THE TURTLE THING
I have turtles as pets...lots of them...30 to be exact.I used to have more,but I released my aquatic turtles summer before last and in the 6 years I've been doing the turtle thing I've lost 6...all to natural causes except for 2, Mauricio,a central american wood turtle,who was eaten by rats and houdini,a red eared slider, who was eviserated by the main drain in his pond.

I used to belong to and subscribe to a few of the many turtle organizations/web forums,but not anymore...not for a year or more. The overwhelming majority of these groups are harmless enough...advocates for turtle conservation.Believe it or not,turtles are a threatened species worldwide...especially in Asia...where they are being eaten out of existance,literally.

Some of the individuals involved are bored soccer moms with too much time on their hands,prone to engaging in bullshit politics.Some are like me,I just like turtles and wanted to be an advocate.And some are,quite simply,not right in the head.
It was the not right in the head variety that drove me to drop my connections with the online turtle community.

There was once a website called Turtle Cafe, out of austin,the owner was a woman who went by TCC,she had a shitload of turtles and tortoises and sold grazing foods for the tortoises.I knew her online at first,and was honored to be invited to her place, I helped her out with rescues and the general business of keeping turtles.She was a little eccentric...ok...alot,but she was a beautiful person,fragile to be sure,but beautiful none the less.She was a kindred spirit and I felt a connection with her.
There was this other site in california that was in competetion for the tortoise grazing business on the internet,and they would fuck with TCC...Once they posted a picture of her at one of those websites "whose hot,whose not" or some such nonsence...it was a picture of TCC with one of her tortoises,only they photoshopped some boobs onto her body...along with this they bombarded her with threatening emails and posted all manner of bullshit all over the turtle community about her.This was a mistake.Almost everyone in the community had an opinion about it...but most were lame ass about it, a few came to her defense,but not many.TCC killed herself.And that was the end of my affiliation with the turtle community online. If I ever have the opportunity to come face to face with the individuals that pushed my friend over the edge,they will be truly sorry...in that "this is worse than death" kind of way...if you know what I mean.
So now I do my turtle thing on my own,with a few local people.My server is currently down,but I still have a website-turtopia.com-that provides info to people interested in keeping turtles.
Turtles are fascinating creatures,ancient,complex,individual...I could go on and on,but I won't.

TCC gave me a bottle of home made cactus wine a few years back, I can't bring myself to open it...so it sits in my wine rack gathering dust,a memory of a friend I didn't get to know long enough.