ribbit

My sister who lives in a new-ish subdivision in Northern California complained that she's aggravated by the chorus of frogs in her backyard. She comes home from work and she's got to hear them ribbit all night long. She says they can be so loud that they keep them awake at 2 am.

I am not a froggy fan. I like their legs fried with garlic, but otherwise my associations with all things frog are unpleasant. I skinned my stomach as a child trying to escape a ledge where I saw these large toadlike things at the end, blocking my way down. I took vengeance on them in bio class, but handled them with at least a couple of gloves. And a very unpleasant memory is seeing the backend of a toad/frog stuck at the end of a sewer pipe. Ugh, they wriggle, they slime, they look at you askance. Yes, they are nature's canaries in the pollution wars, and are in some cases endangered. They are not cute though.

My sister was giving away old handbags she accumulates, and one of them, a Fendi, looked like a frog. Dark brown, squat, leathery patches. Took a dislike to it immediately and sold it as soon as I could. I saw a newer cousin of the bag at the Fendi store in Vegas; it may cost the moon but to me it's still a squaty froggy fendi.