Of turtles and popes

One day while browsing through a garden catalog, I saw a cement a cement turtle about a foot long that cost thirty dollars. Immediately I wanted that turtle. Because it was very heavy, it had a hefty shipping charge in addition to the thirty dollars. I didn't think my husband would want the turtle the way that I did, and I was right. "Couldn't we make something like that?", he said. A typical response. A few months later I had an opportunity to attend the Chicago Garden Show at Navy Pier. Was that ever the place for me! I was in heaven to begin with, and then, right in front of me was that exact turtle--thirty dollars, but no shipping charge. Boldly I bought it. I had to haul that thing from way at the far end of Navy Pier back to my son's apartment. By the time I could finally put it down, the shipping charge seemed like it would have been a reasonable expense. Since then I have acquired several other garden turtles. I was given an even bigger flat, black stepping stone turtle. I have one little turtle who hangs on to the rim of a flower pot by one foot as if he's trying to crawl over and in. Cement and resin, metal and plastic and plaster; I guess I'm starting a turtle collection. One day last summer my husband came home in the car and said, "I think I've got something here you're really going to like." He opened the trunk and there was a large real live turtle. It had been trying to cross Highway 11. We put it on the sand at the edge of our pond and went in the house. We never saw it again....Yesterday morning I was lying in bed listening to the radio. Christopher Hitchens came on all in a huff over the fuss the media is making over popes. I had to agree. Pope, pope, pope every day. Although I, myself, had gotten up in the middle of the night to watch Princess Diana's funeral, I couldn't see why my husband did the same for the Pope. As Christopher Hitchens said, "The whole world isn't Catholic." So, I was slightly annoyed when I came downstairs and found another session beginning on the T.V. Was the smoke white? No, it's getting darker. Everyone's jumping and clapping. It's getting white again. But no bells. Where are the bells? At the exact moment that the bells finally began to ring, I looked out the window and saw, at the edge of our pond, our real live turtle, basking in the sun.