Hiking + Amphibians = Happy Children

Happiness is flipping over a rock and finding a salamander . . . but you've got to flip a lot of rocks before you hit the jackpot; we tried our best at the Mohonk Preserve, but it proved salamander-less, but the next day, while we were hiking to Awosting Falls in Minnewaska State Park, I tried my luck in a drainage gully that ran alongside the trail, as it was damp and full of rocks . . . and there was a salamander under every stone . . . sometimes even two or three salamanders, but only the red-backed and Jefferson varieties, not the elusive yellow-spotted salamander (although we did find a yellow striped mimic millipede).

Clutch Lifting

As far as our salamander streak was concerned, it was the bottom of the ninth, with two out and two strikes-- we had lifted up every log and rock in our secret salamander spot, but because of the previous week's dry weather, the ground wasn't as damp as usual . . . and the patches under the rocks, logs, and concrete were full of ants, termites, centipedes, black beetles, and fat worms . . . but no salamanders; both my children had given up (after asking me if we could "forget" this trip) but as we exited the woods, I gave the last (or first, depending on your perspective) log a quick check, and underneath was one scrawny red-striped salamander . . . a "Texas leaguer," but a hit nonetheless, and so though we are still forty-five shy of DiMaggio's magic number, our streak rolls on.

Seven For Seven

Although it might be a bit early to invite a comparison to the greatest streak in professional sporting history-- Joe DiMaggio's magnificent run of 56 straight games with a base hit-- I would still like to make it known that the last seven times I have gone searching for salamanders with my sons in our secret salamander spot, we have been successful in finding this elusive amphibian, and our streak stretches back to last spring, when we found the spot: last Thursday we found three salamanders-- not that it matters how many we found . . . all it takes is one salamander to keep the streak alive-- and Friday afternoon we found a nest of them under a large chunk of concrete, and Saturday we found a few more, and Sunday we only found one . . . and I can already feel the pressure mounting: what will happen on our next search?

If This Were In A Movie, You'd Call BullSh*t

Though finding meaning in coincidences is an absurd past-time, as we are subjected to an enormous amount of stimuli every waking moment, and our brains are trained to look for patterns-- so if we occasionally didn't note coincidences, that would be extraordinarily strange . . . if the song you were just humming didn't start playing on the radio or if you never ran into the old friend the same day you found a photo of him or her in the drawer, then that would be an improbable life . . . but still, sometimes coincidences are bizarre enough that they border on the unbelievable (remember the opening to the film Magnolia?) and if you are a fan of this blog, then you might remember the Two Fox Event, but that pales in comparison to this more recent coincidence . . . which I will call The Three Turtles in Two Days Event: Friday, on my way to work, I nearly ran over a large painted turtle that was inexplicably trying to cross Fifth Avenue-- so I stopped the car, grabbed it, threw it in the driver's seat, and drove it home so my kids could check it out . . . we let it go in the lake later that day-- and then Saturday morning, I was riding my bike up Second Avenue and nearly ran over an Eastern box turtle-- which was also inexplicable trying to cross a busy road-- so I grabbed this turtle and rode home one handed (I did drop him once, but he seemed fine . . . it's nice to have a shell) and we went through the same routine . . . my kids played with him a bit and then we let him go near our secret salamander spot . . . and then later that day it was Ian's birthday party and as a special treat we hired a reptile guy, who brought many large reptiles, including a giant black and white tegu, an alligator, and, of course, the third turtle to temporarily reside in my yard in the span of two days.

Thus Endeth The Streak

We went down swinging, but-- tragically-- our salamander streak is over . . . I lifted up every rock, cement block, and rotten log in the Meadows, but even though it was a damp night, we had no luck-- just ants, centipedes, worms, and a giant hairy spider, and this makes me wonder: Where the f-%#  did all the salamanders go? . . . it makes no sense, we found them by the dozens earlier this spring, but now they have vanished . . . and, to add insult to injury, my kids stepped in dog-shit and-- defying the laws of dog-shit physics-- they managed to transfer the dog-shit from their Crocs all up and down their skinny bare legs . . . and now that our run is done, I can honestly say that our attempt to match The Yankee Clipper is certainly a reminder of just how stupendous his streak really is.

Snakes on a Homonym (Parts 1 and 2)

My boys and their buddy Ben went to the salamander path on Tuesday, to turn over some rocks and find salamanders, but--to their surprise-- they found more reptiles than amphibians: six garter snakes to four red-backed salamanders; they brought the snakes back to the house, marched into the kitchen and -- to my wife's surprise-- tossed them on the counter (which is a geometric plane, of course . . . I know puns are gauche but I couldn't resist . . . and I like to imagine the scene like this: my wife yelling at the kids, Samuel Jackson style, while gesturing at the counter with one of those math-teacher rubber-tipped chalkboard pointers, "There are too many motherf*#$ing snakes on this motherf%$ing plane!") and then they removed the snakes from the kitchen, put them in a cooler, and wheeled them around town to show their friends (and released them in Ben's yard later that afternoon) but they neglected to inform my wife that though they had brought six snakes into the kitchen, they only managed to remove five of them, and so when we got back from soccer practice, there was a snake on the counter under a clear tupperware container-- when my wife started cooking it crept out from behind the spices to enjoy the heat of the burner and she trapped it . . . it was a cute little guy, just enough of a snake on that motherf*&^ing plane (and I was going to title this sentence Snakes on a Plane, but I mentioned this anecdote to an English teaching colleague and he said, "Ah . . . a homonym" and I realized that the only title more annoying than my initial idea is the current one).

Spooky Serendipity

I finished Henry James' ambiguously supernatural novel Turn of the Screw Sunday morning and not an hour later, while walking back from our secret salamander spot, my son Ian -- unprompted -- told me that "the boy's bathroom at school is haunted" and then he explained that while he was going to the bathroom, the door inexplicably locked of its own volition and that this "happened to another boy," and so I asked him my favorite question (Do you believe in ghosts?) and he said, "not really" and I said that I felt the same, and suggested that maybe it was the wind that locked the bathroom door, and he countered, "How could wind get inside a building?"