm a little late in getting to this story, but some babies were born at the Edmonton Zoo, like, a while ago. But their pictures were up on CBC this week, which is why I'm caring about it now. I suppose I should explain that they are red panda babies and they are ADORABLE. Look at some pictures I pulled off Google:

Holy damn they are intolerably cute. And look at the adult - it's cute too! Imagine a species of animal that is cute every day until it dies! Brilliant! I mean, who hasn't looked at a little puppy rollicking about and wished there were some way to chemically stunt it's growth and development and keep it cute forever? Nature always finds a way my friend.

This story reminded me of two things, and (somewhat oddly) both are family related.

1. My brother (the homeless, childless one, as opposed to the one with two kids and two houses)(and I realize that calling him homeless and childless makes him sound like some kind of almost-31-year-old loser, but he's totally not. He's very cool - honest) travelled to Australia a few years back and I remember getting an email about baby koalas. So I went back through my Hotmail archives and found this from 2004:

"...I also went to this koala sanctuary where I got to hold a koala for a while. There really is no denying that they are just about the cutest fucking things on the planet, although I'm not sure the handler would thinks so after it shit on her at least three times. But she's likely used to that."

I wonder how he would rate koala babies vs. red panda babies?

2. My mom has no background in science, and like most people just kind of takes what she knows and makes it her own. She told me once her theory about why baby animals are cute. She thinks they evolved to be cute so that humans wouldn't kill them. Which, if you don't know anything about evolution, sounds like a reasonable idea, right? I should point out that she is technically a genius, although she might also technically be crazy.