My Animal Encounters Over The Years And Around The World

I like to think I am an animal whisperer. Although last night I yelled at Albert for looking at me wrong. Which wasn't really fair. There's probably only one way of looking when you just have the one eye.

I've done a fair bit of traveling over the years and recently going through my photos I noticed how much interaction I've had with animals. And how much I have not as you'll see below.

I don't know this chicks story. We shared a sprite and then both moved on with our lives. He wasn't much for talking.  Also I don't understand Thai.

I don't know this pig's story but I think it ended badly. Suspect is not there of his own free will. Probably would have preferred to ride on the handlebars.

Log cabin bear. Rescued him. Originally he was on his back with a glass table top resting on his paws. I liberated a bear. That's right, PETA.

Go to Alaska they said. You won't be able to move for all the wildlife. Looks like I have plenty of room. That dot in the middle was allegedly a moose. On inspection it turned out to be more of a log moose. Luckily we timed our Alaska trip when all the beluga whales were out in force. Right up until I came over. Then they made a pact and headed for the bottom of the ocean, laughing hysterically at me snapping shots of empty water.

Diving in Greece. Look at all the sea animals I am not surrounded by. There is a world wide pact with all water creatures to avoid me. Except for jellyfish, sea lice and freshwater crayfish (or Koura in NZ). If it can sting or bite, it will find me. Go all the way to Greece they said. Learn how to dive they said. Look at all the nothing you will see.

Monkeys in India. This is a gang. When you try and pass, they will cut you. You can't see their knives. They're in their pockets. The little ones will just hiss at you. They're too busy getting tattoos to chase you.

Monkey at Taj Mahal. Talk about monkey on your back. This one has a huge chip on his shoulder. He didn't even take the time to get to know me before deciding I was worthless. Hence the arse in the air..

Yep - on a camel. The one I've previously posted about - Raju. He's right up there with angry monkeys. How's my riding style though? As long as he doesn't move. Three days galloping(ish) through a desert in India..well, lets just say there was chafing.

This thing landed near my friend - just fell out of the Cambodian sky. Was almost the size of his hand.  Waitress laughed hysterically at our fright. It bit her and drew blood. We laughed hysterically at her pain.

Iguana in Thailand. Yes, he was alive. When he breathed, I almost dropped him. Then we went to happy hour.

Thai cockroaches - quite hard to tell from American or New Zealand cockroaches as they don't have much of an accent. Let that be a lesson to you, cockroaches. You will not wander through my packet of peanuts without consequences. Actually you will since I ran screaming from the room and left my boyfriend to dose them with a can of fly spray.

Pronounced Hairy Coo in Scotland. Way up north we had a face-off with this cow type bull thing. By mutual agreement we reversed. Well, he stayed where he was...

Snake skin. Turns out I do not know how to cure snake skins and make them into shoes. After two days it will stink and rot. Yes, I know you all hate me but in rural China, it was the equivalent of a chicken.

Snake blood wine. Snake tastes like nothing and the most disappointing part about this was they handed me the snake to hold onto and while I was holding him, cut off his head with a pair of scissors. That's why there are no photos of me and actual live snake. I got the aftermath.

Mmm, bag of scorpions to go, thanks. China, you have the best snacks. So easy to travel with.

Elephant Island - New Delhi, India. I know what you're thinking. Dangerous incident with elephant where I was either nearly trampled to death or picked up in it's trunk so it could do trunk curls. Before eating me. Makes a good story but no. Monkeys...lots of monkeys attacking you. Which is why there is no photo...

Children's Birthday Parties

My friend invited me to her 3 year old son's birthday party and it was going to be at the LA Zoo which was very exciting. I was going to bring my hip flask, take the birthday cake and sit in a corner and just talk to the animals. Apparently for $8,000 they will bring you a tiger cub to pet but my friend is very cheap and would not buy me some tiger cub quality time.

