Jayde of the Jungle

The Saturday before Easter most families color eggs, stuff baskets and visit with relatives. Not my family, we’re too extreme for boring regular people activities. How did we spend our Saturday? Playing with exotic animals.

Yes, I said playing with exotic animals. Not observing them from a safe distance at a regular zoo like the rest of the binocular wearing spectators hopeful that one, old and lonely tiger might stand up and pace inside his enclosure; nope that’s not us. We’re the family with the potty trained preschool aged little blonde girls holding the gibbon ape in a diaper and the ten month old baby petting a pair of blue eyed Siberian tigers, one Bengal cub and one white cub.

I love playing with the tigers beyond words but the highlight of my trip to the jungle this time was getting to meet the world famous Judy the Elephant! Judy is a 50 year old Asian elephant who has preformed in circuses, Las Vegas shows and been on television. Climbing onto the back of an elephant is something I’ve wanted to do since I was a small child. I remember being at a fair and asking my parents to take an elephant ride when I was the age of my middle daughter Aryia (almost 3yrs). My parents refused to let me ride. They were afraid the elephants would go crazy, throw me off, stomp me to death and eat my brains for lunch. I still remember my mother trying to console me by saying “I’m not letting you do it because I love you, those other parents don’t love their kids.” My parents were just boring, safe people; how I turned out to be a wild, risk-taking adventurous thrill seeker remains a mystery as great as the Egyptian Pyramids.  It took me twenty-five years, but I finally got on that elephant. She was such a beautiful creature. The experience was amazing. To be able to feel the thick skin of an elephant and the course strains of hair on her head, to reach out and touch her soft, wrinkly yet powerful ears and to be within inches of her long eyelashes covering her deep brown majestic elephant eyes is one of the most cherished experiences of my life. I couldn’t sleep the night before meeting Judy the Elephant and the experience far exceeded my expectations. I wonder how many people can say they’ve ridden an elephant on Miami Beach?

This is how I got the nickname, “Jayde of the Jungle.” I’ve been told that I get excited like a little girl when I get to play with the animals and it’s true, animals are one of my favorite things in the world. I spent eight full hours playing with them on Saturday. I boxed with kangaroos, held the horns of a bull, cuddled an alligator, wrapped up with pythons, kissed a lama, pet a bearded dragon, became a human parrot perch, nuzzled a skunk, had a lemur jump over my head, talked to a liger, and let my little girl Haizy pet a porcupine and feed him a peanut. I love my life and the animals in it.