Snohomish Slew, we’re counting on you!

This weekend, we attended GroundFrog day, the Snohomish mini festival of frogs.  On GroundFrog Day, noted Frognosticator Snohomish Slew informs the general public, in Jason’s words, “If he sees his shadow, uh, there’s six more weeks of winter. If he doesn’t…something about spring.” That’s not exactly the case; unlike other weather-predicting animals, Snohomish Slew’s aren’t shadow-based. Instead, if he croaks, spring is coming, and if he sits in silence, we’re in for six more weeks of froggy, soggy Pacific Northwest winter. We arrived early enough so we could stake out a spot directly in front of the gazebo so we wouldn’t miss a second of what was certain to be intense weather-predicting action.  

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Jason had been looking forward to GroundFrog day all week, excitedly counting down the days, and telling all of his coworkers our weekend plans. I was quite excited myself. I only found out about the possibility of the event by chance in January while idly scanning Roadside America; I ended up calling the Just Frogs center to find out if there was actually an event this year. Slew’s handler (who speaks fluent Frogese), told me that not only was there an event this year, but that Slew was “fat, happy, and raring to go”. Topping the scales at over four pounds, Slew was ready to go, but since his prediction takes less than a minute, there needed to be a bit more hoopla in order to get people to gather. Hoopla like hula-hoops, and a Frog Princess, Amphibiana.

IMG_3334Amphibiana arrives in her green mustang.

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If looks could kill…

Now, I don’t know about the Frog Princess selection process, but I can tell you for a fact that Amphibiana is not the people’s princess. If she wasn’t rolling her eyes and scowling, she was making it clear that it pained her deeply to be present, and that she was far too cool to be associated with a weather-predicting frog. I’m certain it hurt Slew’s feelings every time she wiped off his kisses with a grimace. After Princess Sourpuss arrived, there were a number of songs and dances: about alligators, about Slew, about funny bones, and one that I’m pretty sure was just gibberish.

 IMG_3345 In general, I don’t mind song and dance numbers, but I’m not into group sing-alongs of songs I don’t know, especially songs that make the singers sound like jackasses, and the songs that are designed for group sing-alongs are ALWAYS written to make the singers sound like jackasses. Don’t believe me? I dare you to tunelessly sing “He’s a hip-hoppin’ rip-roppin’ ribbedy-roo” the next time you’re in a public place and see what kind  of looks you get. The other thing that bothered me is that the older gentleman singer seemed awfully focused on “the young girls” in the audience, continually asking them to come up and dance, to do a little dance for him, asking what they thought (nobody else, just “the young girls”), asking them to hold his hands “because they’re cold”…it was creepy. Here’s the legend of Seattle Slew, pulled from the GroundFrog Day website:

“Long before settlers arrived and named a snow-capped volcano “Mount Rain Here!”, and long before Lewis and Clark discovered half-caf lattes, came the legend of Snohomish Slew.  Seeking to find an enchanted kingdom, the frog (fresh from tadpole graduation, as legend tells us) hopped his way across the country to the Pacific Northwest.  The frog’s quest was to find a luscious, green, year-round climate with plenty of food and fauna.  Once there, winter hibernation would be a thing of the past.  Preferably, this frog wanted to escape the doldrums of amphibian slumber, the melancholy caused by relentless French epicureans, and absorb the sleepless in Seattle lifestyle.   Following the paths blazed by migrating sheepherders over the Continental Divide, the frog queried many of Mother Nature’s creatures along this great journey, asking for directions along the quest.   Sasquatch told the frog to seek the land between Mount Rain Here and Mount Pilchuck, where a great waterfall spills into a river with great variety of life.   The wild pigs that ran naked in the forest told the frog to seek the valley where the river runs pink with salmon.   The majestic Bald Eagle told the frog to look for a place near a great estuary where other eagles, hawks and songbirds sing all the livelong day.  There, close to a great bay, will be the soggy and foggy land that lends itself to frog frolicking and frog play.   A stately white tailed buck told the frog to follow the river to a place where muskrats and river otters play Marco Polo with steelhead.  Additionally, the buck warned the frog to stay away from migration trails and to never look into oncoming lights at night.   Continuing along the way, the frog encountered other creatures that provided direction and advice.   A rookery of Blue Heron passed on eating the frog in exchange for the frog’s promise to create a large pond or pool of scum and many other happy frogs.  They told the frog to seek the place where mushrooms and toad stools grow taller than yard gnomes.   The raccoons instructed the frog to find the valley where slugs roam freely in herds like great Bison on the plains.   The possum told the frog to seek a place where two rivers meet with a warm, dark lake, full of stocked fish.  They too warned the frog about crossing migration trails at night.   The raven told the frog to look for a place in the valley, rich in compost and pumpkins,  with that unique and distinct smell of agriculture.   The mystical Weedle on the Needle instructed the frog to seek a place where beavers carved a great archway into a Cedar tree and to look for the critters of the region who caper on through it.   The grizzly bear encouraged the frog to seek land close to his brethren Silvertips.   Wild Rabbit, in the nearby briar patch, told the frog to hop through the forest, gather up the field mice and bop them on the head.   Finally, the lonely, half-humped moose was able to lead the frog to the site that best matched all of the previous descriptions.  The moose took the frog to oracle with the wise, old, spotted owl.   It was there the owl, that great keeper of the forest, ended the frog’s quest into amphibian nirvana.  The owl told the frog to make home on the shores of the river known as “Snow-home-ish” which, translated from the native dialect, meant “Great waters for micro-brewing”.   After the long and life expanding journey, the frog hopped to the shore of this great river and  passed through the great cedar archway.  The locals met the frog with shouts of “Kla Ha Ya” which meant “Welcome to the antique, wedding capital and upcoming brewing center of the Pacific Northwest”.  This date was set into providence, and on February 2 (or Saturday closest to) of each year the locals celebrate the frog’s great journey with Ground Frog Day,  in which the natives reach out to others seeking nirvana and greet them with the Kla Ha Ya traditional shout.   Local myth, as “toad” down from generation to generation, about the magic of Snohomish Slew dictates that, on this date, he who rubs the tummy of frogs shall be rewarded with 6 weeks of luck and joins in the celebration of GroundFrog Day to hear Slew predict 6 more weeks of foggy, soggy weather or an early arrival of Spring with drizzly rainbow filled skies.    Just the way any frog would expect in our Pacific Northwest Nirvana.”

