quiet

Life’s getting quiet for us. My female owner is either not home, or if she’s home, she gives us a cursory glance and walks away. She hardly appears in the living room anymore. I tried to do the Dodo thing and stretched as high as my little arms could lift me in order to reach her. But she just patted me on my cheek once … and walk away.

It’s really tough being turtles of separated owners.

pet therapy

We (the turtles) have not seen our male owner for the past two Sundays. Based on my reading of the stars… I think that my owners have broken up. The best give-away is my female owner (of course, since she takes care of us). She has been quite haphazard in taking care of us this past week. Our feeding times have been irregular, and if she feed us, it’s never enough. The feeding seems more like a cursory move, to make sure that at least we don’t die of hunger, while she nurses her broken heart.

Dodo, the most sensitive turtle among us, also senses that something is not right. He has been trying to find out more, by approaching my female owner in the rare occasion that she appears. Unfortunately, she rarely stays more than five minutes, so he has been unable to give her some pet therapy.

getting hot

Time passes slower when the weather gets hotter. Spend my days soaking in the wading pool alone. My other siblings prefer to sweat or hide it out in shady corners of the balcony. Looking forward to my birthday (and Nanook’s) in a few weeks’ time. We will be five years old then. Half a decade has breezed by and many more good years to come, I hope. Wonder if my owners will hold a birthday party for us.

a treat

Got a surprise treat from my female owner last night. You see, I was just soaking in the wading pool, enjoying the silence of the night… and a little moonlight (okay, I know it’s not real moonlight, just the lights coming in from the living room) when she came home from her usual Tuesday rendezvous.

Anyway, I saw her coming and I gave her the saddest look I could muster (you must understand that I was actually very happy to be alone in the pool, so this took quite a bit of effort). She returned me the sad look and…. gave me some food! Wah, a treat, considering that she just fed all of us the night before. My siblings looked on in envy and none of them climbed into the pool. Strange…

camera shy

My female owner bought her chio digital camera recently and had a whale of a time snapping photos of us in different poses and perspectives. At times, she would hold the camera really close to our faces, hoping for a good close-up. What she probably doesn’t understand is that we feel really threatened by the camera being so near (although it looks good in pink) and would naturally retract our heads into our shells. Then, she will scold us for being camera-shy and depriving her of that shot.

This is especially so for Dona. He will scramble away in haste whenever she appears with the camera. Maybe he’s conscious of his small size.

not here

It's night-time now but there's no sight of my male owner. It's Father's Day. Where is he?

Father's Day

Today is Father’s Day. As my female owner is like a mother to us, so is my male owner to us. He came over yesterday (Saturday) and gave us a good bath. Also scrubbed the balcony and fed us good good. Nanook, for some reason, was behaving anti-social and didn’t respond to the feeding. Instead, she went to a far corner of the balcony and faced the wall. Maybe she’s on a diet.

Haven't been coming on for a long while... because had so much fun the previous week (see previous poast), that I spent the whole week recovering. Terrapins are not known for their energetic nature you know.

Anyway, you might be wondering what I mean when I say that we "play". Each of us have our own version of play. Let me show you Dodo's version.

This is me, trying to climb out of the balcony, into the living room, for a walk.











This is me after a long day of play...

This is me. I look sad because I just made my female owner angry. It was feeding time. Having had my last meal 2 days ago, I was naturally excited and famished. I rushed into the feeding tank, together with Dona, my elder brother. In my excitement, I mis-cued and bit my brother’s arm real hard. In the mayhem that ensued (coz he struggled so hard), I held on even harder because I thought my female owner was feeding us live food (“wah, fresh food, so must hold on in case it escapes”).

I knew I made a mistake when I heard her shouting at me. I let go immediately. Dona didn’t scold me or anything, but my female owner gave me a hard tap on my shell. Okay, I realised my mistake. Can I eat now?

selling dolls

A man and woman had been married for more than 60 years. They had shared everything. They had talked about everything. They had kept no secrets from each other except that the little old woman had a shoe box in the top of her closet that she had cautioned her husband never to open or ask her about it. For all of these years, he had never thought about the box, but one day the little old woman got very sick and the doctor said she would not recover. In trying to sort out their affairs, the little old man took down the shoe box and took it to his wife's bedside. She agreed that it was time that he should know what was in the box. When he opened it, he found two crocheted dolls and a stack of money totalling $95,000. He asked her about the contents. "When we were to be married," she said, "my grandmother told me the secret of a happy marriage was to never argue. She told me that if I ever got angry with you, I should just keep quiet and crochet a doll." The little old man was so moved; he had to fight back tears. Only two precious dolls were in the box. She had only been angry with him two times in all those years of living and loving. He almost burst with happiness. "Honey," he said, "that explains the doll, but what about all of this money? Where did it come from?" "Oh," she said, "that's the money I made from selling the dolls."

rampage

My female owner went on a mini rampage last night. She finally paid off all $24000 of her study loan and decided to reward her years of frugality with a brand-new digicam! The strange thing about it is that, while she was happy with her choice, her heart sank the moment AFTER she bought the camera. Too late for regrets. Female owner, you need to move on! Go figure how to use that chio pink camera…. then we can have many more happy snapping moments!