So last week, I was going out to run an errand with my mother. We were backing out of the garage when we saw that there was a lizard on the hood (the bonnet) of the car. It was a decent-sized garden one, maybe three or four inches from nose to tail's tip, mostly a medium-brown colour but with a light stripe down its back and a reddish-orange head. Rather cute, actually. Anyway, Mom, who was driving, backed up so that we'd be nearest the garden, and then I got out of the car. I picked up a chip of mulch and held it near the lizard, intending to use my hand to herd it onto the mulch and set it in the garden. It's best to avoid picking lizards up with your hand if you can, so that you don't accidentally hold them too hard and so that they don't flip out and wriggle or, more likely leap, away.
Needless to say, I had no such luck. The lizard would have nothing to do with the mulch chip, so I had to pick it up (gently). It would have none of that either. It promptly leapt from my fingers onto my forearm, and then onto my sternum. Initially it headed down my blouse and scurried around my bra a little bit before deciding that it wanted to go the other direction. So it ran up to my neck, where I halfway caught it before it leapt into my hair, which was tied back. It did some further scurrying around my head before I managed to catch it again (lizards can move faster than human fingers; that's the crux of the whole problem). This time, when it leapt, I was kneeling by the grass so that it landed in the garden and went about its lizard business. Throughout this whole process, my dad was watering the butterfly garden and laughing hysterically. It was great.
Needless to say, I had no such luck. The lizard would have nothing to do with the mulch chip, so I had to pick it up (gently). It would have none of that either. It promptly leapt from my fingers onto my forearm, and then onto my sternum. Initially it headed down my blouse and scurried around my bra a little bit before deciding that it wanted to go the other direction. So it ran up to my neck, where I halfway caught it before it leapt into my hair, which was tied back. It did some further scurrying around my head before I managed to catch it again (lizards can move faster than human fingers; that's the crux of the whole problem). This time, when it leapt, I was kneeling by the grass so that it landed in the garden and went about its lizard business. Throughout this whole process, my dad was watering the butterfly garden and laughing hysterically. It was great.
Second moment: I had a 6:45 a.m. flight out of the Burlington airport on Monday, so I was in the security screening line before six. (It was staffed, I might add, by the rudest initial screener I have ever witnessed, even accounting for the hour. And considering that I've had similarly scheduled flights out of Boston and New York, that's saying something.) The town of South Burlington, where it's located, is hardly an urban epicenter, any more than the airport is much beyond a pair of glorified landing strips, which is all it needs to be or should be. As I was standing there, listening to the ID/boarding pass-checking lady bitch out, in turn, an old lady with a cane, a later-middle-aged black South African couple travelling home for their son's funeral (they were ahead of me in the check-in line; the poor screener asked innocently), and a twenty-something couple with their two-month-old baby, when a bat flitted in. It wasn't acting odd or rabid (not surprising; only 0.5% of North American bats are); it was just flying around at the usual time for its pre-dawn insect meal and had gotten lost, and was clearly trying to find the exit. It circled around where I was standing a few times and was obviously trying to keep to open spaces and find bigger ones - i.e., looking for the exit. It flew the wrong way, into the concourse, a few times, and there were these occasional shrieks punctuating the low-level hum of early morning airport activity, and lots of people looking around and huddling up nervously. At which point I wanted to note aloud that it was a run-of-the-mill northern woodlands kind of bat, for crying out loud, not a rabid hyena. Fortunately, it eventually headed toward the exit and presumably winged its way home from there.
Third and most truly touching moment of interspecies bonding: Yesterday afternoon I was headed out of the house to run some errands at just the same time that Violet decided to go outside for her afternoon stroll and meditation time in the butterfly garden. (Mostly she likes the shade and butterflies; I've never seen her try to catch one.) She was sitting on the top of the steps leading to the driveway, contemplating her next move (stroll or nap?), just as I was closing the door behind me. I took a sip from my water bottle as I was locking up and promptly aspirated the mouthful instead of swallowing it. So my choke reflex did its job and activated in fine form, with the result that I was coughing hard enough to have my upper body convulse, hacking loudly and flailing my arms with exactly the amount of grace and restraint you would expect from me in that situation, which is to say none. It probably would have been a bit of spectacle if anyone had been watching me besides Violet. As it was, the noise was enough to cause her to turn her beautiful kitty head toward me and watch me with those wide blue eyes of hers, her expression utterly blank. I kept up with trying to clear my trachea for a few minutes, while she stared at me, motionless and completely detached. There wasn't anything I expected her to do, of course, but I found myself imagining her sitting there watching me in the throes of agony, idly half-wondering what the human was doing this time and which plant she should nap under. Also great.
On more predominantly bipedal fronts, I had a wonderful visit to Montreal last week and early this. I spent a lot of time, and had a lot of fun, hanging out with friends from my program and my house. It was wonderful to see all of them - everyone seems to have had a rejuvenating, low-stress summer, with plenty of good anecdotes and insights to swap. I'll avoid listing them here, for fear of this entry running miles and miles long, and just say that we had a great time running around the city and making the usual sorts of mischief. I will also say that as good a time as I had, the sense of it being a good-bye visit was a lot more emotionally wrenching than I had anticipated. I knew it would be a bit difficult, just as I know that between future vacations and a million different conferences, symposia, appointments, and professional liaisons, we'll probably be sick of the sight of each other before I'm much past thirty. (Just kidding - I heartily doubt we'll actually be sick of each other, but you take my point.) But for all that, I was struck by the sense of being somewhere I couldn't call home anymore. That's the first time in my life that's ever happened to me because of my own choices. I thought I was more or less inured to all those emotions - moving every few years for my dad's job when I was growing up, leaving a place to which I never had time to get attached to go to college (university), getting my bachelor's and having to leave my small, beloved college like everyone else since it was entirely undergraduate... I could have stayed in Montreal. I could have gotten my doctorate there and stayed with the people I know, with my friends, and had it been economically and academically feasible. And instead I've chosen to leave. I don't think I've chosen wrong; the reasons for my decision continue to ring true for me, and to outweigh the reasons for staying. Mais le cœur a ses raisons que la raîson ne connait pas..
That's enough of the melancholy nonsense for now, I suppose. No need to get more maudlin yet, or at greater length, and I need to get to the gym. As always, there's more to say, but that's what subsequent entries are for.
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