Why didn’t they tell the legend of Slew instead of singing the wibble-wobble-jibble-jobble song? It would have been far more interesting and relevant. Jason agrees: “I wanted to know more about Slew, not his rip-rip-ribbedy-doo.” Plus, where was the tummy rubbing and the traditional shouting? I would have much rather participated in a shouting activity than a singing activity!  

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While we waited for Slew to arrive in his firetruck convoy (I guess the city of Snohomish just crosses its collective fingers and hopes for no fires?), and tried to ignore the creepy overtures of Mr. Ribbedy Doo, this enormous dog picked up the slack  by wandering around and leaning his bulk against anyone and everyone, eventually knocking down a kid. Once the kid was down, the dog then tried to sit on him. In this instance, I think that the dog could have saved his ramming action for the old man who decided it would be cool to cut directly in front me to get closer to the gazebo, which makes no sense as he was at least a foot taller than me and would have had no issues seeing the stage, whereas my view changed to a bunch of liver spots. Get him, bear dog!  

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Eventually Slew arrived to great fanfare, and was held up to the microphone to give us his frognostication for the coming weeks. The whole crowd held its breath in anticipation and waited. Princess Sourpuss pulled a face.

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And waited. And waited. Stony silence from Slew, which means six more miserable weeks.  I’m not trying to blame the messenger,  I would have just appreciated some good news. Instead, I blame Princess Sourpuss wiping off his kisses: it’s hard to be cheerful and talkative when you’re living a lie in the public eye. You can do better, Snohomish Slew. You can do better.  

Come and see the mermaids of Weeki Wachee! Unless the power’s out, then you can’t see them!

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After Dinosaur World, we continued on the road to our other non-Orlando destination: Weeki Wachee Springs, home of real live mermaids! We tried to plan our trip so that we could hit dinosaur world in the morning and still make the afternoon mermaid shows: Fish Tails and The Little Mermaid; we ended up squeaking into the parking lot just as the Fish Tails show was beginning, bought our tickets, and hurried over to the theater, missing only a few minutes. Luckily we came late enough in the season that the Buccaneer Bay water park was closed, or we would have had to park in the back of a lot, wait in an interminable line, and miss the show entirely. That day, only a handful of cars were present, and there were maybe twenty other people in the theater.

