One Hippo, All Alone

There’s a kid’s book called “Hippos Go Berserk,” by Sandra Boynton. It’s a favorite around our house. For those of you who don’t know this little gem, allow me to share. It starts out with a drawing of a hippo, sitting at a table all by his (her?) lonesome. The corresponding line is: One hippo, all alone.

On the next page that hippo calls two hippos, on the phone.

The next thing you know, there are three hippos at the door, who bring along another four.

It goes on like this for a bit until finally, there are 45 hippos in the house, and…

All the hippos go berserk!

And they really do. One is standing on his head. Another is clearly streaking, which is funny because most of the hippos are naked anyway, but this one is running by and has a banner of some sort wrapped around him. One is passing around what I swear are jello shots. There’s a blue beast hanging from the wall art. By any standards, it looks like a hell of a party.

That’s how this weekend felt.

Daniel and I went to Austin for the wedding of a dear friend who walks an interesting line in life between Texas high society and a rowdy Burning Man crowd. At one point I looked across the dance floor to see a very dapper elderly couple waltzing, and behind them danced a man in an orange jumper wearing a full rubber unicorn head. There was a fire dance performance. The last song was from the most recent Muppet movie. And then the party moved on. I crashed out around 4, but the bride and groom closed the place down at 6am.

All through the hippo night, the hippos played with great delight, but at the hippo break of day, the hippos all must go away.

And so it was for us. The next day, after a brunch that I was too exhausted and hung over to go to, all these wonderful people headed back to their far flung homes.

Daniel and I made it home that evening, and as we loaded into the taxi for the final stretch Daniel turned to me and said “I feel like a hippo.” I didn’t understand what he was saying at first – until he quoted me the last line of the book: One hippo, alone once more, misses the other 44.

Just goes to show that perfect prose come in many forms.

It was a wonderful weekend. Thank you, dear hippos.