Turtles.

Apparently it's national turtle week. Or day. Whatever. I have 3 relevant stories to share.


1. My first time in Hawaii; I'm there shooting the Sheryl Crow video "Soak Up The Sun". (you're welcome for the name drop). A few of us are in water about waste deep, chest deep for me, and holding on to surfboards with Sheryl and the extras astride them as to not let them float away. There are also several Hawaii native water safety experts there with us to handle sea life approaching. All of a sudden, I see this sort of rolling motion in the water and a VERY large dark spot and thought to myself "This is it. I'm scared of the unknown ocean and I'm going to be eaten by a shark in waste-deep water two days before my birthday because that is SO ME.". I try to look away and not let Sheryl see so she doesn't start crying, but one of our water safety guys starts getting incredibly stoked and basically halts production to point out that these are two sea turtles mating. By this point, they are literally rubbing against me in their process. I am paralyzed with fear and disgust as Sheryl joins in the delight of watching them and everyone around just seems very happy and I am getting woozier by the second. As I stand there being used as some sort of base for these turtles to grind against, the natives explain to us how great this whole thing is and it's very good luck if sea turtles approach you so intimately. I'm just saying it's good luck I didn't faint. No, I wish I had bucked up and reached down and touched them, but at the time, I really was just trying to remain upright and not let a rock goddess get killed by ocean monsters.

2. My mother is such an animal lover, she will risk getting her hand bitten off at the same time as getting hit by a car to rescue even the worst ones. I'm about 28-30 years old and she and I are returning from getting coffee or something. We are driving between 2 lakes in our home town and she sees what I believe to actually be either a swamp monster, dinosaur, or misplaced alligator. It's actually a giant snapping turtle with one million pounds of seaweed attached to his back, slowly forging the road from one body of water to another. My mother jumps out of her car help this beast who seriously looks to be about 90 billion years old. He can clearly take care of himself, but there my mother is, shooing him across the road as he angrily stares and snaps at her. She was so proud.

3. My friend Eric is also an animal lover and just all-around-good guy. One night, we're sitting in a park drinking some beers, waiting for his softball game to start and he sees cars slowing down on the very busy side street next to us. He's actually scared it's a child that has wandered out there because people are beginning to take notice. We rush over and it's actually a HUGE snapping turtle that looks like a mutant killing machine experiment gone wrong. Still, Eric eases out into tons of traffic to grab this nightmare. The turtle is FLIPPING OUT, thrashing and scratching and snapping as poor Eric is yelling "I'm trying to help you!". He succeeds and wanders back across the road with arms full of slashes.

I'm not positive these creatures should get a holiday.....