The Morbid Ballet of Cricket Death

Imagine, if you will, a one and a half-ish foot-long lizard perched jauntily on a nicely detailed fake branch, being served wriggling crickets by a humble human. He is a vibrant array of cool jungly colors: several shades of bright green, dark brown bands on sides and tail, and a shock-white belly. Sooty black rings strange eyes and streaks back to strange ears, sky blue blurs on jaws and cheeks, pinks and purples tinge sectioned lips, and the throat - like darkened jewels - shifts from midnight blue to royal purple to magenta to forest green to black to red, and back again. And the tongue is an orangey-pink sticky lump, and faster than the human eye.

The human, a punk-haired young woman with a stuffy nose, sits in a chair next to the open sliding glass door of the lizard's cage, calcium-dusted cricket bag in one hand and sneezing cricket on the other. She rests the cricket-hand just inside the cage, right in front of the lizard, who with what can only be deemed lizardy glee, cocks his head one side, then the other, opens his strange yellow mouth, sticks his glob of a tongue partway out, shifts his head from left to right a bit to get the proper angle and then — BLAT! The tongue splats onto the cricket (and partially onto the human's hand) and sluuurrps it backward into the waiting jaws faster than the fastest blink. And then the crunching begins.

The human giggles and hands the lizard another cricket. This one leaps off her hand and into the cage, and the lizard scuttles forward and blats it up, then scuttles back into place in front of The Hand Of The Big Thing, awaiting another wriggly-legged morsel. This morbid ballet lasts all of about fifteen minutes as the lizard gleefully chews down approximately thirty dusty crickets and the occasional fruit bite. The human has giggled much, and laughed outright a few times when the lizard-after-a-cricket's antics brought him surging up onto her hand in a desperate (though succesful) attempt to glomp up a wayward insect intent on running up the human's wrist and onto her arm. Crickets gone, the lizard peers up at the human, and the human peers down at the lizard, and a silent 'thank-you' and 'you're-welcome' ensues. The lizard sits, too full to move, as the human closes the door to the cage, crooks a fond finger at him, and leaves.

The lizard, almost wobbling - if reptiles can wobble - drags his full belly onto the nearby hotrock and closes his strange eyes in contentment.


This is Heironymous, my not-quite-juvenile, not-quite-adult Chinese Water Dragon. We call him Harry for short, which goes better with the googley-eyed black fancy goldfish named Fred who resides on a kitchen counter. Harry is, hands down, the coolest lizard I've ever had. And that's really saying something, since the Savannah Monitor I once had named Gabriel would literally throw himself at the glass at the front of the cage and slide sideways back down, scrabble at the glass a bit, then heave himself up again only to slide down again, and scrabble again, all in a strangely heartwarming attempt to get me to hold him so he could sleep on my chest. He was desperate for my attention, and would not STOP throwing himself at me through the glass until I either left the room or gave in. Harry doesn't particluarly enjoy being held, but as long as I'm not actually holding ONTO him but rather holding him up, he puts up with it. And I think that he, like Gabriel, enjoys having his strange little ear-holes scratched.

Harry's tongue, when his aim is just a bit off and he blats my hand as well as a cricket or fruit bite, feels like a lot like those disgusting little sticky octopus toys that I loved so much as a kid; you know, the ones that you can throw at the wall and they stick to it, and gravity causes them to slowly "walk" down the wall. Or refrigerator. Or TV. Or whatever. I'm sure Mama Wren has many fond stories of finding the gross little things lying at the foot of damn near every vertical surface in the house at some point or other when I was a toddler.

*Sheepish grin* Sorry, Mom.

Harry is the only lizard I've ever had that I can feed by hand. I am endlessly amused by this, and really do end up giggling and laughing out loud. Yes, I know. I'm strange. But Harry encourages it, eagerly blatting up crickets and fruit bites. He even came running full out from the other side of his cage the other day when I put fresh fruit bites and cut up grapes in his food bowl. I giggled so much I fell into a fit of coughing (I'm getting over a cold) and scared him.