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I suppose I had never really given much consideration to how much effort and training it would take to be a mermaid, at least of the Weeki Wachee variety. Learning how to swim with the tail apparatus, not only getting used to breathing out of a tube underwater, but taking in the proper amount of air so you’re floating at the correct level, learning all of the choreography, and on top of that, learning how to eat and drink underwater. What!? I don’t even like putting my face directly under the showerhead. The Jaws game gave me borderline panic attacks; I seriously felt like I was drowning in my living room. What I am saying is, I may have had some quibbles with past jobs, but none of them required me to breathe from a tube underwater, so they have that going for them. Not long after Jason stopped shooting video of the Fish Tails show, the power went out in the entire park. Obviously they had to stop the show: I would have been fine without the announcer or the Enya, but my guess is that the air hoses also stopped working in which case I’m glad that they got out of the spring ASAP. All of the guests were hustled outside of the theater to wait and see if power would be restored, and the hour that followed was one of the longest hours of my life because there was absolutely nothing to do. We mostly just groaned and hung out under an umbrella near the restaurant, and I also spent some time hassling a peacock. IMG_1200 I mean, not that the architecture isn’t stunning and worthy of study. It looks like they transformed the place from an old school McDonalds. After eating at their restaurant…all I can say is that I wish they had lived up to McDonald’s quality, which is so, so sad.   Eventually, the power kicked back on, just in time for the Weeki Wachee performance of The Little Mermaid. I’m glad that they still put the performance on, as only a few other people elected to stay through the power outage. IMG_1222  

Even though they emphasized repeatedly that this was Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid, it definitely played closer to the Disney version. No talk of the love of a human being the only way to get a soul or the agonizing pain of having the legs she desired, her voice was stolen instead of having her tongue cut out,  anthropomorphized animal buddies, all wrapped up with a happy ending. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, the Hans Christian Anderson version is depressing as hell. “When it grew dark a number of colored lamps were lit, and the sailors danced merrily on the deck. The little mermaid could not help thinking of her first rising out of the sea, when she had seen similar festivities and joys; and she joined in the dance, poised herself in the air as a swallow when he pursues his prey, and all present cheered her with wonder. She had never danced so elegantly before. Her tender feet felt as if cut with sharp knives, but she cared not for it; a sharper pang had pierced through her heart. She knew this was the last evening she should ever see the prince, for whom she had forsaken her kindred and her home; she had given up her beautiful voice, and suffered unheard-of pain daily for him, while he knew nothing of it. This was the last evening that she would breathe the same air with him, or gaze on the starry sky and the deep sea; an eternal night, without a thought or a dream, awaited her: she had no soul and now she could never win one.” Both difficult to portray with the few actors they had on hand and not the making of a happy afternoon. If they did something faithful to the source material, everyone would go home crying, not even stopping to get a pressed penny on the way out. If they ever decide to go with a new name to more accurately reflect the content, they could go with “Don’t Sue Us, Disney”. Overall, it was generally entertaining and I was still impressed by the tube-breathing, plus there was an excellent sequence where the sea witch beats up some mermaids for fun. On our way out, they had a mermaid available for photos opportunities, but for whatever reason, I felt weird about standing in line behind some eight year olds to have my picture taken with a real live mermaid. I suggested Jason do it, and the look he gave me could have withered the little mermaid’s soul. We were just leaving the parking lot when I saw….something. I pulled over immediately and hopped out of the car. TURTLE!

Deciding that having him hang out in a parking lot heading toward a busy road was a bad idea, Jason picked him up and carried him over to a grassy area, where he proceeded to sit and hate-stare at us. Clearly we had interrupted his errands and now he was going to have to start his trip over.   turtle A former coworker told me that he used to have a pet turtle but that he ran away from home. That one day, he’d taken his turtle outside to wash him, and he turned around for a second and the turtle was gone. I never really believed him, I didn’t think turtles could move that quickly. I mean, it was obvious to me how they were getting away from the reptile zoo, but it seems like someone competent would have a harder time losing a turtle. As soon as I saw this one booking across the parking lot, I had two thoughts: One, I owe him an apology for thinking he was a liar, and two, this could be the runaway turtle himself. So Drew, I’m sorry, and your turtle seems fine but angry. I think that during the summer when Weeki Wachee is in full swing, water park and all, it would make for a supremely fun afternoon. When it’s just the two mermaid shows, it’s fun, but not necessarily worth a large detour.

Nom or Vom: Hot Doggin’ It

herrshotdogAh, the hot dog. Originally imported from Germany, now made with the choicest American meat scraps and corn syrup, stuffed in a tube,  and considered an American Classic. God bless America. And God bless Herr’s, the chip company finally attempting to rival the Japanese in sheer variety of offbeat flavors. This time they’ve set their sights on hot dog flavored chips. I’m shedding a tear right now because they’ve combined America’s love of hot dogs, chips, and artificial flavoring, with Germany’s love of efficiency (why eat two when you could eat both at the same time?) into one red, white, and blue package. ‘Murrica.

 

Pros: The aforementioned efficiency, all American pride, uh, crunchiness?

Cons: Meat is one of those flavors that never really translates well to chip form, so this probably tastes like condiments with a funky aftertaste.

Would you eat hot dog flavored potato chips?

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