c4 -- Back to the Floor Board

Sha-Do: What’s she doing?


Fog-Gi: I’ve no idea.


Sha-Do: It’s not time for her mid-morning nap.


Fog-Gi: Nor her mid-afternoon nap.


Sha-Do: Can’t be her early evening nap either.


Fog-Gi: But she’s lying down.


Sha-Do: On the floor.


Fog-Gi: She never takes a nap on the floor.


Sha-Do: And look at that grimace on her face.


Fog-Gi: Hmm…she doesn’t notice us.


Sha-Do: Hey, what if I jump up on the banister…


Fog-Gi: …nothing.


Sha-Do: OK, what if I get up on the couch…


Fog-Gi: …nothing.


Sha-Do: So what if…


Fog-Gi: Wait a minute. You’re having all the fun…it’s my turn…


Sha-Do: What are you going to do?


Fog-Gi: I know… the kitchen counter…


Sha-Do: …nothing! Hey this is cool.


Fog-Gi: Way cool!


Sha-Do: What do you think happened?


Fog-Gi: No idea… why don’t you research what might have caused her to writhe like that on the floor and then we can do it again…


Sha-Do: …and again…at will. OK, let me see…


Fog-Gi: How about the cupboard. I’m going to try that.


Sha-Do: Hmm…what did she do differently…hmm…


Fog-Gi: I’m inside and I’ve got all the plastic bags out…scrunch…scrounch…


Sha-Do: Let’s see…how long has she been down there?


Fog-Gi: Hee hee, look at me, I’m stretched out on the coffee table.


Sha-Do: Since the morning I’d say…so maybe something she did yesterday?


Fog-Gi: Wheeeee…I’m half way to the ceiling climbing up the window screen…


Sha-Do: The guests were still here yesterday, they all barbecued outside while we were locked up in the bedroom…


Fog-Gi: Hey, hey, hey…I’m all the way up the curtain…


Sha-Do: Hmm…hang on a sec…I’m doing all the hard work. Get down here and help me.


Fog-Gi: Wheeeeeee…I’m sailing through the air…


Sha-Do: Stop that and help me figure this out or else…


CRASH…BANG…BLUP.

Fog-Gi: OUCH! Mrrrowwww.


Sha-Do: You prize idiot! You’ve broken the vase. Now look what you’ve done, she’s getting up from the floor.


Fog-Gi: Not moving very fast…and with one hand on her back…she…how’s she…ha ha ha


Sha-Do: Oh no, oh no, she’s reaching for the water spraygun…


Fog-Gi: Guess she can use that with one hand…MEEEEEEOOOOWWW!


Sha-Do: Serves you right! HEY! She’s coming after me too…! MRROWWW!


Fog-Gi: OK…OK…she’s crumpled onto the floor again.


Sha-Do: Guess we should take this game out of her sight.


Fog-Gi: What can we do?


Sha-Do: I know…let’s play on the computer…she hasn’t been there in days…


Fog-Gi: Cool idea…she can’t see us up here…


Sha-Do: Hello all you peeps in blogland…


Fog-Gi: Rilla can’t come to the computer right now…


Sha-Do: She’s stuck on the floor with an icepack on her back…


Fog-Gi: Yup! And you’re stuck with us!

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22 -- Frog Blog

NOTE: This blog is a continuing dialog between the two faces of rilla. The identity crisis is explained (if such a thing is possible) in the first edition. Click here to read: 1 -- Introduction

rilla: Ribbit.
Rilla: Rabbit?
rilla: Ribbit.
Rilla: A frog?
rilla: Croak.
Rilla: OK, you do mean frogs.
rilla: The frogs croaked.
Rilla: That’s what they tend to do…
rilla: More than one meaning to the word croaked …
Rilla: Oh… you mean croaked.
rilla: Frogs croaking all around the world.
Rilla: But not all of them are saying Ribbit?
rilla: No, they’re saying HELP, we’re dying, someone do something.
Rilla: Huh? So what? Don’t much care for the nasty, slimy things.
rilla: Ever hear about the Gastric Brooding Frog in Australia?
Rilla: Nasty slimy things…
rilla: They swallowed their own fertilized eggs and the frogs would hatch inside the parent’s stomach.
Rilla: Nasty slimy things…
rilla: Somehow the parent turned off its own gastric juices so that the eggs wouldn’t be digested.
Rilla: How’d they get out then?
rilla: Through the parent’s mouth…pop…pop…
Rilla: You mean puke, puke…nasty slimy things.
rilla: Remember that empty swimming pool in our first school.
Rilla: Never had any water in it.
rilla: Yeah, and the only ones who went swimming there were…
Rilla: … frogs, millions of them, tadpoles turning into froggies in the monsoon.
rilla: You had nothing against them then. I remember you climbing down those steps and laughing in delight when the little frogs jumped into your hands…
Rilla: Humph…frogs…swallow their own eggs huh?
rilla: Don’t anymore.
Rilla: Why? They got hungry and started eating them?
rilla: Nope, they’re extinct, along with the Golden toad of Costa Rica and species everywhere are dying out.
Rilla: So what? If the frogs outside our window would die out, we’d sleep better at night.
rilla: Frogs are the barometer of the health of an ecosystem, the proverbial canary in the coal mine. And it’s because they are slimy and have permeable skins that they’re so vulnerable to pollutants in water and the sun as global warming heats up the planet.
Rilla: So they’re croaking.
rilla: Yup, they’re telling us our ecosystems don’t work anymore. That means the end of more than just the frogs you know.
Rilla: Someday, all these animals we know might be memories too?
rilla: Myths we tell our grandkids about…
Rilla: …sitting around the digital campfire.
rilla: We used to have tigers prowling in our jungles.
Rilla: We used to have elephants roaming our savanna.
rilla: We used to have polar bears hunting on our ice caps.
Rilla: We used to have jungles.
rilla: And savanna.
Rilla: And ice caps.
rilla: And frogs.

