It was birthday time this week and my daughter was bent on getting two turtles.   After science class featured several reptiles, the turtle was a bit more friendly than a snake.   I figured prettty low maintenance.     Well, we ended up getting tortoises and they are a hit.     They were named Deleuze and Guattari after the philosophers, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari.    Nova calls the female Del-lu-zee and Guattari is the boy.    



























We recycled an old sandbox into a pen for them and they roll around the deck depending on the sun.     An impromptu observation deck was set up with notebook and some serious note taking has been going on.   Every move the tortoises are making including pooping has been documented.
  

Anyone who tells you a pet is a pain in the ass is right, they are a lot of work, especially a puppy (I now have 3 dogs and a stray cat).  The benefits of having a child learn responsibility and care for a pet along with the excitement in their eyes to have made a discovery is priceless.   Worth the house training, nipping, barking etc.   Luckily the tortoises are pretty low maintenance.     I now have a 6 year old that knows who Deleuze and Guattari are (atleast she will want to learn more about them when the time comes)  and enjoys taking notes and observing these docile creatures.

A little blurb on the great philosophers:

Gilles Deleuze was an influencial French philosopher who died in 1995.    He wrote many influencial works on literature, fine art, film and was considered a cultural critic.  check out: Capitalism and  schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus.   His pal,  Felix Guattari, a contemporary,  was also a philosopher and psychotherapist who co wrote Anti-Oedipus (1972) and A Thousand Plateaus, 1980.    They were friends and considered quite cool.      Michel Foucault was also writing in France around this time.   I imagine they all hung out together, talked about ideas like Metaphysics and Values, and drank Absinthe at smokey cafes.

 

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