Turtle Up!

It's that time of year when the weather cools off and people refill their propane tanks in hopes of lighting a fire, tuning into some Hallmark Christmas Classics, and turtling up in front of the glow of the television. You know?

Oh wait. You aren't familiar with the term "turtle up"?  Allow me to enlighten you...

I have been having some weird dreams lately. Being the hypochondriac scientist that I am, I immediately turned to the Internet to understand why this is happening to me. According to my research, I am not alone. According to the very reliable website www.psychicsuniverse.com, in fact, many of us are experiencing vivid dreams: "As we move into the Age of Aquarius we are experiencing new spiritual energies of a higher frequency. Our minds, bodies and sprits are adjusting to these new vibrations and vivid dreams are just one possible indication. The veils are thinning and dreams serve as a bridge between our earthly lives and our new expanding consciousness." So I'm fairly sure that my vivid dreams are an indication that I am a psychic. As soon as I get my palm-reading business up and running, I'll post a link so you can schedule your session. Discounts for Tudor House Blog followers!

But I digress. You didn't come here to know why people dream; you want to know what it means to turtle up. 

In my dream, I was in prison. My good friend Tastee from Orange is the New Black was with me. We were staring at two other inmates lying in their cots, but these other girls didn't have their blankets pulled up all the way to their necks. Tastee looked at me, shrugged, and yelled at the inmates: "Y'all better TURTLE UP!" In other words, pull those blankets up to your necks, like a turtle!

Mabel kindly agreed to model for me to help you visual learners understand:

Above is an example of NOT turtling up. You can see from the photo that, while Mabel is resting her squishy little bod on a blanket, she has chosen not to pull the blanket up to her neck for maximum warmth. This is what the inmates were doing when Tastee yelled at them.

Now, here is a classic example of turtling up. You can see that Mabel has pulled the blanket up to her neck, a la the tortuga. She heard Tastee's call and turtled up.

For further explanation, I have provided you with this full frontal turtle image, complete with my artistic handiwork. You are welcome. 

Get it? So now, feel free to start using this terminology in everyday conversation. I have a feeling this is going to be Big. I believe this, of course, because my Internet research also told me that "Artists, entrepreneurs, inventors and scientists often get creative ideas from dreams. Jeff Taylor dreamed up monster.com, Jack Nicklaus had a dream of a new golf grip. And Nobel laureate and scientist Wolfgang Pauli called dreams his "secret laboratory."  This came from WebMD.com, one of my most trusted online resources. Soon, they will have to edit that post to say: "A dream was also the source of popular pop culture phrase 'turtle up.'"  

If you are curious, I also used an online dream analyzer to tell me what my dream meant. Apparently you just type in your dream, then DreamDictionary.com tells you what each individual word means. This is what the dictionary had to say about my dream:

Neck: Means sensuality, sensitivity, beauty or grace.

Prison: Punishment.

Turtle: Longevity, patience, persistence over time.

Cover: Limited view; you are feeling uninformed about events in the world.

Bed: Your inner thoughts.

Pulling: Desire.

I'm going to put this all together, ignore the bad things, and believe that my dream means that my beauty and grace will be long-lived and persistent over time. Seems about right!