When you were a child, what kind of pets did you own? I was a bit of a tomboy so I was always bringing something home asking, “Can I keep him?” Like Tim, the box turtle. My mom let me keep him in an aquarium in my room and feed him lettuce and turtle food. I think we had him for almost a year before he made his escape and headed for the water near our house.

Being such a great daughter, I would always find a way to include humor which would aid in the likelihood of being allowed to keep whatever I’d found. So one hot Texas afternoon I spent the day catching house lizards. They are quite difficult to catch ya know. First, they are fast! And if you happen to grab the tail it just breaks right off. In this plan, that just wouldn’t do.

So I found two great looking house lizards and put one in my pocket while I held the other one up to my earlobe. I pushed it’s face right up there waiting and then… SNAP! He bit my ear and wouldn’t let go. Perfect.

I pulled the other one out of my pocket and after a quick attempt to scamper away, I brought him to my ear and felt another pinch. I let go and had two lizard earrings. I knew my mom would love this. I just knew she’d praise me for being so smart, and for finally acting girlish by wearing earrings. I think I miscalculated that one a bit… :)

She ended up screaming when she saw what I had done and sent me out of the house to let the poor little guys go. I guess that was for the better in the long run because we always seemed to have plenty of wild house lizards to play with anyway.

Yesterday we added a new member to our family. Meet Franky:

Franky is Gavin's new pet hermit crab and despite his mobsteresque name, he's really quite lovely. Franky enjoys crawling around his crabitat, scratching and digging in the fresh sand that we brought home from Key West. He is left clawed, as all hermit crabs are. He rarely pinches, and despite my pleading with Gavin; he still won't let me get a photo of him holding a big fat bag of cash.

Franky... or Franky Two Claws as I like to call him, really loves playing Escape From Prison too. Gavin will "arrest" Franky Two Claws and send him to his crabitat for his crimes. Franky Two Claws wastes no time climbing upward in hopes of scaling the plastic wall and making a break for it. With the assistance of the Warden (and a small plastic lid for a ladder), Franky will make his escape. But like most mobsters living a life of crime, his freedom is short lived and he is soon returned to prison.

Alas, Franky can't ever seem to make his grand escape so he goes back to eating his krill and grape casserole or sucking bottled water from his sea sponge. Every now and again we'll see him pushing sand into one corner and then climbing to the top in hopes of freedom. What a smart crab we have.

We're looking forward to getting him a bigger crabitat with some colorful hand painted sea shells and who knows, maybe a new friend.