AILSA CHANG, HOST:
California lawmakers have spent the day dealing with a grim budget situation. But before that task, politicians, their staff and the press found a few moments of joy as they competed in a ribbiting contest, the annual frog jump on the lawn of the California Capitol. CapRadio's Megan Myscofski was there.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: The river's down this way.
MEGAN MYSCOFSKI, BYLINE: A crowd in suits and dresses gathers around a roped-off area on the Capitol grounds.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: All right, next, we have representatives from the California Treasurer's Office.
(CHEERING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Geraldene.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Geraldene.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Let's hear it for Geraldene.
MYSCOFSKI: Katharine Weir-Ebster is the representative, and Geraldene is her frog. Some of the other frog contestants at the jump today - Frogs In My Backyard, HOPpenheimer and AmphiBeyonce. Weir-Ebster puts Geraldene down and claps to scare her into jumping away.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Oh. She's looking (ph).
MYSCOFSKI: That's the whole point of frog jumping, which Weir-Ebster says is in her ans. Her mom did this in the '60s.
KATHARINE WEIR-EBSTER: Because I grew up in the foothills, I kind of just have known about the frog jump my whole life. So it's just one of those things. You just don't touch the frog for too long.
MYSCOFSKI: You wouldn't want it to get too comfortable.
WEIR-EBSTER: And you want to basically get in its natural instincts to get away.
MYSCOFSKI: Frog jumping has roots in a Mark Twain short story called "The Celebrated Jumping Frog Of Calaveras County," which made Twain and the tradition famous. Calaveras County, a hop southeast of Sacramento, has held a frog jumping event since the 1920s, where people try to get frogs to go as far as they can in just three jumps.
State Senator Marie Alvarado-Gil represents the region in the legislature and hosts the event. She made the leap from the Democratic Party to the Republican last year. She's no longer in the majority in the legislature, but she totally is at the frog jump. There are a few more Republicans competing than Democrats. Republican lawmaker David Tangipa also represents the area and told me the best way to get a frog moving is to yell at it, a piece of advice that works a little less well inside the Capitol.
DAVID TANGIPA: Have a hard conversation with your frog, and hopefully, it jumps a little bit further.
MYSCOFSKI: Soon it was my turn, and I took that advice. I got a frog. I gave it some words of encouragement, then a little yelling, slapped the ground and I won.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: The longest jump and the winner in our media category was Megan with Green Machine at 14.3.
MYSCOFSKI: For NPR News, I'm Megan Myscofski in Sacramento.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE SUGARHILL GANG SONG, "APACHE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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