I just rescued a dinosaur....

[alfreda89]

He was quite cute, perhaps three inches from nose to tip of long tail, and proudly on his feet, head raised, tail out--and I was perhaps 5 steps ahead of his death, two Burmese up from their naps. I feared a lizard grab a la my friend Thinker, so herded him onto a laundry basket and took him outside.

The anole let me know who was boss by refusing to be herded--he hopped out a hole in the lattice of the basket! And then ran 18 inches in the dry leaves, changing color as he moved.

I'm glad he's okay--we had to put out a sweet bait for the rover ants, and I was worried about the anoles. With luck, everyone died underground...

Comments

[apricot-tree.livejournal.com]

I looked up pictures on Yahoo - how cute! Unfortunately that definately falls under the "cat toy" label.

I used to live in Hawaii and one thing I miss is the geckos. You're lucky to have such neat wildlfe. We have banana slugs, but that's about it...

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

My ex was enamored of banana slugs, but never found one for a pet. We had some small slugs under a big stone near our outdoor faucet. (He'd mentioned wanting slugs to feed his box turtles, but when he saw them, he said they were too cute to feed to the turtles!)

I thought they were interesting, but definitely prefer anoles.

Hawaii--warm rain and a zillion flowers. How could you leave? Is paradise such a myth, or did you have to leave?

[apricot-tree.livejournal.com]

I had to leave - I was just out of high school (literally by days) when the Air Force moved my father on.

I would have left anyway. Paradise has a huge price tag and very few jobs.

And bugs from Hell. I liked the Geckos. I didn't like the flying, 3 inch roaches, the scorpions, the cane spiders, and I ESPECIALLY didn't like the 12-18 inch centipedes that bite. All of which get in your house. We had a cockroach give birth in our toaster and once the kitchen ceiling was in explicably covered in red ants. (They were gone by morning.) The roaches land on you if you walk around your house at night in the dark.

Unless you have a high enough income to live in a condo about 30 floors from the ground where they spray death chemicals all the time - they are everywhere.

I moved to Hawaii with a mild fear of spiders. I left with a bug phobia that took over 10 years to get down to something mostly rational. I still hate centipedes.

The beaches are nice. But the ones in Oregon are almost as nice.

I do miss the flowers - especially the plumaria trees and the hibiscus. I also really miss the big melting pot the culture is. The food is incredible.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

and I ESPECIALLY didn't like the 12-18 inch centipedes that bite. All of which get in your house.

Whoa, Nelly! We have 12 inch centipedes here that can get into the house somehow--my Ex found one in the middle of the kitchen floor, it had been effected by spraying for the indoor buggies, so he took it outside where it tried to figure out how to walk again. He let it try and live outside again--later on the biologist friend of a friend said it was rare, and wished she could have seen it.

Another one surfaced later, and he kept it alive with snacks until she could drive up from Houston the following weekend and pick it up. It was beautiful colors--white shading to pale rose and then red or purple, I can't remember which.

I was extremely grateful I didn't find it--I might have been very freaked by its size. I kept thinking Where was this hiding the the #$%@! kitchen? Where could it squeeze in?

the hibiscus. I also really miss the big melting pot the culture is. The food is incredible.

Here we get hibiscus, but they do better in pots--they get big and can live outside in Houston. Austin is a big cultural mix, with the university and the capitol here. And food can be good and varied--it's not Toronto or New York, but it's got more variety than the Midwest, where I came from!

[apricot-tree.livejournal.com]

I've heard a lot of good things about Austin - including that they have a thriving music and art scene. It's been on my list of places to visit for awhile. I bet you have lots of interesting flowers.

One of those centipedes almost crawled over my bare foot while I was watching TV and fried my 16 year old mind. They had to send me to sleep at the neighbors. I was hysterical.

Yours sound pretty. Ours were big and dark and mean. And they eat gecko eggs.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

Yours sound pretty. Ours were big and dark and mean. And they eat gecko eggs.

Hope the geckos got even somewhere on the chain!

Maybe we need to teach our baby Cthulhus to eat centipedes....