Outlook goooooood: the Legend of Tuck and Gossamer.

*listening to Nico play “Wet” in the other room*

On January 23rd of this year, I woke up at mijo Art’s place after crashing there the night before.  Art didn’t have to work that day, so we took the train from the Red House (where I currently live) to Union Station to walk around Olvera St. and Chinatown.  There is an ‘arcade’ market on Broadway that we ducked-into on our way to the train station, and as we were ambling about in there pointing at funny t-shirt designs andoddities, a woman stepped into our path and held somthing up to my face.  It was a small plastic container with two turtles in it!

“Five dollar.” She said…. and unexpectedly, I bought them.

The woman handed the small container to me in a black plastic bag, sold me a small bag of turtle food for another dollar, and gave me some (bad) advice on turtle care and then Art and I and the turtles went on our way.  As we exited the back side of the arcade, we noticed the Pasadena-bound Gold Line train approaching the station and we broke into a sprint to catch it.  We ran across the street and up the escalator to the station and lunged into the doors as they were closing, and conveniently there were two seats open right in front of us.

I met a little girl (and her mother) on that short train trip who took particular interest in my new turtles, and I asked her to name one of them.  Appropriately, she named it Tuck because that little turtle was shy or scared at that moment.  The other turtle is named Gossamer after a long Smashing Pumpkins jam tune that I dig. This is what Tuck and Gossamer looked like later that day:

I quickly learned that everything the Chinatown woman had told me about turtle care was WRONG, and so I bought them some proper food to eat and a larger container to keep them in with a heat lamp and a rock for them to bask on.  When they appeared good and healthy, I decided to investigate the turtle races at Brennan’s in Marina Del Rey.  I’ve been hearing about these races for years, and now that I had two turtles of my own, the silly idea to race these turtles sprung into my head.

Again, Art came along for this grand event, and we met two other friends there, Leslie and Caity Price (sisters).  Upon arriving at the bar, clutching a Yo Gabba Gabba napsack with turtles inside, I looked around the place and noticed that I was the only person with turtles at the bar.

Upon further investigation, Art noticed that the turtles that the bar had for rent were no smaller than the size of a fist (already three times the size of my babies).  The largest turtle that Brennan’s had for rent was almost the length of a football!

The next thing that I noticed as I cued up in line with my turtles to sign up for the race was that I was the only guy in line, and the rest were women.  Why??  Well… as it turns out the competition turned out to be more of a booty competition than a turtle race.

The idea behind these races are for the turtles to begin within a plastic ring on the ground and once that ring is lifted, to race to an outside ring.  The catch is that each contending turtle had to be placed inside the ring by a woman, and she can not bend her knees as she places the turtle inside the ring or the turtle will be disqualified.  Needless to say, this kind of behavior attracts BRO’s…. college jock douchebro’s with digital cameras to be specific, and they swarmed the place like obnoxious horny flies.

The moderator for the race registered my turtles to race against each other as the last race of the evening.  He plugged it as the grand finale of the evening, “The two smallest turtles to ever race each other!”  The crowd stayed for the race and I comandeered two volunteers of the skeezy douchegirl variety to race the turtles.  It was a surprisingly short race considering their size, because Gossamer took off with determination!  The aptly-named Tuck stayed inside of his shell for the entire race as her brother ran for victory.  A minute and a half later, brother and sister were reunited in their little cage, and 10 minutes later Tuck and Gossamer were out with us on the dance floor, shakin’ their shells.  Tuck and Gossamer were excited for days afterwards.

[Here's what the race might have looked like if Tuck and Gossamer were larger.]

Since the race, these two turtles moved into a larger aquarium, donated by Michael Gump, with larger basking rocks and lucky bamboo.  They also acquired a taste for smoked salmon thanks to my spoiling mother and Cheshire Candlewick.  Each of the turtles also experienced their own adventures, as both of them actually escaped from their smaller aquarium at one point.  Gossamer fell off the bookshelf and onto the carpet, and he spent a night underneath the bookshelf in my old living room.  Miraculously, Tuck fell off of my balcony in Pomona and survived a 15′ drop into a patch of ivy on the ground.  What was even more miraculous was that I was able to find Tuck in the ivy after he had been missing for hours.  Intact, healthy, and unscathed!

The lily ponds at the Huntington Gardens in San Marino are a mucky paradise for aquatic life. The last time that I visited, I sat next to the lily ponds for awhile watching the turtles happily paddling about, and I dreamed up a plan to set Tuck and Gossamer free.  A month ago, I secured free passes for the Huntington Library free day* and yesterday, I set them loose.

Check out the documentary:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sHkDlQlBEs

Tuck and Gossamer made fast friends with whomever they met, and they were loved by all.  May they enjoy long, happy turtle lives in theHuntington lily ponds!

Have fun, fellas!  I’ll bring you a couple more friends in a few months.  :)

Love, Andrew.