Turtle Snacking

Moms know it’s difficult to spend a weekend away from home being someone other than MOM. As much fun as conferences and conventions are, there’s always that voice in the back of your mind saying, “Your kids are home eating glue right now.”

It’s not that you really believe your husband will run an errand and forget to take the kids with him. Or let them play with power tools in the garage. It’s just that when you call home to check on your kids it goes something like this:

“Hi, buddy, how are you doing?”

“Fine, Mommy.”

“What are you doing?”

“Watching Mythbusters with Dad.”

“Did you take your bath?”

“No.”

“Did you get dressed?”

“No.”

“Did you have breakfast?”

“YES!”

“What did you eat?”

“Gummy Bears and pudding.”

“Put you dad on the phone please.”

Really, I understand that staying home with Dad is, by definition, an entirely different experience than the every day routine with Mom. And that’s okay. The occasional bowl of Gummy Bears and pudding won’t do too much harm.

But the other day I came home from a long day working at a convention to discover a strange sight. I walked by the turtle enclosure and did a double take. There were corn chips in the turtle’s food dish.

“Who gave the turtles corn chips?!”

To my surprise, my husband answered. “I did.”

I looked from him to our turtle, Roger. (Molly, our girl turtle, is in hibernation, but Roger is too sociable for his own good.)

“Why?” I asked.

“He wanted them.”

I arched a brow at Kory. “Did he ask for salsa, too?”

He gave me a look only an engineer possessed of a quiet but devious sense of humor can. “No.”

We had a brief discussion on turtle nutrition, but I was too tired to hop online and see if corn chips were deadly for box turtles. Apparently, they aren’t.

I dumped the corn chips out of the dish, and the next time Roger surfaced, I fixed him a lovely salad. (Kory teases me mercilessly about my dedication to turtle dinner presentation.)

Roger trundled over, investigated his salad then walked right over the top of it. (He does this all the time and it upsets me, which I tell him, but he doesn’t care.) I figured he wasn’t hungry, but a few minutes later I walked by the enclosure to find Roger digging in his substrate. I leaned closer to investigate and discovered he was eating a piece of chip I’d missed. I texted Kory this picture of Roger and his chip crumb and told him, “Our turtle is addicted to junk food. I blame you!”


I guess next time I call to check I’ll have to ask Roger what he had for breakfast too.

The High Fashion World of Turtle Ownership

Roger and Molly are here! They are three-year-old (approximately) Colorado native ornate box turtles. I brought them home last Wednesday even though it meant rushing around to get their habitat together instead of emptying my entire closet onto my bed in preparation for the Pikes Peak Writers Conference which started Thursday.

When it comes to packing for out-of-town conferences, I usually start a week in advance. Try everything I own on. Go buy shapewear. Try everything I own on over new, lung-constricting undergarments. Go buy new clothes. Pack my suitcase with well-planned, coordinating outfits and enough girdles to do my grandma’s hourglass figure proud.

But since this conference was in town, and I spent the week before planning and executing a certain someone’s spectacular Easter/animal birthday party extravaganza, I left everything till the last minute.

At this point I would like to ask my beloved, hard-working husband to STOP READING THIS POST.

So, for those of you who are not Kory—

Imagine my consternation, after spending over $200 to outfit Roger and Molly in their new digs, only to discover that I had no idea what I’d be wearing to the conference the next day.

I panicked. I went to Target and bought a black shell, an indiscriminate assortment of body-squeezing underwear, and an odd, blue shirt.

Back home, I frantically yanked clothes out of my closet, crammed my arm into pair after pair of black tights to check for holes, and ironed my jean jacket, of all things.

Then I carefully assembled what appeared, at 1 AM, to be stylish outfits.

The next day I got up, decided I had a blind engineer’s fashion sense, wore something entirely different, and was late to the conference.

I never wore the black shell. I never wore the odd, blue shirt.
I did wear the Spanx, of course.

I think I did all right. No one asked me to go home and change. But I’ll let you in on a secret. No matter what I’m wearing, I always feel about as dignified as this poor creature.



Speaking of poor taste, we're having an edible turtle contest over at The Dragon and the Turtle. Stop by. It's not as horrible as you think!