Jabberwocky for 2005 October 18

I'm reading one of Rachel's travel books; this one is about France. In a little town in France, they have an annual Frog Festival at which everyone stuffs themselves with frog legs. A Mademoiselle Grenouille is elected. The criteria on which the girls are judged is the same as for the frogs: the thighs must be firm and succulent. The girl with thighs most like those of a perfect frog wins the crown.

This writer went to a snail festival too. Frog legs and snails are two of the things I will never eat. The snails because I kill snails every day, and they have this unpleasant combination of crunchiness, ooziness, and slime. The frogs because of Louie.

When we lived out in the country, we had for a while a mascot who lived in the swimming pool, Louie Grenouille. He was huge and beautiful and even quite tame. The kids used to float around with Louie riding on their stomachs. It was a sad, sad, day when Louie Grenouille got sucked into the pool filter. Of course, being the mommy, I had to do the dirty work and take the filter apart to scrape Louie hamburger off every working part. I will never get over that.