There were a number of interesting things about the bullfrog who made our local newspaper the other day. Primarily, of course, that it was turquoise. But also that it was presiding over the pond of someone I actually know. Someone who occasionally comments on this blog, in fact. Victor Berthelsdorf is the son of a distinguished gentleman who used to live on my mail route. Among pater Berthelsdorf’s distinctions, postally speaking, was that his mail was delivered into a round hole on the side of a garage, facing a different street than his address. New carriers hunting for a standard mail receptacle tended to wander helplessly around the house, failing to find anything near the front door, and try the round hole, listening to the mail splat inside all echoey, and worry they’d dropped it into a garbage bin or something. (I labeled the hole so they’d feel better about themselves.)

So. Turquoise frog. We’re not in the tropics so it’s pretty unusual, but apparently a known mutation that suppresses yellow pigmentation is responsible for it. The frog is quite beautiful, but then again all amphibians are gloriously beautiful, even the ugly ones. If you had a turquoise frog in your pond, you could be forgiven for feeling special about it. People of a certain cast might even take it for a sign of something, a portent.

I’m not of that ilk. My understanding of coincidence is simply that two things happen at the same time, as well they might, and the machinations of the gods, or the alignment of the stars, isn’t really involved at all. I can’t help it—I’m just that dull of spirit, but it does not mean I am immune to wonder. Just the opposite. Way I look at it, this entire world is full of the most extraordinary things, some as flashy as turquoise frogs and some as intimate as a personal chickadee that takes a liking to you. My excursions into wonder lead me to believe that there are probably individual genius millipedes renowned in their local arthropod society, and they would blow us away in the right circumstances. Those circumstances being a willingness to plant one’s nose in the duff and observe. Wonders abound, and the person primed for delight keeps her antennae fully unfurled for them.

wrong blue frog, Pootie

Bullfrogs in general are not all that special. In fact bullfrogs around here are like Alstroemerias in my garden: they’re fine, if you don’t want to have anything else. Bullfrogs have a way of making themselves the only critter around by eating everything else the hell nearby. They will eat all the tadpoles of the native frogs. They will eat the native frogs. They will eat birds. If you’re a small nearby human, they will eyeball your shoe size and think about it hard.

And because they don’t strictly belong here, from an ancestral point of view, many environmentally-minded people are happy to kill them. Our own regional government Metro, for whom Dave and I volunteered as frog-egg counters for several years, invited us to help do them in, one pond at a time. The plan was to net their egg masses and strand them on shore to dry up, but stouter souls were willing to damage the adults to death in some way I never learned. I understand the point, but I’m not capable of that. I can barely skoosh a mosquito.

I could, however, strand me some eggs.

I just don’t feel the same way about embryos as I do about grownups. And I vote.

Still, if Mr. Berthelsdorf wants to feel special about his turquoise bullfrog, I wouldn’t blame him a bit. I’m all for it. In fact I feel a little special about almost sort-of knowing the man who has a turquoise bullfrog. I’m Special-Adjacent.