Tag Archives: Budweiser Frogs

Beauty is in the Eye…

Lexington-Today

I s’poz I should reassure my friends and declare myself safe from the hurricane.

Chloe my pup, AKA the Queen of Debris, and I have just returned from our afternoon ramble, this time through the eye of what’s left of Hurricane Ida.

I noticed on the weather radar that Lexington was currently nestled in a spot clear of rain. We hastened to don our journeying attire (no, no pith helmets…sigh) and bravely went forth where no man has gone before…at least in the last fifteen minutes or so.

The wind roared along at a brisk zephyr-ish clip as we left the house, passing the fish pond.

We scrambled the frog army from their lily pad perches where they’ve been partying like it was the deluge. They abandoned their “Bud-wei-serrr” keg temporarily, but we turned a blind eye in the nostalgic hope that Louie might crash the gala when it reassembled.

We negotiated (le mot juste) a path that allowed the Queen of Debris to venture near, but not in the excavations of home improvement projects in our neighborhood. Janie would not be pleased if I returned with a muddier pooch than that with which I set out.

It was a short walk, but we managed to cross various streets five times within a couple of blocks…always satisfying. Street crossing is especially important to this hound’o’mine. On a cellular level, she believes that both sides of every street are hers…at the same time. She believes she can have momentum, and be mired and admired in the present moment…all at the same time! She believes if she were Schrödinger’s Dog, she would be alive and dead, within or without the box…at the same damn time!!

Whaddyadoo with a critter like that?

You get out of her way, but keep a tight hold on her leash.

And you walk her in the eye of a hurricane.

I Got Yer Frogs

Movies, , , ,

Frogs.

I got yer frogs.

I’m sittin’ in our library. The windows in front of me overlook a decorative pool with a quiet, reassuring fountain and four frogs, one of which is not quiet. He/she/it serenades with a repeated un-sweet burp that lies somewhere between a croak and a rasp. It is scarily reminiscent of the prophetic sounds my 1963 Mercury Comet used to make in 1969 on I-64 just before it lapsed into a defeated silence that prompted some serious pavement pounding on my part.

Tonight, my feet flinch in memory of that sad excuse for a car with each chirp of the frog.

Still, I like the sound.

It reminds me of other favorite frog moments…

  • The great frog hunt scene, deliciously narrated by John Huston in the film Cannery Row.
  • Walt Kelly’s political candidate frog whose answer to every question was; “Jes fine!” It was a novel and funny concept in the 50’s…mebbe not so novel and not so funny today.
  • Mr. Toad in Kenneth Graham’s THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS.
  • Kermit crooning “Rainbow Connection.”
  • In the ridiculous film Frogs, Sam Elliott (long before he reassured us at the bowling alley bar that “The Dude abides”) rescuing Joan Van Ark from the thousands of frogs angrily erupting from the muck to run amok (one hop at a time) and deal out some vague, ill-explained environmental vengeance against Ray Milland.
  • That jaw-dropping Gray Larson cartoon about frog legs.
  • And of course, those Budweiser frogs. Ah, Louie…I miss ye.

I think I’ll open the window.

R-r-r-ibbittt.