Guest Blogging
I heard from Robbyn yesterday, she and her father successfully made it down to Florida, spent the day with her Uncle (her father’s brother) and his wife, and are by now well out to sea. As promised, I am here to do the Wednesday “And now for something completely different...” duties. I would fill in for the rest of the time as well, but unfortunately I know very little about knitting. About the closest I’ve ever come to knitting, aside from going to an endless number of yarn shops with her, was crocheting baby blankets many years ago.
I can see why these posts sometime take Robbyn so long to do, you’d be amazed at how long it takes to get the pictures ‘just right’ and resized for web use. I’m afraid this post is going to be very picture heavy—my apologies to those of you on dial-up. I also somewhat lack Robbyn’s skill where photo-manipulation is concerned, you’ll have to forgive me if the pictures are only so-so.
I grew up in Southern California, within walking distance of a gorgeous beach. One day I was at home laying out on the front lawn—I don’t remember what exactly I was doing, probably just catching some rays—and I noticed something moving in the middle of the road. I sat up to look at it and it turned out that it was a California Desert Tortoise walking down the middle of the road. This was, to put it mildly, a bit of an unusual sight! I walked out to the street and picked him up before he could get run over by a passing car, and brought him to our back yard. I assume he was somebody’s pet and he’d either got loose or they released him. Though I made some effort, we never did figure out who he belonged to. Taking a California Desert Tortoise from the wild was illegal, but I figured taking one from the middle of a residential street probably wasn’t, so I kept him as a pet for years and years.
‘Pet’ is perhaps a bit of a stretch, a tortoise not being like, say, a dog. We had a big back yard that was fenced in, and he really didn’t need any particular care. He just wandered around eating plants—keeping him out of the garden could be a nightmare—and scared the cats, who never did figure out why this big rock could move. About the only real care he required was that every winter he’d dig himself a hole and hibernate, I had to figure out where he’d decided to do this and mark the area off so no one would run a lawn mower over his hole or something.
He didn’t mind humans, he just didn’t really care one way or the other if you were there. Except when you presented him with some good greens he couldn’t otherwise get, of course. I got in trouble more than a few times for bringing him in the house and giving him a lettuce core. He loved them, but the problem was that as soon as he started eating one he’d empty his bladder. Apparently he realized the lettuce had tons of water in it (tons by his standards, anyway), so it was out with the old and in with the new. My mother was not amused when this happened, and the turtle was eventually banned from the house. Not that he minded much or, I suppose, even noticed.
Though I’m not big on most reptiles, I utterly despise snakes, I’ve always had a soft spot for turtles. Along with rabbits, a much more personable pet I also had as a child (in fact there were very few pet animals I didn’t have as a child), turtles show up in my life in weird ways. I have dreams about turtles sometimes and I seem to be drawn to turtle images. I don’t entirely know why this is, it just is. Robbyn believes that we all have totem animals, often two. For her it is the wolf and the spider, for me she believes it is the rabbit and the turtle (note the hostname of this site...). This seems as good an explanation as any to me, even if I don’t entirely know why or what exactly, if anything, it might mean.
Unfortunately it hasn’t been practical for me to have a turtle for some time. New England, unlike where I grew up, doesn’t exactly have a climate turtles like. Under such conditions a turtle would have to be an indoor creature, would require more room than I could give it, and hibernation would be something of an issue. As far as rabbits are concerned, we had rabbits before Robbyn got ill, but decided that under the circumstances they required more time and energy than we could give them so we found them new homes.
I’m not entirely turtle and rabbit free, however. As I said, I am attracted to turtle images for whatever reason, and for years now have been collecting carved stone turtles.
This guy is one of my favorites for what are, hopefully, obvious reasons. Carved out of a single piece of stone, he looks so grumpy trying to get out of that shell!
Here he is from another angle. I think it’s the hooked beak, which a lot of sea turtles do have, that gives him the grumpy look.
Aside from the guy above, these two are two of my largest.
And here they are from above. Some of these carvings get amazingly detailed.
This is a bunny and turtle set, obviously. I picked them up at different places, but they’re carved of the same material and in a similar style.
A somewhat less matched set, but I think they go together :).
Here’s a small herd of some of my other carved turtles.
Not all of the turtles or rabbits I collect are carved of stone. Here’s a couple of examples.
Of course no turtle fanatic would be complete without some turtle jewelry.
This is my pride and joy. It’s Russian, Robbyn got it for me during the last cruise she was on. From the outside it’s an egg, though the pattern is that of a turtle’s scutes. But on the inside…
A beautifully detailed tiny little turtle!
I’ve got more turtles I could bore you with, but instead I figured I’d bore you with one of my other collecting obsessions.
