Waiter! There's a frog on my water dish!

The Brown House.

It had been a year's long absence since I first set foot in the Brown House. And it was this place that first welcomed me to Syria and awakened me to the physical challenges of a life in the village that time forgot (wood, water, K-1 fuel, candles, and critters).

My first night here was last Saturday, after hours of exhausting packing, puttering & toting at the Dorsey House, I was hoping for the simplicity of just walking in to my old friendly space and collapsing upstairs on a bed (any bed, there are many of them here). What I did not need or want at eleven pm in the evening was just one more silly mechanical challenge in my day.

The universe seldom holds still just because I want it to.

When we walked into the kitchen, Reilly O'Dog immediately "pointed" (he's half Labrador Retriev-it) out a problem in the vicinity of his water dish on the floor next to the stove. My primary anxiety was a) mouse, followed by b) MONSTER HORNET, since they both occur here occasionally. The field mice are harmless except that they pose a hygiene problem. The giant (up to 2 inches) yellow jacket hornets are purely vicious and they live to torment Reilly O'Dog, who barks furiously at them and runs away to hide under the kitchen table any time they invade the inner sanctum of the Brown House.

Reilly's "point" lacked the anticipatory "go-get-em" of your average mouse-point and he was not exhibiting panic as in your typical hornet alert.

I bent down to see what he was pointing at and it occurred to me that someone had probably spiked my Diet Coke with blotter acid. Perched on the narrow, curved rim of Reilly O'Dog's stainless steel water dish was a tiny beige colored frog. It looked like it must be an orphaned baby frog, about 3/4 of an inch long. Not a toad, but a proper frog. And then, like magic, the tiny frog just disappeared. I saw no movement. Simply one instant the frog was in front of me, and then the frog was gone. That proves my theory about the Plutos in the Diet Coke.

I got down on my hands and knees and began to search the floor. It is a no-wax floor patterned with earth-tone squares. It hides the pasture dirt well, and you cannot see frogs on it easily.

I looked in the space under the counters. I tried to look under the electric stove, and behind the wood stove. Imagine this dirty, sweaty, sleep-starved idiot crawling around on the kitchen floor in the middle of the night. Looking for a frog the size of my thumb nail? This must be a hallucination, right?

Suddlenly, I spotted the frog again. I moved toward him, and he vanished again. He was sproinging. The little frog sproinged around the kitchen for a good 15 minutes or so with me in relenless pursuit. Each time, he would sproing three to four times, anywhere from 2 feet to 4 feet per sproing, and a fraction of a second per sproing. Then on the floor, he would vanish into the color scheme. The frog seemed to be changing colors to match the linoleum. He was covering an incredible amount of territory very quickly, and it would take me minutes to find him each time.

Sproing-sproing-sproing. Changing compass points with each jump. Becoming instantly invisible when he landed and froze. No wonder he seemed to be able to disappear before my eyes.

Finally, I got close enough to the frog -- this time under the kitchen table -- to reach out a hand toward him. He sproing-sproinged up onto my hand and then onto the arm of my sweater. He had suckers on his tiny froggy feet, and his touch was cold, damp and clammy. His tactical advantages over me were alarming. I did not want froggy running around loose in my house (to die and rot behind the fridge). Nor did I want him hiding in plain sight on the floor where he might accidentally become frog pate.

On the arm of my sweater rested froggy. Briefly. I stood up to take froggy outside and he immediately became airborne! Back down on my knees for more frog hunting. Finally, after another dozen sproings, I caught the now exhausted frog in a napkin and hauled his butt outside.

This tiny, smooth beige frog is very unlike Mortimer toad who lives on my porch at the Dorsey House. Mortimer is a proper toad. Ugly, covered with bumps, fat, slugglish and anti-social. Whenever it rains, Mortimer hops onto the aluminum sill at the door. He waits for his opportunity when the door opens, and then Morty hops right into my kitchen. I have learned to eject Morty with the toe of my tennis shoe (gently). The last time I picked him up to take him outside, he pissed all over me. Mortimer is hateful, but he does love living on my porch.

It's just more of life in Syria. What goes around generally ends up here.

Susie.