Monkeying Around
One problem with having monkeys, according to Jerry Brown, is that they steal all the attention. So you can’t bring them to your kids’ sports games, or no one will be cheering the players on. Another issue is that they are, as Brown says, “mischief wrapped in fur.” So if you by chance leave the house and forget to lock the monkey’s cage, havoc will definitely be wrought. Once, Brown came back to peanut butter handprints on the bannisters, chewing gum all over the house, and a broken bottle of vinaigrette on the floor.
But to Brown, the upsides outweigh the downsides. For one thing, his popularity has surged. Since he takes Django “everywhere I can get away with,” the pair is legendary. At Home Depot, employees fight over giving her french fries, and bank tellers fight over giving her lollipops. Sock monkeys pile up, gifts from Django’s fans.
Predictably, the Browns’ house was the go-to house in the neighborhood when their kids were young. “Django thinks God made kids from about four years old until they graduate from college just for her to mess with,” Brown jokes. “I have to be really careful when there are teenage boys around, because Django thinks they’re ready to roughhouse with her. So she’ll jump on them and start pulling hair or clinging to their legs, and they’ll think they’re being attacked.”
This is just one of many reasons Brown, a repertory theatre actor turned street performer, spends hours and hours educating people about his capuchin monkey. “I don’t want her ruining someone’s first time with a monkey,” he explains, insisting that “what people have always dreamed of is having close personal contact with a monkey.”
But people-to-animal gestures don’t translate well into monkey lingo. Offering an open hand might mean, “Here, sniff this” to a dog, but in monkey language it means, “Hey! Jump onto my arm and climb up onto my shoulder and play.” If this happens, the important thing is to stay calm and realize she has no teeth. She might then chill enough to sign that you should rub her belly. Then she’ll lie on her back so you can. It’s really cute if you don’t mind her “grooming” you.
Brown used to do music and magic and juggling and stilt-walking and storytelling and even fire-eating, and he still entertains at lots of events. But since Django became part of the act, all anyone wants is the monkey. This means the pair gets around. Over her 26-year lifespan, Django has interacted with what Brown estimates is hundreds of thousands of people, and he loves to show off how smart she is. The crowds love him, and that’s really fun for Brown. But what’s hard, he says, “is remembering Django’s not human.”
The Spoiled Life of Pets
A lot of Christine McKorkle Landes’ friends tell her the same thing: “If I die, I want to come back as one of your pets.” Imagine the life her pets must have for them to say that. Look at the life of Petunia, the family’s pet pig. After her low-cal, high-fiber breakfast of pot-bellied pig chow, comes lunch—typically a salad. Later, there are treats, then more grain for supper. At bedtime, she gets tomatoes or apples. Petunia would keep eating, but Landes is careful not to overfeed her, because she’ll grow larger than the estimated 50-100 pounds she’s been bred to weigh.
Petunia’s got an excellent roommate, Max, a chill feline who doesn’t mind taking the top bunk. Below, Petunia gets a real mattress plus a king-sized comforter (she likes to burrow). Nearby, a couch awaits human visitors, who invite Petunia up for a cuddle. In an unobtrusive corner is her litter box.
Most days she gets a free ride when she’s carried upstairs (at 60 pounds, this is no small feat). There, she has dibs on a prime spot on the living room couch with Christine and her husband, Mitch, while one of their daughters shares a chair with their bulldog, Chloe. Judging by the way Petunia watches the Steelers, she’s a dedicated fan and clearly willing to put up with Christine hollering at their opponents.
Out back is Petunia’s patio where she can lounge in the shade and recover from the laps she runs around (not in) the pool. Her hobbies include weeding, napping, having her belly rubbed, napping, playing with the five cats and two dogs, auditioning for lap pig, napping, and chasing her ball. Or watching Landes chase her ball. But that’s okay with Landes.
“My pets are obsessed with me,” she says, “and I’m obsessed with them.” She happily solicits wet-snout kisses in between offering her pig carrots. Did we mention this pig is very clean? And well-trained. Possibly a good listener, too…unless there are treats involved.
Cindy Kalinoski The Word Helper
Mr. Chin
Photography by Cindy Kalinoski
Havah Roe loves having Mr. Chin, an albino chinchilla, because it’s “super fun.” She calls him “a fluffy fur ball with a lot of personality” and likes watching him pick up his food with his front paws to eat.
But that’s not all they use their teeth for. Havah’s mom, deAnn, says they do like to chew “anything.” Every single wire in the music room is hidden for safety reasons, but there are chew marks on the corners of their books, on the corners of the speakers, on the corners of the guitar stands…you get the idea. The Roes think this is kinda cute, which is a good thing.
Chinchillas are very social. Often living in colonies of 100 in the Andes Mountains, they need company—and Mr. Chin gets lots of it in the Roes’ music room, which is where he lives. “We’re in and out of that room all the time,” says deAnn. “He’s out of the cage and running about every day, and if he’s in his cage, we’re talking to him.”
Cindy Kalinoski The Word Helper
If you’re going to do more than talk to a chinchilla, though, it’s best to move slowly and be calm. This is sometimes hard for Havah; it’s not clear who has more energy, Havah or Mr. Chin. He’s quite skittish, and deAnn describes him in action as “kind of like those motorcycles at the circus, going around and around in those spheres.”
He climbs on his favorite people and also “helps” deAnn read…by nibbling on the pages of her book. “He can be a little stinker, but I love that,” she says. A big difference between the Roes and Mr. Chin is that he’s nocturnal. If Havah’s having a sleepover in his room, which she and her friends love to do, it’s pretty much guaranteed no one will get any sleep, or at least they can blame him for it.
