Saturday, March 6, 2010

Maude, Myrtle, and Me


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Okay. So here is something I have been thinking on for a few months now. Thanks to the crazy ocean conditions around here, two wayward sea turtles limped ashore on nearby Oregon beaches, cold and a bit disoriented, just in time for Christmas. This was not, after all, the place that smelled of their birth. Fortunately no common folk attempted to move them illegally and a bevy of highly trained and certified professionals whisked them off to the Newport aquarium where they enjoyed hearing their tropical turtle tales over the holidays while spending lots of money encouraging them to quit hibernating by heating them up, naturally, with electric blankets. Apparently, the tortugas said, they had been happily swimming north on a nice warm current when said current disappeared on them, dumping them unceremoniously in 50 degree water.
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They named the olive ridley Myrtle and the green turtle Maude, perhaps not understanding their Spanish accents but sexing them correctly anyway. They hydrated them with your average sea turtle diet - dextrose, electrolytes, and IV fluids - and once they were swimming around they added sea turtle vitamins. Chewable? I wonder. Myrtle was "plagued by buoyance problems," not a very auspicious trait for a turtle, and Maude had a fractured flipper which, again, could be tricky for a swimmer. Once their repertoire of Under the Sea stories started to loop, it was time to go.
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Using the guise of "practicing getting in and out of a small airport and handling a unique loading exercise" the US Coast Guard landed in the hinterlands of Newport and loaded the chicas into a massive C-130 airplane, the likes of which they had last used here to "Free Willy," which was not ultimately deemed a success story as you might recall since Willy swam around in the wilds of Iceland waiting for somebody, anybody, to hand feed him. But back to the girls...
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This was NOT, and I repeat, NOT, a waste of taxpayers dollars so just get that cold-hearted notion right out of your pretty heads. As you may have already guessed, "The C-130, based at the Coast Guard Air Station Sacramento, was used to ensure a stable environment, with the cabin pressure kept at sea level and the temperature in the mid-70s." So don't you worry about the cabin pressure or temperature-related effects on the gals. And, furthermore, before the journey - in case you are wondering - the chicas were "slathered with petroleum jelly to keep them hydrated. They were then cradled into custom-made, ventilated crates that had ample padding and a little bit of extra room but not so much that they could flail around and injure themselves." There is nothing worse than a flailing turtle, after all.
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But after all that holiday bonding time and with the nostalgia of the holidays and all, Myrtle and Maude had become like one of the family. Who could ever see a Christmas tree again without thinking of Maude covered in her favorite afghan, clutching an eggnog in her "good" flipper with the other all bandaged up and propped up on a pillow? And what about the tears of joy shed by Myrtle as she unwrapped her little hand-knit flipper socks and the way she struggled to get them on? Oh, my, the memories... So, the aquarium folks ultimately had a hard time saying farewell. There was not a dry eye on the tarmac as that big military plane lifted off into the fog, flying Myrtle and Maude off to SeaWorld in San Diego which they had always wanted to visit. And wasn't that a tiny piece of yarn that drifted down out of the sky as they waved their little sock-covered flippers farewell?
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Once comfortably settled in San Diego they were to have a private behind-the-scenes tour with their little boondoggle in the sun, from whence "ideally" they will be released back into the wild, presumably with a bottle of vitamins tucked under each flipper. (The cost of caring for the sea turtles will be covered in part by a grant from the Kinsman Foundation - note to self, meet the Kinsmans...) So, sniff, Maude and Myrtle are on their way to being on their way.
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"OMG!" you are probably now wondering and rightfully so, "What the yurt has happened to Kelly with all that time on her hands to type her fingers off spinning tales of turtles, no less?" Answer: It is raining. And anyway, you have to admit, yurt makes a nice 4-letter word and there is that whole Yertle the Turtle thing I blogged about earlier. But some days I do feel exactly like Myrtle and Maude, or Maude and Myrtle if you prefer - like I was happily headed north on a warm current that suddenly dumped me into 50 degree water and now my flippers hurt and I find myself suddenly plagued by buoyancy problems. So, I am wondering, who are these Kinsmans anyway? Because I think I could fit my family very nicely in a C-130 with all of our cargo and even though the ample padding and little bit of extra room in our crates sounds dreamy, we could probably forego such a luxury and still avoid flailing around and injuring ourselves en route to the tropics.
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K3

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