At our local conveyor-belt sushi joint, imagine Han's horror when he saw, projected on the wall behind him, this!
Then along came a dreadful, green, you-can-see-what-shape-it-is-so-I-need-not-tell-you, thing:
These made him scrabble his way into my lap and cling to me for the duration of our meal.
On January 31 a large, brown, shaggy bird caught my eye outside our dining room window. Ewan had just gotten a telescope for Christmas, so Iona and I zoomed in on the bird. It was sitting on a piling in the lake tearing the feathers off a dead crow. We looked the bird up on the internet, and decided it was a juvenile eagle.
Then, a couple weeks ago when Iona and I were out of town, Ewan was cycling along the lake and he saw our eagle at a nearby park. He reported that its scrubby young brown feathers were falling out, and it was starting to sport the markings of an adult. Our little guy was growing up.
Today, just now, Ewan spotted him outside! He's sitting in a tree about a half a block down from our house, right this second. We've been watching him through the telescope. He has only a few brown feathers left mixed into the white on his head, his beak is bright yellow, and he wears a stern frown.
Iona sat right down to draw him. We will be late for school.
Ewan took this photo through the telescope!
Here he is, close up!
And Iona's version!
My sister and her family have a new addition! They haven't named him yet but Ewan and I suggested Yoda. Try not. Do or do not, there is no try. He is twenty and will likely live another sixty to eighty years. That means he may reach a hundred. It's the vegetarian diet, I'll betcha.
When I was a kid of about ten or eleven I went to a slide presentation at our church by some missionaries who had just returned from an exotic place like Africa or Yemen or Madagascar. I'm sure I didn't really want to be there and only went along to please my parents. I sat, half paying attention and half daydreaming about Neil Hansen as the slide carousel clicked around and the presenter said, "Blahblah blah blah." Suddenly up flipped the image of the most enchantingly bizarre creature I had ever seen, and the missionary guy said, "And this little guy was my pet. He's a Veiled chameleon."
After that I wanted a chameleon in the worst way but settled for the anoles (generic-looking lizards that change color) I bought off a burlap-covered board at the Puyallup Fair. One even lived in Mom's Boston fern in the dining room for a couple years until he got lost in the drapes. We finally found him when he was nearly dead, starved to a cold brown twig. It took six or seven live flies to bring him back to his vibrant green, then he enjoyed his heat lamp in his new glass cage for at least another year.
Ages later, when I was in my twenties, I fell in love with a guy because he said to me, "Chameleons? They have prehensile eyeballs." I was nothing if not discerning.
Today I took Iona to the special exhibit at the aquarium: Lizards and the Komodo King. I couldn't get enough. Finally Iona turned to me and said, "Mom, I am through with lizards!" and walked out.
Panther chameleon
Panther chameleon showing off
A legless lizard! That's MISTER Komodo to you, buddy
Yesterday I wrote a story about a girl lacerating her hand. Today, Ewan...
decided to take a branch off our tree with the Sawzall while I was holding our kitten...
and she became frightened by the shaking leaves and did this to my hand:
