I am Lizzy. I live on a Patio
with a lot of other South Louisiana Lizards. We make a good living on mosquitoes,
flies…you know, all the good stuff…Louisiana food can't be beat…you just ask
anyone!
Life is wonderful…or it was. I
accidentally wandered into the house next to our patio and couldn't find my way out for quite a
while. I finally made my very clever escape. I'm glad, too, because the food they served me in that house was boring…BORING.
Well, as I was saying, life outside on
my big patio was wonderful once again. Until.
First of all, I don't know where they
came from, but these big white furry dog-monsters started chasing me and my family
for dear life. We think one of them must have got Morty because we found him
laying out flat…and yes, he was dead. None of us saw what actually happened,
but word got around that one of those awful birds took off with his body.
Good-bye Morty, we hardly knew ye, we all said.
Well, if that trauma wasn't bad
enough, we now see this big black shiny "cat-thing" slinking and sneaking
around the patio with big green eyes that are looking at everything…it chases
our flies, "Hey! Those are our meals you are messing with, you!" It
chases us, even! It chases the birds. It runs up trees in the yard, fast!
Now here is the scariest thing that
ever happened to me: it got me! We all saw it slinking around the corner of the
lawn mower, so we all scurried under it, and I thought I'd made it, but it
grabbed me! The black shiny monster had me! It was pulling me away from my
family by my tail!
I
screamed, Lila, my sister screamed…my whole family and friends were screaming
too!
The monster was thrashing and causing
such a wild commotion, that somehow, our beloved lawnmower moved
around, which I guess scared the killer, so he let go, but one of the wheels
rolled right onto my tail!
Before the monster could get his paws
under our machine, everybody grabbed onto me and pulled. I felt something
behind me snap, but I was free to run with the rest of them, and so we did.
I never saw the rest of me again, but
from the stories I hear from the old folks in my family, it's supposed to grow
back bigger and prettier than ever. At least that is what they are telling me.
So, I guess the moral of my story is,
be careful out there in the big scary world. (…and don't listen to Cappy's
version of how the moral should go about how to not lose your tail.
OH.
I wrote this several years ago
before Cappy retired:
I just put Lizzie outside today. I was finally able to catch her. She
was what I called a lizard, but I guess she was really a chameleon; isn't that
a lizard?
I first spotted her in the den window with her little paws on the glass,
looking around at the big outside world. Poor little thing.
I tried catching her for about a week,
to no avail, because she'd dive to the floor and take off zipping away, hiding
behind some heavy piece of furniture that I couldn't move…but every morning she
was back at her post in the window, watching life going on the outside the
glass.
I began to worry about her, thinking
she'd need something to eat, especially if she was doomed to spend the rest of
her life trapped inside our house, pining away for the freedom she could only
see through the window. I began to put tiny little pieces of raw hamburger on
the sill, along with a spot of water.
Aww, she was so cute. Every day it was
the same ritual; she'd see me getting close with the meat, so she'd run to the
top of the window pane, then slowly...very slowly she'd descend, upside-down
staring at the meat. When she'd get down to the corner and onto the window sill,
she'd do this really funny thing with her head, quickly moving it in and
out...backwards and forwards toward her meal, sometimes waving her arms around,
too. She'd get to the meat, then stand and look longingly out the window some
more, at which point I'd leave her alone and go get some work done. A little
while later, I'd come back to find that the meat was gone and she'd be 'splayed
out' all paws on the window.
But,
the other day she didn't come for the meat and I didn't see her for a couple of
days. I hoped that she'd finally been able to find her way out, the same way
she'd found her way in.
I kind of missed her. When Cappy's on
the boat, as silly as it seems, it's nice to have another living 'body' in the
house; 'somebody' to take care of.
This morning I was settled down on the
sofa with my cup of coffee, when I saw a little movement on one of my indoor plant leaves just
below the window. Then I saw a skinny tale moving around. "Lizzie??? Izzat
you, girl?"
Sure enough it was. I picked up the
whole plant, hoping she'd stay put 'til I got her outside...and she did. She
even tried changing colors, but she was either too worn out, or confused,
because she turned tan instead of green. I took her outside and let her jump
down into the flowerbed by the front door.
"Bye Lizzie!! Have a nice life out
here in your big wide world!"
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