What up with frogs?

We have long been fascinated with frogs.

In the book of Exodus (7:25-8:11) we read that frogs raining from the sky were one of the ten plagues of Egypt.  Yuck!

In Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1999 movie Magnolia, we saw frogs raining from the sky on John C. Reilly.  Yuck!

The Brothers Grimm gave us the Frog Prince.

Kiss a frog and he’s a prince!  Yuck!

Never one to leave something grim or dark, Disney has given us The Princess and the Frog.

I am pleased to report that Berkeley has embraced the frog.  I would never use the word “kitsch” because it is a put-down word.  Similarly, I wouldn’t say “low-brow” or “garish.”  And don’t bother searching every Quirky Berkeley post ever – I probably have, but I regret it and I am not here today saying that the frogs in Berkeley yards are kitsch.  Let’s just take them on their face – frogs.  Joyful frogs!

My goodness, as Charlotte would say, my goodness.  That’s a lot of frogs.  So many, that I almost don’t need this one:

Once in a while I end up with a photo with no address associated with it.  The rules say don’t run those photos.  But – this is a great frog from a path somewhere in the hills.  Somebody will tell me where it is, so I don’t considered it as lacking an address, just waiting for an address.  UPDATE: Keith at El Mirador Path going down to Euclid.  VICTORY!

When I took these photos to show my friend, he was gathering photos of two fisherman statues.

This one is from the Isola delle Feminine (aka Isula dî Fìmmini) in Sicily.\

This one is from our neighbor, Pittsburg-no-h-California.  Sister cities!  Lots of Sicilian immigrants.  The sculpture is by Frank Vitale, who also created the Steel Worker of Pittsburg statue in town.  The fisherman statue reads: “In memory of the Italian fishing pioneers who  settled and developed early Pittsburg.”

There could only be two reasons that my friend was off on this pursuit.  The most likely is that he had met someone from Isola delle Feminine or Pittsburg and was enchanted.

It is also possible that he was looking into Joe DiMaggio’s childhood in Pittsburg.

I told my friend that I wanted to hear a lot more about this but first, would he mind looking at the frog photos and letting me know what he thought.  He did and he did: