We ordered some doors and windows for our house and I'm really excited because our builder, Nat, is installing them and making everything look great.  To be clear, our house already had doors and windows, but I think if you'd have seen them, you'd agree that everything needed to move a little to the left. 

It's crazy cold here, and every time Nat removes an old window, the temperature inside the house temporarily plummets.  That's okay for me, but not for Natasha, our turtle, who is thin-skinned about all aspects of her habitat. (For god's sake, Natasha -- would it kill you if the water temperature in your aquarium went down below 72 degrees?  It would? Okay, sorry). So I had to go down to the pet store and buy her an expensive, self-regulating water heater. I also had to put my hand in her turtle water, and I hear that with with these kinds of animals, salmonella poisoning is a real crap shoot. 

Natasha is a gifted turtle.  And by that I don't mean that she gets pulled out of her aquarium for extra reading.  I mean that she was presented to Margot as a joke gift, by our resourceful friend, Ben Cattley, who went all the way to Chinatown in Boston to purchase the illegal-to-sell species. And as I've said before, she's needy (requiring special lights and water filters), and like most reptiles, she is gratitude-resistant.  Natasha killed off a younger, cuter version of herself -- BORIS! We didn't know what was going on in there! And she'll live to be a thousand.  Anyway, Margot was worried about taking a turtle along to college because it could have become endangered, for instance, if a party broke out in her dorm room (For crying out loud, Natasha -- would it kill you if someone dumped a six-pack of Pabst into your aquarium?  It would? Okay, sorry).  So she stays here with us, and to be fair, she is active and splashy and interesting to watch. Okay I love her.

NATASHA