Frankie Animation

Spend Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday laid out on my back with excruciating back pain and muscle spasms.  I was so seriously incapacitated that I was unable to pick up socks from the floor because if I was foolish enough to lean over involuntary screams could make my neighbor think I was being murdered by some intruder.  I've taken to sleeping in our guest room because I groan and gasp so loudly every time I move in the night it wakes my poor husband who has to get up early in the morning.

You know that Frankie has to be responsible for my latest injuries, right?  He is now so remarkable large and heavy that simple tortoise maintenance like washing his shell or throwing out hay for him is bound to be a dangerous task, right?  Well, this time Frankie is not the direct or indirect cause of my back injury.

I hurt my back raking leaves off the drive way and washing my car.  Welcome, Leann, to your mid-fifties.

Remember back when you could pick up Frankie?  Remember when you used to pick 50 pound bales of hay off the ground and throw them in the back of a pick-up truck?  Remember when you could crawl over a chain link fence or climb your way over an eight foot picket fence?  Yeah, I remember those days.  I'm missing those days.

These days, or the last few days, strength and mobility are not part of my life.

Yesterday I was laid out on the living room recliner, heating pad under my lower back, a pain killer finely kicking in, and I am not going anywhere for nothing because it could cause my back to spasm again.  I'm sitting there trying not to move, breathing shallow when suddenly I notice out of the corner of my eye the lawn chair walking by the back door.

The chair walked the entire length of door and came to an abrupt stop as it collided with Frankie's outdoor shed.  I couldn't have turned my head to see the fate of chair or shed even if I thought I should.  To my relief the chair did a very slow bumpy like turn and headed the other way.  Just as the chair exited my view it suddenly reappeared as it tipped over and fell on its side.

The chair laid on it's side for a while with no more animation.  That was good.  Then the blue folding ladder that was set up against the fence about ten feet from the back door started to move to a new location.  The ladder did fairly well moving for about fifteen second when it started to wobble.  The front section lifted and the heavier top section stole away the forward momentum causing the whole ladder to topple over on the grass.

Still, I couldn't do much but watch from my peripheral view the moving objects in the yard and hope no real harm was coming of it.  I am also very sure that in-animate things ARE moving in the yard.  It's not the muscle relaxer I took four hours earlier nor is it the non-narcotic pain pill I took 30 minutes ago causing me to hallucinate. 

I can be perfectly sure that all this IS happening because the 105 pound Frankie lives in my backyard.  In fact, I believe if I am going to sit in that recliner for another day I WILL see the bird feeder topple over because Frankie loves the grass that grows around it. 

This is my life.  Ten years ago I probably would be out back there chasing all these moving objects and setting them back up and putting them away.  I would want to make the yard safe for Frankie.

Today I know Frankie is perfectly safe.  Now I worry about those objects.  Actually, I've just given them up as Frankie toys.  It's too late to save them. 

I did manage to get outside to see Frankie today.  He was in his cave so I had to "request" that he come out and see me.  He wanted to see me, for the carrot.

Frankie got himself sorta jammed up in his getting-too-small-for-Frankie shelter.  He got his back chute and front chute perfectly caught up on the front and back wall.  Poor Frankie.  He was stuck.

I stood there with the carrot in my hand and all I could do was urge the beast to use his massive strength to force his way out of his jam.

"Come on, Frankie!  Push!  You can do it!  You want the carrot, right?  Do it for the carrot!  Push!"

Yeah, I am reduced to Frankie's cheerleader.

Tomorrow, laid up again with massive back pain, I'm gonna look forward to that bird feeder coming down.

"Get that bird feeder! Get it, Frankie!"   It's gonna come down.

Frankie toy still sitting there.  I'll pick it up when my back is better.

(Comments are always welcome!)

Serious Injury #27

Frankie is a one-hundred and five pound potential disaster when ever he sets himself in motion....or refuses to get into motion.  Frankie targets are walls, buckets, ceramic pots, door steps, cricket containers, boxes, and regretfully, more personal objects like my fingers, toes, shins, back, muscles, tendons, etc., or in general, ME.

I sport numerous Frankie related injuries.  I once dropped Frankie on my middle left finger crushing it so bad that neighbors now know the extent of my cussing vocabulary.  I ripped four inches of shin falling over a Frankie barrier one winter.  One summer, Frankie dug those hard front leg spurs into my bare skin when attempting to reach a carrot leaving me with a vampire like scar on my leg.

Believing myself a clever person, I continually attempt to find better ways to transport and move him without the risk of injury.  I've bought four different and varying sizes of carts as he grew but they are completely useless as it requires that Frankie be placed on top which I cannot do without a second person to help me lift Frankie.

