May 17, 2004
Love in the Afternoon
I spend far too much time sitting on my lanai in clement weather, watching grass grow to inordinate heights, mimosas bloom pink in a vaguely Nipponese manner, hummingbirds zip by like foo fighters, and waterfowl play the fool. It's good sipping therapy, and I don't smoke in the house.
This time of year brings out the lizards, though. Southern Fence Lizards. Sceloporus undulatus undulatus, although I prefer to call them Velocisaurus terribilis. A strange smallish breed, with mottled colors and curious ridged backs. I would enjoy them more if they were not so plentiful. There is something about being distracted by hundreds of fleeting reptiles, no matter how small, that is disconcerting. Down the wall and up your chair, over your shoulder and down your back. Unnerving, I say.
Lizards love to eat ants, of course. I will watch one arch his back five inches from a conga line of packmule ants and pick off every fifth one, for half an hour.
Male lizards also like to fornicate. I've watched many a male chasing a female, rapine upon his mind. It seems the females dislike those disgusting red glottal engorgements as much as I do. I have never seen a female approach a throat puffer in sexual thrall, and I wonder that the boys continue such schoolyard antics. No, the females ignore this behaviour until the male chases her down, and achieves a decent neck bite, if he's lucky. Then it's to the honey hole with great ardor, until she escapes or he is sated.
Preen without success, then attack and assault. Shameful stuff, but pretty much how we survived as a species in the tough early years before flowers, fermented beverages, and the missionary style (a female artifice, I am sure, designed to engender guilt through eye contact).
Approximately 5% of the lizards I see have no tail, having been the play puppets of the cats. Great loss of balance, sure, but it gives the females an advantage in tight corners.
There are also a few corpses around, the sad victims of overly aggressive play-dates with the felines. Perhaps I shall preserve a few undessicated remains in grog tonight, for later examination. From hobbies come great avocations, I am told.