Blogger Frogger

Last night I found a pretty, green tree frog. My cat, Blackie, almost ate him! I had to keep pushing the cat away, saying “Go…go…go!” Until finally I just moved the frog. “There you go, buddy.” Blackie kept sniffing the ground where he had been at, confused by the whereabouts of his new play toy. It was satifying to save a frog. His skin was soft, cold, and moist on my hand.

Three months ago I found a frog in the bathtub. I wrote the following in my digital journal:

 5/30/25 The day is already exciting: there was a frog in the shower! I told John about it. “Did you get a picture?” “No.” “Why not?” So I snapped and dark and fuzzy picture in the weird angle of the tub. Before John took him outside he asked “What’s his name?” I said “Froggy” ( like the bar on Main Street). Now he’s settled in the palm tree in the back yard. Upon further thought, I think he should be called John Froggerty (after John Fogerty, of course), because, yes, he’s seen the rain, and he ain’t no fortunate son (although he is fortunate to be taken outside and not be eaten by a cat). I told John I was scared he was going to fall into the soapy bath water, and he said “Don’t worry about them, they can stick to anything, they’re like geckos.” 

Around that time I had just learned that turtles can breathe through their butts. It’s true. They do (I promise this is related). And I found a passage to verify it. Annie Dillard writes in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek that the turtle “sucks water posteriorly into its large cloacal opening, where sensitive tissues filter the oxygen directly into the blood, as a gill does.” Aha.

And then I had an epiphany, or rather an idea for a great band name (which will probably never be used): John Froggerty and the Butt Breathing Turtles.

There you go.


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