Fiona: Hippo Prima Ballerina

Long-time readers will know that I adore English bulldogs. Mr. C and I had two--Marilla and Bossy--for ten years each, and loved every minute with them.

It should come as no surprise, then, that I am equally smitten with the bulldog of the water: the hippo. Or more specifically, Fiona.

Yes: I've followed her birth and development every step along the way, and have loved seeing how gracefully she moves in the water. My first thought was to the Disney ballerina hippo (whom the NYT takes to task here), but I realized that there's an even more timely hippo dancer.

In a complete coincidence, about a week or so after Fiona was born on January 24, 2017, Lincoln Center mounted its own hippo ballerina, on temporary display, resplendant in her Degas-esque tutu and eyelashes. The Danish sculptor Bjørn Okholm Skarrup made her.

I have my own 6-foot ballerina getting ready for this year's Nutcracker performance, and it would be lovely to see her dance alongside Fiona. There is some footage of Fiona twirling in the water set to classical music on the Cincinnati Zoo's Fiona Updates blog on October 26, 2017. You'll have to scroll: I couldn't figure out how to embed the video here without linking to my own Twitter account.