Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

Santa leaves us a turtle each Christmas. This one was found hanging from the finial of one of the lamps in the living room.

A box found nearby indicates that it was made by Paris Birdwell.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A new ornament by Jay Strongwater.

See the rest of our ornaments here.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

The people who run Africa and Beyond in La Jolla recently sent us an email telling us that they had come back from a trip to Africa with some new turtles and that they were letting us know before they were made available to the world. It's nice that gallery owners remember their clientele's tastes.

We got this raku turtle.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

An ornament Santa left on the tree last year.

For more ornaments, see here.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A ceramic sculpture by Molly Heizer.

His underside.

We had seen a turtle by Ms. Heizer in the Canyon Road Contemporary gallery a few trips to Santa Fe ago. When we were there in August we asked Nancy if they had any turtles of hers. They didn't but it turns out that Molly would be in the gallery later in the day. Perhaps we could see if she could make one for us. We went back and met with Molly. She told us she could make some turtles and send us pictures. No obligation.

A few weeks ago we got pictures of two turtles. We chose this one.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A little metal box with its lid off.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

I don't know the story of this one. It's a bit more than half an inch long. It's hollow and has a hole on its top and underside. Is it a bead? I hope whoever gave it to us remembers and can tell us.

Top

Underside

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A stepping "stone" made by Spoontiques.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

Jerry's ink.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A narrow tile hanging between the bathroom and the gym doors.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

Left to right, a turtle made by Kathy "Wan Povi" Sanchez (seen before in Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday, The Real Beginning), a turtle (seen before) hatching from its marble egg and a glass turtle (seen for the first time (I think) today).

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A stained glass turtle made by my niece Xian.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A Jonathan Adler turtle footstool with a needlepoint shell.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

An embroidered hand towel (or would it be a dish towel?).

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

Coasters.

These were another wedding present from Bobbie!

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

Dishes by Emilia Castillo.

We got these from Packards going-out-of-business sale.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A shopping bag we got in the parking lot of el Santuario de Chimayo. (It's not an official relic of the Santuario.)

Hey, it's the same design as placemats Bobbie gave us!

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

Candlesticks.

These were a wedding present from Bobbie. Thanks, Bobbie!

Cohen the Violinist, 2013

Once again, it is Labor Day Weekend! This is the time of the year that Ms. Magic Meryle Cohen, Cohen the Violinist, publishes her annual celebration in the U-T San Diego. Below is this year's edition.

But, before you read her story (and you might have already seen it in the newspaper and you just want to know more about her), you first need to watch a little video I made of her as an entry in an Oceanside International Film Festival contest.

The OIFF had a little contest to celebrate Oceanside's 125^th Anniversary. They wanted people to submit short videos that were about or recorded in Oceanside. To enter, a person just had to send a message to their Facebook account with a link to the video. If they thought it was OK, they posted it to their Facebook page. Voting was done by Likes of the videos' posts.

Magic Meryle called me and a left messages on the machine telling me about the contest. She thought that she'd be a good subject of a video celebrating Oceanside. Of course, she was right! She plays at the Oceanside Sunset Market the first Thursday of each month and the entry deadline was the following Monday. We had little time to plan.

I got to the Sunset Market after work that Thursday and found Magic Meryle. She had a script ready complete with cue cards. We recorded about five takes of the routine. The last take went without a hitch (well, she did have a little trouble getting her violin under her chin because her hat's ear got in the way) so that is what you get to see. She also had some photographs of her with members of New Kids on the Block (while they were still kids), Eddie Murphy and Paul Rodriguez that she wanted in the video.

I raced home and made the video to upload to YouTube. I told the OIFF of it and they added it to their contest.

The attendees of the Film Festival didn't get to see it. The video didn't win the contest. It didn't have much time to get attention and I don't have all that many Facebook friends to stuff the ballot box. All the other entries in the contest did get shown. Half of them didn't even celebrate Oceanside, they were simply shot there. I guess there was one criterion that they didn't mention: that it had to have slick production values. I thought the point was to celebrate Oceanside. Feh!

Magic Meryle is an Oceanside treasure! The Oceanside International Film Festival's attendees deserve a full refund (even though they don't know what they missed)!

Here is Oceanside's Cohen the Violinist.



And now you can read her story. She's got a new picture this year. Why does she look so different?

Magic Meryle plays at the Oceanside Sunset Market on the first Thursday of each month. Try to go see her. And please don't forget her tip box.

And tell her Chuckbert sent you!