I have the kind of hair that causes people to come over in stores, restaurants, and such just to embarrass the hell out of me by telling me how beautiful it is—I kid you not. It happens often enough that even I, lacking in anything remotely like self confidence or self image, know I have very nice hair. My hair is extremely long, down to the small of my back. Thanks probably to my Native American heritage, it’s very thick, very shiny, very healthy looking and vibrant, and has just a hint of wave in it. In indoor light it’s a dark brown/red, in sunlight it practically glows a deep flame-red. The degree to which lighting changes its colour surprises people and annoys me—I wish it was the colour it is in sunlight all the time.
In any event, given that even I accept that I have very nice hair and that, frankly, as far as I am concerned it is my one and only notable point, the only thing about me that isn’t ugly as sin, I feel it deserves a little dressing up. A little something to highlight it, call attention to it, what have you. So I collect things like hair combs, scarves, barrettes, and such. Especially barrettes, and not just any old kind. No, the kinds of barrettes I covet are not easily found.
This one is probably my favorite, though it’s fairly close between the top five. I’m not sure what the stone in the center is (Robbyn would know, she’s an expert on stones, crystals, and minerals, but unfortunately she’s not here for me to ask), but the two stones on either side are topazes. Unfortunately this barrette has a habit of pinching some of my hair in the corner, but I still love it.
These two are also bigtime faves.
These two Robbyn got me whilst on a cruise, the hand-done floral work is absolutely gorgeous. Unlike all the others, they’re wood rather than silver. This can be an advantage. The others, between the silver and the stones, can be quite heavy—especially the three above. Add in the weight of my hair and it can be rather headache inducing. When I’m feeling ‘off’ or whatever I wear one of these instead of one of the silver ones.
I probably should have shot these against something other than a black background—I used a velvet skirt as a background, if anyone cares to know—but hopefully the picture is good enough to at least give you an idea of what they look like.
These two are somewhat smaller than the other three silver ones, which are quite sizeable (I should have included something to give a sense of scale :( ). Unfortunately the place where I got these isn’t around anymore.
And here’s a couple more.
Well that’s pretty much it for today, I hope I haven’t bored people too badly.
I’ll be back next Wednesday, god knows what I’ll think of to ramble on about then :).
Myria
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Hello Myria guest blogger!
The blue stone in the first two barette pictures looks like it’s lapis lazuli. It definitely is in the first, and in the second, it’s a tossup between lapis and turquoise.
Turtles & bunnies! So cute!
Okay, now I am lusting after the hair clips--never can find any around here that are wide enough or sturdy enough to hold my hair! Beware, if I ever move out there, I will be raiding your hairclip collection on a regular basis.
Hello Christina :) -
Yes, lapis definitely rings a bell, thanks! I’m pretty sure the stones in both the first and third barrettes are the same, at least they look the same to my eye anyway. The second one is, of course, rose quartz, but I’ve no idea what the red stones are in the third one. I think the others are a garnet and amethysts, amber, a green stone I’ve no idea what the name of is, and, I think, a moonstone.
Turtles and bunnies are definitely cute :).
Corvidae -
See, another reason for you to move back here :P.
And, what, you don’t like my turtles? I’m so insulted! Do you remember that tortoise from when we were kids?
Myria
Yes, of course I recall the tortoise, although you neglected to mention that we spray-painted a bright pink mark across its shell because we kept losing it in the backyard. :)
I like turtles well enough, but give me a hawk any day of the week. :)
Enjoyed the entry! I knew Robbyn would leave us in good hands! She KNOWS I have to have my weekly fix of “And Now For Something Completely Different.”
(A bird-lover’s note for you: We’ve been having terrible weather here, 14 degrees, lots of snow, lots of ice, so we were astonished to see a hummingbird in the garden, pathetically poking at the very empty hummingbird feeder! Needless to say, we spent the next ten minutes hurriedly making nectar-water, filling up and the feeder and putting it out for the poor dear.)
Hi Myria - I love Mr Grumpy Turtle, what a cutie. You have a fabulous collection :)
Ryan -
A hummingbird in this weather? Wow.
It’s been down to zero and below here, and everyone’s been hungry. I’ve been having to refill the critter feeder, which holds 3 - 4lbs of seed, twice a day and the other two feeders are lasting about half as long as usual.
Anyway, I’m glad you liked my entry :).
Pamela -
Thanks :)
Myria
Hi Myria,
Great job with filling in for Robbyn on “Completely Different” Wednesday. I loved seeing the pics of your turtle collection.
The pics are lovely. I like the turtles as they remind me of some of the carvings you find in the British Museum. I like Robbyn’s blog especially as my own parents cruised on the Crystal Symphony a few years ago and had a great time.