Anyway, for those that don't know the great tragedy that hit LA last week - we had four days of rain and she had to go to Plan B which was a specialty kids birthday party company called Giggles 'N Hugs *.

I had planned to go to yoga, rush home and shower then head off to the party and be there right on time at 2pm. Turns out party started at 1pm which left me 30 minutes to drive the 30 minute drive home, shower and then drive the 40 minutes to the venue which left me with a deficit of 1019 hours.** So we came to a mutually beneficial agreement that allowed neither of us to feel guilty. I offered up the gift I had bought her son for her to give him thus saving her the time of running off to the mall and I got a hall pass. Everybody wins! I need yoga more than I need pizza and I only know how to talk to cats. Not adults.

But being the good friend I am, I offered to help put together the party favor gift boxes. The theme was the movie Madagascar, so we had animal crackers, animal stickers, lollipops and toy animals. I put myself in charge of creating appropriate animal pairings for the boxes. Because 3 year olds notice things like that. I think I did an excellent job and should probably go into business creating animal pairings for kids birthday party gift boxes that have a Madagascar theme.

Selection of the potential animals - 3 to a box.  In a perfect world, they would all be exotic animals, however sometimes people accidentally buy dogs.  So, now everyone gets a dog and two exotics.  Honestly, I'm a little afraid for some of the dogs...

A Tiger and a Collie Dog and a...black and white animal.  I think it's a Tapir but I don't know what that is.  A party favor box*** for the person who guesses it correctly.  Photobomb - Level: Parrot and Camel.  German Shepherd is clearly on guard and looking in the wrong direction.

This is obviously one of those therapy dogs, trying to bring the zebra and Leopard closer together.  "can we all just start by looking each other in the eye?" Quite frankly, I don't blame the zebra for being a bit standoffish.  Friendly overtures in the past have resulted in being eaten.

This camel is called Raju.  When I was in India, I rode on a camel named Raju.  We rode through the desert and Raju dragged me through the only tree for miles.  It was prickly and had a snake hanging down from it.  Raju caused me to lose my dignity in front of a snake.  We didn't really get along.  He spat at me, I spat back.  Not to scale.

Sausage dog meets giraffe.  Sausage dog gives giraffe napoleon complex.  Sausage dog is apparently a giant sausage dog.

Feel like this is a movie yet to be made...my money's on the gorilla.

That's because I saw the fight.

Take that bitches...rawr.

This is like the scorpion and the turtle fable.  The turtle agrees to take the scorpion across the river despite severe misgivings about being stung half way across and both of them dying.  Due to the inherent nature of the scorpion, his misgivings are well founded.  Here, the anteater tries to talk the turtle out of it, but the turtle has low self-esteem so tries to please everyone and insists on helping out the large cat whose breed is unidentifiable due to him being made out of plastic.  I can't show you what happened - it's too distressing.  But surprise surprise, there was no river and the turtle had his throat ripped out by the cat and the anteater wants to go in a different party bag.

Actually - turns out it was a murder pact between these two and the anteater was using reverse psychology on the turtle. 

Panther and giant frog get to know each other.  Panther is wondering why the frog is so big given that the largest frog in the world, the Goliath frog  reaches a max of 3kg and 13 inches long.  Panther is sidling away as clearly this is a frog that has been eating toxic waste and has grown abnormally large and panther is smart enough to know that this can only end badly.  Panther requests a different party bag.  Panther is denied.  Panther does not make it through to the end of the party.  Child only receives two animals.

The fancy party favor gift boxes.

The party favor gift boxes for the kids we don't like. 

The party favor lollipop for the kid that wasn't even invited and was just passing through the mall.

*I keep wanting to call this Shits 'n Giggles which is clearly not right although I'm thinking with a bunch of kids running around, drinking soda and eating candy, it's probably not too far from the truth. Although back to front as pretty sure no one is giggling after the...well you know what I mean.
**Or thereabouts.  Did this in my head so might be a little off...
***And by party favor box, I mean nothing.