Gah! With all the busy-ness of the past week or two, I completely forgot to get a gift in the mail to Bubby! How could I do that, especially for such an important event?

What? Huh?

No, I didn't miss Bubby's second birthday. We'll head to the desert to celebrate that in a few weeks. What I forgot to mark in a timely fashion is World Turtle Day!

World Turtle Day, sponsored by American Tortoise Rescue, was started to increase respect and knowledge for the world'’s oldest creatures. According to ATR, the critters been around for about 200 million years, yet they are rapidly disappearing as a result of the exotic food industry, habitat destruction and the cruel pet trade. The ATR website has some pretty dern informative turtle tidbits, such as, "If a tortoise is crossing a busy street, pick it up and send it in the same direction it was going. If you try to make it go back, it will turn right around again."

This year the 10th World Turtle Day was celebrated on Sunday ... May 23 ... while I was in South Dakota ... where the buffalo roam and where I saw lots of deer and antelope playing but nary a turtle that I had to help make its way across a busy street.

When I realized my blunder of forgetting to mark the day for Bubby -- it fits perfectly with my mission to regularly celebrate wacky nationally recognized dates with my grandson -- I hopped online in hare-like fashion and ordered the most awesome tortoise to be delivered to him lickity split. That's it in the picture above. Yeah, it'll arrive a few days late -- not so hare-like at all, I guess -- but I'm pretty sure Bubby will enjoy it just the same.

And because it's made of plastic, Bubby won't have to worry at all that his turtle toy will attempt any daredevil street-crossings! Frankly, he'll likely need to worry more about forgetting the little guy out in the hot desert sun where it'll melt into a puddle of ticky-tacky tortoise goo, which would be so not in line with the ATR's mission "to save turtles and tortoises for the next generation."

Happy belated World Turtle Day to one and all!

Today's question:

Did you or anyone you know have a turtle when you were a kid?

My answer: I didn't, but my cousins did -- and it was less than four-inches long, which, according to the ATR website, is a seriously illegal critter to have in one's possession. Tsk, tsk on Aunt Ruby for allowing such things! But then again, that was about 40 years ago and maybe turtle possession is one of those things that once skirted regulation ... kind of like hitchiking and entering stores without shirts or shoes.