I have considered marrying a second weight-lifting husband but multiple husbands is still against the law in Alabama.  Drat.

Recently I started using straps especially when walking Frankie in case I need to "redirect" Frankie in the right direction.  Frankie has a very bad habit of deciding his own direction regardless of potential risk, like walking in the middle of a road.

The strap goes under his front shell just behind his two front feet.  The strap works pretty good as I can lift Frankie to rotate him left or right with just a little bit of effort.

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Good turtle friends, Michal and Greta, stopped by here a few weeks ago.  Like to say they wanted to visit me but let's be honest:  Frankie is the big personality here at this house.  They wanted to see Frankie and headed to the back yard within five minutes of arriving.

On the agenda was taking Frankie on a Big Walk.  Frankie has not been on a Big Walk in a long time.  It's just too hard for me to navigate the ever growing Frankie by myself even with the strap.  Three people taking Frankie on a walk sounded oh-so-easy:  three navigators, three to watch for cars, three to pick up Frankie in a pinch.

Frankie did not oblige our guests.  First thing Frankie did once down the drive way was to stop and eat grass in the front yard and he wasn't going to stop eating grass because he hadn't seen that much grass since Fall.  Frankie wasn't going anywhere.  No Big Walk.  Frankie didn't care.  Frankie stuffed himself at the front yard salad bar.

Oh, getting him to return to the back yard was near impossible once he discovered where all the grass was.   Even three of us couldn't get him turned back toward the back yard.  Not while there was grass to be grazed.

Out came the strap.  I slipped it under Frankie's front shell, behind his front feet and rotated him toward the backyard.

Frankie wasn't going anywhere.

He dug those front feet into the asphalt drive and said, "Good luck getting me to the back yard.  You are going to have to drag me."

And I tried.  I pulled on that strap dragging Frankie about twelve inches, when something in my left elbow went 'pop' saying, "Should have listened to Frankie."

Poor Michal and Greta.  They came to spend time with Frankie.  They did not expect a wrestling match between a 105 pound shelled monster and a 135 pound already Frankie-damaged woman.  I did win.  Frankie did end up in the back yard.  But there will be no Big Walks for a while.

I ripped the tendon in my elbow.  It was fun explaining how I did that to the doctor.  He thought it was so funny that I got two shots in my buttocks.

Always wear nice underwear.  You never know when you may have to drop your drawers for a doctor and bare your butt.

It's been weeks since the incident.  Still sore....at Frankie.....and so is the elbow.

Lesson:  Sulcata owners should always wear nice underwear. 

Tortpocalypse 2015

Outside it's finely warm.  I've been released from house arrest.  I was getting pretty tired being stuck in a bathroom, living inside a cardboard box and surrounded by masses of UPS brown paper.  My only form of sustenance has been hay with the occasional carrot to tease me.  There they will be payback for this incarceration.

That's right, I have joined my fellow turtles and tortoises for TORTPOCALYPSE 2015.  Prepare to meet your doom humans.  Waffles,  a fellow sulcata tortoise from Canada, may just be a pint sized fellow but that tort has some smarts in that noodle of his. As soon as I heard of the all out initiative to eliminate mankind I said where do I sign up!

Last night I stayed up and planned out my offensive for the lower 48 states.  These are my plans so far:

Day 1:  Take Whole Foods Grocery Store hostage until they surrender all organic carrots.  As soon as the carrots are freed, ravage the store and leave no shelf standing.  Spend the rest of the afternoon basking, grazing and eating carrots to build up energy for Day 2.

Day 2:  Ram PetSmart and free all captive tortoises and turtles.  Stock pile cuttlebones and bagged Orchard Hay.  Take only the Orchard hay.  All other hay taste nasty.  Annihilate the remaining PetSmart facility.  Recruit freed turtles and tortoises for tort army active duty.  Check out back lot for dandelions.

Day 3: Reenact this--

Day 4:  Lay waste to all government buildings in downtown Mobile just because we can.  Spend latter part of day accepting gifts of surrender from humans. 

Day 5:  Level airport all except any one plane that will fly us to Canada to meet Waffles. 

As soon as we arrive in Canada, Waffles and I and thousands of turtle minions will join together as a whole shelled arm to continue our take over of the world.

Okay.  Sounds spectacular.  I have enough time today to ram the side of the house until mom comes out with carrots and hay.  This will be my final meal served by a free human.

We should spare any human capable of service to turtles and tortoise.  Mom is pretty good at that.  I think I shall recruit her for tortoise servitude.

Tortoise are so brilliant.  We deserve to rule.