(Note: I watched Mr. Bean this afternoon and am all the better for it.)
I don’t know why, but today I got to reminiscing how my mother fell under the spell of my lizards. Not that she would ever touch one! Heavens no. You would’ve heard the scream…
But that didn’t stop her from walking up and down our florabunda rose hedge with a jar in her hand, catching bugs for my anoles (which they greatly appreciated). And when it came to feeding my iguana, she took pains to prepare really nice salads for him. The lizard in the picture looks a lot like mine, and that lovely salad looks just like the ones she used to make. “Just like Mama used to make” probably doesn’t conjure up visions of happy iguanas chowing down; but to me it does.
Oh, Ma, you were good to my little pets. You would’ve loved those baby fence lizards that we hatched from eggs (with helpful advice from the Staten Island Zoo). Not enough to handle them–but that didn’t really matter, did it?
And no, she didn’t care at all for the thousand tiny praying mantises we hatched out of what we thought was a butterfly cocoon.
A bridge too far
A mother’s love. 🙂
Later on we had a next-door neighbor who liked to prepare salads for my iguana. He had a real gift for winning people over.
I’d love to have seen that.
The picture’s a pretty good one.
The kids at one of the schools I worked at used to pick wild strawberries for him. I’d never allow that now–fear of pesticides.