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!

the saga continues

My male owner has been trying his best to coax Nana into the water and last night, he claimed that he did it! He even described the process to my female owner. Hold the worm in front of Nana, dangle it from left to right about six times, and Nana will go into the water.

My female owner then asked: “did you manage to get Nana out of the water?”

Male owner: “No, only into the water.”

Female owner: “what?! You left Nana in the water??”

Male owner: (‘.’);;;

still in the dark

My male owner still doesn't know how to feed Nana, after so many days. My female owner was a tad amused and a tad upset at the same time. Amused because he plays games like MapleStory. While he can gain control in such a high-level game, my male owner is unable to figure out such an elementary game.

Upset because... well... she's a woman so no real reason needed..

met my new friend?

Met my new friend? He’s called Nana, after my brother who died a few years back.

My female owner proved that she is the reigning turtle whisperer of Singapore. She managed to get Nana to jump into the water after a few seconds of adopting him.

My male owner took the whole night, and all he could do was to get Nana to look at the worm.

In fact, my female owner can get Nana to jump into the water, eat the worm, and jump back on the rock at will.

Somebody please help my male owner figure out this new pet… or else he will have no end from my female owner.

Now you know why we are living with our female owner…survival instinct.

my new friend!

adopt your own virtual pet!

the mysterious cat

My female owner does the darnest thing. Before I get rationed by her (of food) for saying this, I must remind her that my male owner said this of her. I, Nooki, am merely repeating what my male owner said. You see, she came home at 4am on Sunday. As she was unlocking her door, she saw a white cat sitting on the old armchair left outside her house (this armchair was left outside her house for people to wear their shoes). The cat was silent and still, quietly looking at her with his big round shiny eyes. The lateness of the night, together with the spooky demeanour of the cat, freaked her out and she scrambled into the house. She tried to redeem herself when she retold the story to my male owner and us, that she was just afraid that the cat will spring into the house, run straight to the balcony and pounce on us. Err… how would the cat know that there are terrapins in the house? Anyway, she didn’t manage to take any photos because her camera was spoilt (hint!) but she did find white fur on the armchair the next day, which basically proved that she was not seeing things. My female owner was fascinated by how the cat managed to find his way to the 9th storey to get to her flat. According to her, the cat looked very happy and contented with his find. She was left wondering how long the cat had been roosting outside her flat without anybody’s knowledge and whether the cat would return. To satisfy her curiosity, guess what my female owner did? She set her alarm at 4am on Monday morning to spy on the armchair. In the process of this, she actually woke up during the night (without the assistance of the alarm, mind you), struggled out of bed, searched for her glasses using her hands, and walked to the main door to check on the armchair. She repeated the process three times. Three times, she found the armchair empty. She got her answer. The cat didn’t return. Duh. My female owner does the darnest thing, doesn’t she?

Happy Mother's Day!

A tribute to all female turtle owners in the world for this Mother’s Day! It is certainly not an easy task, taking care of tortoises who hardly show overt appreciation for your care and dedication. You see, we don’t bark and wag our tails like the canines; neither do we hum a lovely song like the canaries. All we do is keep to ourselves and shy away from most human touch. In fact, we often look stoned and lifeless.

Looks like we (my female owner and myself) made a mistake about who ate the plastic bag. We unanimously thought that it was Nanook (sorry sister! Your past track record has not been very clean) but it turns out to be Dodo. We decided it was him coz he had not been his usual self since the incident. He was nursing a clogged tummy.

Dodo, you must understand, is my female owner’s favourite terrapin for many good reasons. One of the good reasons is that he is very tame to the human touch. He would not flinch if you touch his head or stroke his neck. In fact, he seeks out human interaction by rushing out to greet my owners whenever he knows they are near. This delights my female owner very much and hence, she speaks very proudly of him all the time (that's Dodo below).

Anyway, ever since the munch-on-plastic incident, Dodo kept to himself all the time in a corner of TurtleLand. He had a drugged look and was ultra-sensitive to touch. He also lost his appetite and remained curled up in his shell. My female owner noticed the change in his behaviour immediately and was quite concerned. She didn’t know what to do to make him feel better and decided not to agitate him at least.

Occasionally she would pop into TurtleLand to check on him and coax him to have some food. If he refuses, she would just let him be. Her patience and tenderness towards his predicament (she didn’t scold him or send him to the Sick Bay) must have been therapeutic for Dodo. Today, on Mother’s Day, he was able to have a decent meal, much to the relief of my female owner.

Moral of the story – while mother knows and loves best, keep those plastic bags away from us!

i wonder why

Been a long time since I posted a picture of myself. So I thought I better put one up, in case you forget how I look like.

This is a picture taken in April 06. On the left is me, and on the right is Nanook, my elder sister. The reason why the photo was taken is pretty obvious – my female owner is trying to capture our greediness in action. You see, that rectangular tank was our feeding tank (the old one – remember I told you that we got a new one recently?). We were hovering around the tank, trying to send the message that we were hungry and hence, waiting for some human intervention. We behave like humans at times right, hovering around something knowing that something good is going to happen (e.g. freebies)?

Anyway, the hidden point of taking the photo is that Dodo and Dona (my female owner’s terrapins – Nanook and myself belong to our male owner. Confused over ownership? Just remember that the “N”s belong to the male and the “D”s to the female but all four of us live together in the female’s house) were NOT hovering around the tank!

You get it now? My female owner wants to emphasise the “goodness” of her terrapins at the expense of us. Sigh… I wonder why.

eating plastic

Turtleland had a minor disaster in the wee hours of the morning. It started to rain heavily and a big gush of wind sent a clear plastic bag flying into our feeding tank.

My female owner woke up to this disaster scene where she found the plastic bag floating in the tank…. And small round holes in the bag. In an instant, she knew what happened – someone in our midst was so greedy, he/she stole a few bites of the bag! This is not good because it is potentially toxic.

My female owner had her suspect in mind but she did nothing about it. The consequence of eating plastic is in itself a punishment for the consumer. As for me, I’m not telling who it was.