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A Zuni fetish from Packards going-out-of-business sale.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A resin turtle.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A ceramic (?) turtle with a "Made in Thailand" sticker on its underside.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

Our friend Lou gave us this one when she came over for dinner when Mom (or was it Peggy?) visited.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A dish towel with a turtle appliqué.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A Jon Anderson creation.

I'm pretty sure that Peggy gave us this one.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A turtle carved from a coppery, sparkly stone or piece of glass. Is this a natural stone?

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A little ceramic turtle with an indecipherable signature.

Here's the other side with the writing.

Maybe it says "Costa Rica" (but that seems silly to me).

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A placemat from Bobbie.

The kitty eats in style (protected by a flexible cutting mat).

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

Tchotchkie has a new home!

We had gotten him a Tortoise House when he first move in. Tortoises need to have sunshine so they need to live outside. The Tortoise House can stay outside and is big enough according to the reptile store person. But it just felt too tiny for me. Besides, tortoises like to dig.

So I built him a pen to live in. It is a redwood box that is intended to be a raised bed garden. It's four feet by eight feet.

Here's the nearly finished product. It has the Tortoise House in it so he has a dark, secluded place to hide.

Tchotchkie's at the far end of the pen.

The mesh in the lid was meant to be the gopher barrier at the bottom of the raised bed. I wanted a lid to make sure Tchotchkie doesn't escape and to keep predators out. So I built a frame to hold the mesh and attached it to the box with hinges and hasps. I hope it is indeed secure enough to keep this master of escape from escaping.

Here's a closer picture of him.

 Closer yet.

Since tortoises like to dig and they're masters of escape, I needed to make sure he couldn't burrow out of the pen. I dug a hole where I was going to put the pen.

Then I set the box over the hole. I used old chunks of concrete and concrete paver stones as supports.

I then lined the hole with hardware cloth and attached it to the box.

Then put the dirt back into the hole. Since the box is a little above the original ground level, I had to haul dirt from other parts of the yard to fill it.

Then, all I had to do was attach the lid and add a tortoise. Then we're up to the first picture above.

It still needs landscaping. I need to get things growing in there that he'll like to nibble on. Grass would be a good start.

I hope he digs his new digs and digs in it.

I hope it is escape proof.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A pot lurking under a side table holding pine cones.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A little seed pot by D. Lewis-Garcia of Acoma Pueblo.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

Another cast aluminum souvenir from the Joshua Tree National Park Visitor Center by Mark Heuston. This time it's a wind chime.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A cast aluminum souvenir from the Joshua Tree National Park Visitor Center by Mark Heuston. Proceeds from the sale of this artwork are used to fund park projects.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A netsuke.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

Meet Tchotchkie.

He's a Russian tortoise. One of my coworkers found him wandering through the neighborhood. He polled his neighbors to see if anyone was missing a tortoise but no one was. So he asked if anyone at work wanted to take care of him. I suggested the San Diego Turtle and Tortoise Society. They apparently didn't want to make a special trip and John didn't really want to drive the tortoise down to San Diego. So I offered to take him to see if I could get him a good home.

We bought him a home from the local reptile shop. It's a two-by-three foot box with a lid (wire on one end and solid on the end with a secluded little room). The reptile person said that is a big enough home for the tortoise. It seems small to me. I think I'll build a pen in the back yard. This is a digger, so I'll have to line it with hardware cloth to keep him from escaping. And cover it with a wire lid to keep predators away.

The reptile shop person said he's pretty much full grown. And his beak is an indication that he hasn't been given the best diet up to now. I guess they keep growing and wear down when they bite off bits of chow. If it doesn't wear away, I guess I'll have to take him to a vet to have it filed down.

This critter will outlive us (if we take good care of it).

Speaking of tortoises wandering down the street, I got to see this guy last week at Joshua Tree National Park:

I was driving down the main road and a couple were standing on the side of the road looking down. They were watching a desert tortoise. Of course, I parked the car and joined them. The poor thing was in the road with steep curbs on both sides of the road.

Earlier, munching on the plants growing in the road:

The couple left and I was there with no idea what to do. I stood guard as it walked from one side of the road to the other. We all know that we're not supposed to touch these tortoises. I wish I had seen the desert tortoise link above that tells us that in this case, when the tortoise is in imminent danger of being struck by a vehicle, that we can move it if done carefully. Somebody hoisted it up over the curb and onto the dirt but not the 50 feet from the road they say it should be moved. Next time I'll know better. I hope it stayed out of the road.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

Key hooks holding some of turtles already seen here.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A netsuke.

Turtle Tchtchke Tuesday

A concrete turtle with a river rock shell.

Ray and Cathy gave me this one.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A key ring/bottle opener.