Sad reflections on the state of our planet after watching the BBC series Planet Earth. If you haven't already, see it. The DVD set is on sale at Costco right now and always at Amazon.

Facts about frog populations declining
Interesting article on the adaptability of frogs
For Kids

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21 -- Monstrous Muse

NOTE: This blog is a continuing dialog between the two faces of rilla. The identity crisis is explained (if such a thing is possible) in the first edition. Click here to read: 1 -- Introduction

Rilla: What are you working on now?
rilla: LynNerd has given me an assignment.
Rilla: Is that a euphemism for being tagged with another meme?
rilla: If I say yes will you go for a loop and explode again?
Rilla: I never explode. I have a calm disposition, what they call even-tempered…
rilla: OK then, yes.
Rilla: See…no explosion…you…really…do…me…an …injustice…
rilla: Why are you holding your breath?
Rilla: not…holding…breath…
rilla: You’re going blue…
Rilla: Phoooooo...ooooooooooo...oooooooo...ooo…
rilla: Hey! Isn’t that cool? She just blew away…note to self…discovered a great way to get rid of Rilla…must try more often…OK…where was I. Yes. LynNerd wants me to describe my muse…hmm…let’s see… my muse … my muse… what does my muse look like…my muse…
Rilla: Yes?
rilla: Groan…you back? That was quick…note to self…method not very effective…keep searching.
Rilla: So that’s your ‘assignment’ is it? Your muse?
rilla: Know what a balrog is?
Rilla: A balrog? Never heard of one.
rilla: You know. From The Lord of the Rings.
Rilla: Told you once, told you twice…I don’t do fantasy.
rilla: Oh, you must be buddies with Debra Garfinkle…
Rilla: Now there’s someone who thinks the way I do…fine, fine author…
rilla: Balrogs…
Rilla: Huh?
rilla: We were discussing balrogs.
Rilla: Sigh…if you insist…what is a balrog?
rilla: Something was coming up behind…a great shadow…in its right hand was a blade like a stabbing tongue of fire; in its left it held a whip of many thongs…the dark figure streamed with fire…the shadow about it reached out like two vast wings…it raised the whip, and the thongs whined and cracked. Fire came from its nostrils… That’s from The Fellowship of the Ring by JRR Tolkien.
Rilla: All right…OK…enough already. I get the picture. This balrog is an immense, winged, fire-breathing, whip-cracking monster…
rilla: That’s a lot of adjectives.
Rilla: Is that what your muse looks like?
rilla: No.
Rilla: Then why’d you…?
rilla: That’s what YOU look like.
Rilla: So now I’m a balrog? Nice. Hmm… been called worse. A balrog…not bad. Quite like the sound of it to tell you the truth…
rilla: Oh, that’s just like you.
Rilla: So this muse of yours…how does it appear to you? I’m curious now.
rilla: Hard to describe really. That’s one tough assignment there, LynNerd.
Rilla: OK. What does it feel like?
rilla: Kind of amorphous …
Rilla: Like a vast shadow?
rilla: Yeah, it is immense. A shadow that overtakes me and…
Rilla: Fills you with a fiery passion?
rilla: Fiery is right. Hot and addictive, it’s relentless…
Rilla: Driving you to write…?
rilla: Like a whip cracking over my head.
Rilla: Prodding you?
rilla: With a flaming sword…
Rilla: Does it have wings?
rilla: Oh, yes, takes me on one wild ride, flies me to places and settings and vistas on the horizon of imagination…
Rilla: Hmm…this muse of yours…
rilla: Yes?
Rilla: Either it’s something you’re on…
rilla: …and you want some?
Rilla: Or…
rilla: Or?
Rilla: It’s ME!
rilla: Huh?
Rilla: Yeah. Prodding, fiery-tongued, whip-cracking… I AM YOUR MUSE.
rilla: How? Oh…I get it…you…balrog…muse…you sure fly to conclusions…
Rilla: Yup! Face it. I…am…your…muse!
rilla: Groan…no wonder I get so many rejections…

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