Turtle! Turtle!

(Japanese Kanji symbol for "Turtle")

OMG! It's been forever since I last wrote a blog, and there's no excuse whatsoever except that since I last wrote I was run out of Texas at gunpoint, had to find a new place to live in the GREAT State of Oklahoma, found a house, moved in, and am starting a job soon as a producer for a thriller film that has nothing to do with Faith, and my son Reuben came home from Iraq for a couple of weeks....but these are NO EXCUSES. OH, and I signed a contract with my new literary agent and we're doing a completely different book that will be made into a movie later...I should have been writing to let you know about all of this. I will, I promise.

Today we're talking about the new tattoo that I'll have placed beside my "DREAM" tattoo on my left wrist. I'm going to wait until the venom and poison from the brown recluse spider that bit me last week actually leaves my body entirely - - Oh wait, maybe that could be a valid excuse for not writing...nope. Today we're talking about the turtle tat.

I've decided on the Turtle for OH so many reasons. Most of them personal, most of them very open-secreted if you know me. I have a special place in my heart for the battled armored soldiers of the garden; they remind me of tanks. My son drives tanks you know, and then there's that thing I have for Gary Sinise, you know, the thing where I think his face actually resembles the face of a turtle. He's beautiful, leave me alone! I have a great imagination, thank you very much, and in my opinion the most beautiful man (OK, the 2nd) is somewhat blessed with the fact that he looks like a turtle - - I didn't make him, God did. My son drives tanks you know, and tanks look like turtles, and turtles look like tanks. Tanks are faster.

When I was a kid I was the one running across the streets of Bethany to save every turtle I could from being squashed by cars on our nearly new roads made of dirt and new asphalt. The turtles weren't used to the cars yet and they just walked around like they owned the place, which they did before the cars took over. I must have saved a 1000 turtles before I turned 15. I think something happens to you at 15 and you lose 1/2 your brain or something. I don't recall even helping a single turtle after that happened until after I was a mother of three children and one day it hit me! I wasn't helping out the turtles anymore....this had to end!

My kids were young, I remember Reuben was in the third grade, Laura the first, and Caity baby was in afternoon Kindergarten. I was walking the older kids to school when from out of the sewer (Tulsa, OK) came an enormous turtle, it was over 80 pounds and at least 2 feet wide! Talk about making up for lost salvations! This guy was telling me he was stuck, he was mad about it, and I needed to do something - - except he was also telling me that if I came any closer to him with those kids of mine he was going to be taking one out with his powerful claws and jaws.

I called the local police and they sent a rescue crew and believe it or not they wanted to kill him! WHAT? NO! I was frenzied - - by the way the kids never made it to school that day. This was by far a more educational moment in time.

I called the Tulsa Zoo (Mohawk) and tried desperately to get with someone who could help. It worked. Soon a truck with two herpetological people stepped out and convinced the police and city pound official that this turtle was an uncommon breed and would be necessarily cared for by the zoological society. THANK YOU. It still took a long time, and an audience of neighbors to get the guy out of the sewer grate and into the truck bed. He wasn't pleased, but he was safer.

The kids and I decided a couple years later to form what we call the T.R.P. (cute huh, you could say it even looks like an abbreviation for terrapin) The Turtle Relocation Program. I used to be the C.E.O., but Reuben is now the head of the house, so he's the C.E.O., and I'm the President. Laura is the Secretary and Caity loves money, so she's the Treasurer. We don't actually put any money or official meetings to order, but we do rescue turtles that are about to make fatal mistakes by crossing streets and highways.

I've often thought about getting a little ring of turtles tattooed at the bottom of my ankle, but think it best to add the Kanji symbol beside my DREAM symbol on the inside of my left wrist for more...heartfelt reasons. It makes me smile to dream of ...well, certain turtles that make me happy.

Since Jesus made the turtle and I have fallen in love with him, I mean them, I will hold their image close to my dreams forever.