Two Parties and Three Turtles

I would again like to blame my infrequent posts to my inability to get my wireless router working. Of course, this is largely due to infrequent attempts to nudge it into cooperation. I still need to coerce someone into glaring at it more fiercely than I am able to do. Now that the Olympics are over, I can at least spend more time in the guest room without feeling as if I am missing something. It is crucial that the router's recalcitrance be rectified by the start of the fall television season.

I had a very active week. Last Saturday, I went to a WH's bridal shower. I had a very good time. The food, of course, was excellent. We played a lot of amusing games. I had never been to a bridal shower, so I really didn't know what to expect. Rest assured that we did not have a stripper, but there was a lot of discussion about not having one.

On Sunday, I went to JJ and JA's house warming party. That was a lot of fun. The food was simply amazing. We had pumpkin soup, shrimp etouffe, chicken sate, deviled eggs, creme brulee, tiramisu and tres leches cake.
I was simply in heaven from the food and got to spend time talking to friends for hours. Add two beagles for entertainment and it's an evening that's hard to beat.

On Wednesday, I had to leave work early (for me, not for most people) to pick up REC, Line and Sinker from the airport. They are all yellow bellied sliders, i.e. turtles. About four years ago, when they lived in Durham, E&ES raised a bunch of baby turtles from eggs that were laid near ES's apartment building. They kept four of them, but now they've gotten too big for their 150 gallon aquarium. On my parents' property, there is a 1/3 acre pond, so E&E thought it would be best to release three of them. So, Wednesday morning, they shipped them from Portland, Oregon to Raleigh-Durham. Unfortunately, they were two hours late in taking off from Portland, so they missed their connecting flight in Cincinnati. My dad and I went back to the airport again around 9pm and successfully picked up. Once we got back to my garage, we put them in Rubbermaid bussing tubs with about two inches of water. Line, the largest turtle, tried to climb out and a couple of times ended up on his back. This was a serious problem, because their being on their backs compresses their lungs, making it harder to breathe. We put Line in a taller tub, but he was still climbing. I called up E&E and they said to add more water. That way, they couldn't get traction on the tub floor and couldn't raise themselves up. Problem solved. The next morning, before I went in tot work, we released them in the pond. They were very eager to get out, the closer their buckets got to the pond. Off they went into the light green abyss. Later that afternoon, at two different times, my mom saw two different turtles on a little island in the pond. It could have been them or some of the many other yellow bellied sliders that live in the pond. We'll never really know, but we can probably be sure that they'll be happy swimming around in a great big pond.