A Polliwog's Tale

This is a story about a little girl who graduated from preschool a couple months ago and her pet polliwog.

Studying polliwogs was one of the last lessons they did before summer break.   And don't even think about calling it a tadpole....it will be a good ten minutes before you will be able to get a word in edgewise.

On the last day of school, the girlchild comes home with said new friend in a sandwich bag with strict instructions to feed it fresh boiled lettuce everyday. 

Boiled lettuce.  Everyday.

Oh, really.  Over the course of the next 6 weeks I meticulously boiled lettuce and fed it to the polliwog a grand total of zero times.  The tadpole managed to survive just fine on goldfish flakes.  We kept the creature on the kitchen window sill so that we could remember to feed it we could watch it's ever changing, and metamorphesing body.

As a free range child myself, we used to catch tadpoles...because back then they were called tadpoles....by the thousands and keep them in a mayo jar in some non-disclosed location.  I can't honestly remember if we ever really fed them or what, but every so often we'd take them out of the jar hold them in our little muddy hands and then put them back.  And then one day my favorite sister of all got sick.  Really sick.  Beaver fever sick.  And so tadpoles were banned from my childhood.  I can honestly say that they never captured our attention long enough to pay attention to their teenage-tadpole years.

Fast forward some uncalculated years and I have a polliwog sitting on my kitchen counter.  Turns out it was pretty fascinating to actually see the shrinking tail and emerging legs.  Did you know that they actually form their front and back legs under their amphibious skin and then one day they just pop out fully formed?  I did not.  And now you do too.

After the changing was done and the creature could be identified as a frog, the inevitable question came.  "Mom, can I keep him??  Please!"    And while it was pondered for a nanosecond it wasn't to be.  Because after all, where would he live?  He can't share a house with pinchy the crawdad. Because he is currently doing jail time for massacring the goldfish.  And Wally the welfare fish would eat him in a heartbeat.

But isn't he just the cutest little thing?

So we set him free to find his own way in the world.



The Land of Painted Caves

The Land of Painted Caves is Jean M. Auel's last book in the Earth Children series.  This historical fiction series started with Clan of the Cave Bear first published in 1980.  I'm kind of glad that I wasn't old enough to read the books as they were published.  I am quite the impatient person and the relatively short amount of time I waited for the Land of Painted Caves to come out was grueling.

I'm not sure who pays attention to these sorts of things but I think this has to be in the running for the longest running series from start to finish:
Clan of the Cave Bear - 1980
Valley of Horses - 1982
Mammoth Hunters - 1985
Plains of Passage - 1990
Shelters of Stone - 2002
Land of Painted Caves - 2011

The Land of Painted Caves starts out where The Shelters of Stone left off.  Ayla, Jondalar and Jonayla are living together with the ninth cave.  The story follows Ayla as she finishes her training for the Zelandonii.  I felt like the book focused more on the social interactions of the group than on the physical demands of living as hunters and gathers.  While still good, I also felt like the book repeated so much of the previous ones (the memories, songs, rituals) and could have done without some of the redundancy.  The plot also paralleled so much of the Mammoth Hunters plot that I thought "are we really going to have this drama again??"

Even with my complaining, I'm glad to have read Land of Painted Caves.  I'm still in love with Ayla and all the knowledge she has of being a hunter and gatherer as well as her skills as a medicine woman.  Reading the books makes me want to take a wilderness survival class or grow more herbs in my garden....or maybe I would already know these things if I hadn't have gotten myself kicked out of girl scouts as a child.  Dang, I should have thought that through a little more.

Anyone for a game of Pooh Sticks?

Dusk - July 15th

New Car Coasters

The husband and I decided that after living in our house for 8 years, it might be time to actually get a bed frame and quit living like college kids.  Because really, how long can one live with their mattress on the ground? 

8 years apparently.

The thing is, getting nice furniture is like getting a new car.  You try to keep it as like-new looking as long as possible.  Translation: NO unprotected cups on the wood finish!!

So, one short round trip to Sacramento and back and I now can have my water and sleep with it too. 



Now....I just need to install the pigeon spikes to keep the cats and children from using the headboard as their personal stage.

Three

How many 800 M sprints does it take to get to your best friend's house on an idle Sunday morning?

Three

The boy followed behind with the kiddos so we could all have a play date and snow cones together.

Hay Down

June 23rd

chinese tradition

So...I was reading this book recently and it starts out at a Chinese funeral.  In it there was basket with white envelopes that contained a hard piece of candy and a nickel.  The candy was meant to be eaten during the funeral service as a symbolic way to sweeten the sadness of the day and the nickel was meant to buy another sweet on your way home.

I found myself thinking that that was a pretty nice tradition.  I'm not chinese, but I hope someone does that for me someday.  And then I found myself thinking, what candy would remind people of me most and put a little smile on their face when they eat it?  Peppermints?  Butterscotch or cinnamon discs? Teriyaki beef jerky.....mmmmmm jerky.

Candies that remind me of my loved ones (both here and gone):
Canada Mints - My Mother
Black licorice - My Daddy
Butter mints - My Sister
Chewy Sweet Tarts - My Husband
Peppermint Discs - Harold Rogers (the best cute old man I ever got to sit with at church)
Nips - Grandpa Jerry

If you could be remembered in candy what would you be?