Littlefoot, the reclusive box turtle that lives in an enclosure outside my kitchen window, was sighted this weekend—he's not dead! In the days since I last posted about "My cold-blooded teacher", I still hadn't got the nerve to go rooting around looking for him, but Saturday morning my daughter spotted two little red peppercorn eyes peeping out from underneath the palm frond in his enclosure (which is not technically a frond but the bottom part of the palm that gets cut off in the tree trimming but I never know what to call it, so "frond" it is). At the time she was arranging her collection of cat figurines in a tableaux at the east end of the enclosure—if he ever ventures over that way (it is, oh, a good seven feet away), he'll encounter some new playmates who are only slightly less animated than he is.
That's pretty much all we saw of him, but for me, it was enough. As soon as I peeped over at the little guy I got so happy. Nothing could bother me the rest of the day. Littlefoot was alive and well and all was right with the world. And physically I felt better than I had in weeks. I spent the rest of the day de-cluttering some of the worst parts of the house and giving the wood floor the Murphy's oil treatment it so desperately needed. And I enjoyed it. (You know you've been on the mend for too long when you actually look forward to feeling good enough to clean). And we finally put up the adorable Turtle Crossing sign we bought at the Pacific Islander Festival last September which had been loitering in the guest room all this time. We didn't get around to it before his hibernation and it just didn't seem right to put it up while he was, you know, asleep.
My good mood—and stamina—lasted for about 10 hours. As I was getting ready for bed all of a sudden I thought, "Why didn't he come out to eat anything today?" I left two of his favorite foods—strawberries and canned cat food—in his food dish, but as of nightfall they were untouched. "I hope he's alright. Maybe it's too dry for him. I hope he's okay." Cripes. You'd think I could at least enjoy the fact that he's alive a little longer before getting sucked into worrying again.
The next day I felt tired and achy, which wasn't too surprising. I'm at the point where I"m not really expecting too many good days in a row. And I still fretted a bit about the turtle in the back of my mind (I know, "He's a turtle, Mom. He'll be fine.") It didn't occur to me until a few days later that maybe I had felt good on Saturday because I was happy, not necessarily the other way around. Which came first? Hmm ... have to think about that.
In the meantime, you'll be glad to know that it appears he has eaten. He seems to subsist mainly on air as far as I can tell, so anytime I spot a half-nibbled strawberry in his dish I rejoice like an Italian mother whose new daughter-in-law has just polished off a plate of pasta. So it looks like we'll be enjoying his enigmatic presence for a while longer. I don't know how long, but I'll try to enjoy it while I can.
