Leapin' Lizards!!!

Portland was my latest stop on my seemingly endless quest to garner myself an agent for my books. Mom came along, never one to miss an opportunity to buy unique fabric here-to-for unseen in this neck of the woods.

We came home loaded with bags of fabric, boxes from Ikea (that is a dangerous place for fairly-new homeowners!), and bags of books from Powell's. Mom dropped me off at my house, and went home to examine her treasures.

She sat on the floor of her sewing room and spread the fabric out around her. Cute swatches of teddy bear fabric, Christmas elves, kitties and pawprints, next to coffee prints, from under which shoogled a nasty little florescent blue lizard. It shimmied across the floor and found repose between the television and a fabric cabinet.

Mom flew to her feet and ran upstairs. "Doug Doug Doug there's there's a a come now!"

Doug figured out that something icky, and alive, was downstairs, so he donned his leather work gloves and brought a towel.

The lizard was still sitting in its hiding spot, further defining why it's an insult to be called "lizard brain." Doug reached down with his gloved hand and grabbed the squirmy bugger.

The lizard freaked out and dropped its tail. The tail bounced around on the floor for several moments, curling and straightening and curling again as it tried to make sense of being displaced from its body.

Somehow Mom's foot ended up on the glove which still held the very-much alive lizard body, Doug having removed his hand at some point prior. She stayed standing on it, fear paralyzing her.

"Are you going to move your foot?" Doug prompted her.

"Not until I'm sure it's good and dead."

"I think it's dead."

After Doug took care to shake out each piece of fabric individually, I ventured downstairs to see Mom's new stash. I was a little disappointed there was no chalk lizard outline on the carpet.

"Well, I suppose we got lucky," Mom said.

"How so?"

"Can you imagine if it had gotten loose on the car ride home?"