Investigation into Mr. Lizard's fate is ongoing

 When I first saw my lizard that changed colors, summer before last, I looked up lizard identification on the web, to figure out what exactly he was.

The conclusion I came to was a green anole, and one of the interesting facts I read was that their main danger was from feline assassins......but I felt secure in the knowledge that Ms. Halle B is an inside cat, and Mr. Lizard was an outside lizard......

Well upon further inspection of the corner where I found Mr. Lizard's nonlizardliving self, there appears to be blood on the rug, and also on the baseboard.   I haven't forensically tested it to determine if that is what it is, but it sure looks like it (please keep quiet about my lack of housekeeping skills, it is something that I've never been able to master)......

So if it is Mr. Lizard's blood, then probably the only logical answer to his demise is that Ms. Halle B decided to take him out.   Again, I must say that I am glad that she did not show me her trophy, that might have produced screams that would not have pleased the neighbors at all.......

It is true that for some reason, Ms. Halle B has a fondness for green things, toys, insects, dare I say it, Lizards, and I have previously posted about her green obsession http://bontempsontheriver.blogspot.com/2009/08/this-is-locust-or-as-known-to-halle-b.html

Still it is hard to believe that this laid back vision of cattiness, could be the culprit and she of course, vehemently denies any involvement with the demise of Mr. Lizard....

So the sadness continues, and even Clarence, the Christmas Cactus did not bloom this year, as a tribute to the loss of his little green friend.

Not everything this season has been a happy finding.......

I moved a lamp in the living room the other evening. I have moved it an inch or two from its previous spot several times, or at least I thought I had.....

Anyway, this time when I moved it I noticed an odd black thing on the rug, and thought that resembles the shape of a lizard.....oh how funny, but it can't be, and if it is why would it be black, and did someone leave a rubber lizard in the living room that I've never noticed.....

all the while the realization of what this really was dawning on me.........hoping to find when I moved

the black thing, that it was just an oddly shaped piece of paper, or a rubber lizard, or a stain, or

anything but what it was.....

a no longer living lizard......and from the looks of it, he hadn't been with us for quite a while.....

As near as I can tell it is my lizard from the previous summer (09 not 10)......the green anole, which as children we called a chameleon.

I had wondered when I didn't see him this past summer, as he was a regular visitor to the patio in 09......I thought maybe the skinks had run him off.....

I can guess that he came into the apartment at some point when I had the sliding door open, as the screen has a gap in it along the back edge when the sliding door is open, and that the opportunity to make his way back out didn't present itself to him in the right time for him to escape....

why I never saw the cat after him, or why she didn't drag his little nonliving lizard self around the apartment, I don't know.....

With a heavy heart I took him outside, buried him, and said the words that I've heard so many times...... his heart has known love, and although he is no longer with us, he is now wherever we are.......

Happy Trails little buddy.......

A friend recently mentioned that she and her daughter had been discussing what Christmas would be like as the grandkids would not be visiting this year, and therefore feeling something like it wouldn't really be Christmas without children.

The daughter asked what do I do, and the mom thought it a good enough question to ask me......as there are no two legged children around, and haven't been for the bulk of my life.......the answer is....I celebrate with who or what constitutes my family at the time.....this year it is Halle, the black cat; the outside birds, and my good friend and all things horses mentor, M......

Ms. Halle is like most children, whether 2 legged or furry legged....she wants to know ahead of time what her presents are, and spares no effort trying to figure it all out......

I have learned or maybe always have known, how to find joy in the simple things.....fellow apartment dwellers who decorate outside, so that other residents and visitors can enjoy lights in the winter darkness......

The music of the season, candlelit churches, church services in which I am able to be part of the music offered to those present, members, visitors, and this year thanks to the magic of 'live feed' those far away, or house bound.

For many, there may not be the presence of family, or 'the right family' at times of celebration such as this....but that doesn't stop the celebrating, the appreciation of the love that is

the true meaning of the season after all.....

where there is life, there is love, even if it is not

in the form that one expects......

it is there, one just needs to pause and let its 'presents' come in from the cold......

Life at its current pace gives me time to experience and savor life's synchronicities...last summer I took a stack of books that a friend was not able to sell in a yard sale, with the intention of reading them. Of the 10 or so books, I picked up Tom Brown, Jr's The Quest.

My life the past 3 years has been in some ways so different from my life previously, and I find myself struggling with 'why', and 'what is my purpose', and trying to push myself back into a more 'acceptable' lifestyle. In the pages of this book I have found some answers, and so I wanted to know where Tom Brown Jr was at this point in his life, as the book was published in 1991. Thank goodness, he has a website, and is still teaching about nature, the earth, and vision. His web address is: http://www.trackerschool.com/

Today's mystery....this is a picture of ? It is not a current picture, so perhaps that will help....

It is a picture of Christmas Past.....1984 to be exact, and the beautiful chaos on the table is my dissertation, back in the days before computers, and printers made things quick and easy.

I put myself on a quota to finally get the thing finished and be able to graduate that May.....my program was essentially being done away with, so finishing seemed a good thing. It was my

second doctoral program in a second University, so again, finishing seemed like a good thing.

So I gave myself the quota, write for 2 hours and then stop for a candy corn break, then write for another two........

It's an odd thing getting a doctorate, like many things in life, I had plans, such plans for how my life would be with it. For the doors it would open, the jobs

and professional respect that I would have.......

And as often happens, reality was nothing like my vision.......my job pretty much stayed the same, I was treated with pretty much the same respect that I had been getting, some people did call me doctor, some people called me doc, and some people said, oh I didn't know that you had that degree......

Family and friends gathered for the ceremony, my family and friends who lived 1000 miles from me, one set to the east, and one to the west.....but the best part of the weekend was spent as many in my life have been, at the barn,Fwith my Saddlebred, Little Rex, son of So Much a Lady, and "Big Rex". I had had him from babyhood, done all the training and breaking

to ride myself.

I was able to show him off to my college roomie, and horse friend extraordinare, who also climbed up and rode him......A special day indeed....

Interesting how of the two accomplishments, the one involving Little Rex, which was way more complicated than just taking a horse from birth to adulthood, and having no human contact to being a trustworthy riding companion, vs. completing a graduate degree that took years, and many stops and starts, and U-Turns......

My success with Little Rex is the one that gives the greatest joy, and sense of pride in the accomplishment.......

What in your life brings the greatest satisfaction, the greatest joy?