The Morbid Ballet of Cricket Death described above was the highlight of my Saturday. The rest of the day consisted of cleaning, organizing, folding, putting away, re-organizing, and coughing. The apartment is finally set up the way I want, with the exception of the computer and I think a box or three still at Mama Wren's nest. I've been battling whatever cold-bug that's been going around here for the last several days, and was stayed home from work a couple days last week. During those days I rested until I couldn't stand the thought of lying down another minute, then unpacked and cleaned as much as my cold would allow. I get weak when I'm sick- I went over to Mama Wren's to get the last of our stuff and had to settle for two bags of bed stuff and towels and two crates holding my Windstone Dragons (if you are a dragon lover and have not laid eyes on a Windstone Dragon, by the gods, DO!) After hefting just those four things up the steep driveway, I was beat. I sat with Mama Wren and talked for a bit, got a Mom-hug (those are great for getting over colds) and went on my weary way. The thought of resting was beginning to regain it's appeal by that time, and upon arriving home I promptly left everything in my car, trudged into the apartment and slept for another two hours. With tissue stuffed up my left nostril to keep from waking up later with a puddle of snot in my ear.

*Sigh* Colds suck.

I'm mostly over it now, with only residual coughing and sore nostrils to hint that anything's wrong. Otherwise, I feel great. Although our apartment is small, we've managed to make it look nice, and kept it as roomy as we can where we can. Harry's cage is in the kitchen's tiny dining area, with the table pushed right up against it to double as my drawing area and a preparation surface for cooking. The kitchen really is the most cramped part, but the boy and I are managing. We discovered quickly that only one of us at a time will fit in it, so we take turns cooking and such, and out of sheer necessity, I have transformed in a little over one week from someone who did the dishes only when they were so piled up in the sink that I couldn't get a drink of water to someone who does the dishes almost as soon as I'm done eating off them. Mom, pick your jaw up off the floor- I think I'm even more suprised by it than you! *grin*

We're getting down to the details now: where to hang this picture, where to put that poster, would this candle look better over here or over there? I'm also realizing how horribly misleading those little bath and shower gift sets really are. They seem so convenient when you need to buy someone a present at the last minute- why not get them this cute little bow-tied and lace-frilled package with shower gel, body lotion, bath salt, body scrubber, body buffer, foot massager, sparkling leg spray, compact mirror, three different scented candles and an adorable carrying case for the whole damn mess?

I've recieved so many of those atrocities throughout the years that I'm throwing away bath stuff that I received eight years ago and never used. Hell, I never needed to use it- I had a good six or seven years' worth of bath stuff to scrub and sniff through already at that point, and it didn't end there. And now, even after Mama Wren and I went through the hall closet at her nest before I moved and threw away a good two-thirds of the stuff in it that we never used and didn't need, I still have too much of it. I kept only the stuff that I really actually liked- the more natural sounding stuff like Mandarin Orange body lotion versus Peppermint-Pinstripe Holliday Jingle-Bell Shower Gel (ooooh, and it's magenta-tinted), and I'll be filling up another garbage bag tonight with some of the stuff that I like but have no room for. If anyone gets me a bath set for my birthday this year, there will be blood. Just a happy little warning...

So the place is - mostly - presentable. We had one of the boy's work buddies and said buddy's girlfriend over for a little while last night, and my bestest friend is in town this weekend and will hopefully be stopping by for a while today after I'm off work. Then, probably this upcoming weekend, Mama and Papa Wren will get to see the place, and Grandma's been chomping at the bit to see it, rumor tells. We have a Sunday dinner date with the boy's parents and younger sister, and after that I think the housewarming will be done, and certainly the last little bit of the unpacking and putting away will be done and it will, finally, be home.

I am, simply, happy.