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i would like to take this time to etch into dland memory the joy to be found in turtles on a warm spring afternoon.

see, i was craving cheese earlier and that desire spiraled into a hankering for anything dairy. i chose ice cream (who wouldn't?) and so, thebeths and i went in search of it.

after procuring a small cup of chocolate/vanilla twist frozen yogurt for an absurdly high amount of money, we went on a little traipse around the lake of our new campus. there is this large outcropping of rock and i noticed something large and shiny on one.

SLIP!

the large shiny thing plopped in to the water. lo and behold! turtles! tons of them. every where we looked there were little turtle heads peeping out of the water just a little ahead of their dark shadowy submerged bodies.

swimming turtles, sunning turtles, sleepy turtles, floating turtles, scaredy cat turtles... everywhere!

a few of you know this about me, but for those who don't, i have a tremendous soft spot for turtles. don't chalk this up to some trendy idealism over things natural. nope, i tear into steak and i don't stop for toads, but turtles... ahh, yes. i love turtles.

when i was young, maybe 8 or 9, my mom decided to take us to the gourd museum. at this point in my life, i was a huge gourd buff (stop laughing!) and was super excited to be visiting a whole building housing nothing but them. so, my little sister and i were in the backseat and my mother and older sister were in the front (cause she always got "car sick" [read = e didn't like to sit in the back]). ashbug and i were turned around waving at the car behind us when my mother yelled "oh fuck!" and slammed on brakes.

apparently, a huge snapping turtle had found itself frozen in the middle of the oncoming traffic. there was a truck bearing down, showing no signs of stopping, and that turtle was tucked tightly in its shell, going nowhere. one would think, having grown up under the umbrella of hollywood, that some magical thing happened to save that turtle.

nope. the truck hit it dead on and kept going. as did the line of cars behind the truck. my mother, now pulled off the road, stared along with the rest of us, our bodies cringing over and over again as the turtle spun round and round on its back in the road, it's soft pink guts spilling over the sides of its thick shell.

finally the road was clear. my mother got out of our car and walked over to the turtle. she just stared at it. we just stared at her staring at it. then, she got a stick from the side of the road and used it to slide the now dead turtle off to the side. she tried to flip it onto its belly, but while the guts flopped around, there was no way for her to do so without an anchor, so she tossed the stick and came back to the car.

she just looked at us, told us it was dead, and started driving. we still went to the gourd museum, but seeing gutted and dried vegetables was too ghostly and morbid for our tastes. we left after less than an hour. on the way back, we drove in silence, each of us peering out our respective windows for a glimpse of the death we had witnessed. there was no sign of it.

to this day when i see a turtle in the road, i stop the car and move it to safety. even snapping turtles, which are a surly group and have been known to take out whole chunks of flesh. seeing those happy lil buggers en masse by the lake put me at ease in this new environment.

man, i wish i had live cam so you could watch them frolick!

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