charlescroes
Monday, March 6th, 2006, 04:21 PM
I have always wondered what the lizards on our island talk about. I see them everywhere. On the sides of the streets I see them all the time, especially when I am at a traffic light. I would have to guess that most of those guys are giving condolences to the patch of color in the middle of the street. They hang on to the sides of poles and on bushes as if the world belonged to them. Once (many millions of years ago) it did, but now?
I saw two of them carrying on next to an outside restaurant table. They jockeyed for crumbs and any other thing that might fall from the table. These guys are fat ones. There is an excellent and very healthy lizard at CASA TUA. He hangs around on the hard surfaces at night and I have a suspicion he lolls around on the neatly manicured lawn next to the chairs in the day time, probably under some broad leaf or other shade giver.
Pool deck lizards are the hardiest – I think. I can barely walk across the surface of these decks and there they are – Lizards all over the place. They spend the day looking around the deck for food and somehow manage to do this on three feet. You need to see these guys. They systemically lift one foot then lower it in a rotation of feet. I have been told this is to avoid getting a burned by the pool deck. Personally I don’t buy that story. If that was the case, they would wear shoes and be done with it - anyway – not being a lizard and not knowing if our stores have lizard sizes – who am I to judge these finer lizard points. Was at the pool deck of Costa Linda and I believe they were having a convention. Whether or not that is the case is not as important as the fact that they get along famously with the human critters that bathe themselves in oil and then lie there to scorch.
The beach lizards are fun. They live mostly in a Divi Tree somewhere and skitter. Yup – they skitter!! - and do it masterfully. I like the long trails they leave behind. Nice long lines saying “Leroy the Lizard was here”. Little buggers do graffiti in the sand. We may need to report that to someone, maybe the lizard police. Wyndham has a nice collection of these guys on their beach.
Then there are the Cunucu lizards. They live on a rock somewhere close to a Cunucu house. One of these guys is a male lizard model. I know that because every water based painting of an Aruba country side scene has the same lizard on a rock. The artists must be paying this little guy a fortune. I hope there is a lizard union to cover and protect these guys. Maybe one of them needs a manager? Something to think about.
Then there is HOLO. My son named him when he first saw him. The little guy went across the living room floor and Junior pointed and said – “HOLO”. He named him instantly right there on the spot. Kids have a knack for that.
I used to have a pet lizard a few months ago. He was actually a gecko and was a weather man or actually a weather gecko. He was presented to the readers of another (un-named) bulletin board and was given a 60% approval. Not enough approval to run a country – much less to predict the weather. I have to say that he was right most of the time.
Kids carry them to school and house keepers talk to them. We do not see them any longer because they are a part of us. They blend in much the same way particles of sand blend in to make a landscape. They are important little guys. They eat flies and other buggy things and clean up after messy dinner guests - especially at outside restaurants. They walk on Cacti and incredibly small leaves. They sit at window sills and look in. Some sit on window sills and look out. They are in the rear seat of our cars (never wearing a safety belt) and sometimes meet an untimely demise as a result of napping on the fan belt of the engine.
Hot to trot lizards are the most obvious. How often have we wondered what the lizard is doing when he flips out that long bone under his neck and thereby expose that lovely scarlet colored fold of skin? Ever see it and wonder what is going on? Well – that is a boy lizard calling on a girl lizard to go courting! Yup! That is what that is. So…. Next time you see your darling spouse and feel like courting – just whisper in the ear – hey hone – feel a little lizardy tonight? What the heck – never know what the response will be.
The Ones that I like the best are those that Dr. Carlos Viana called Blueies and Greenies. When we were kids he once told me that they were called by those names. Believed him then and believe him now. Hey – the guy is a doctor right? - and a damned good one at that.
They are discriminated against. No such thing as lizard food in the stores and no such thing as lizard collars. And that is just a bit too much for any lizard to bear. Don’t you think??
So why write about lizards? That is not the question. The true question is why not?
charles
I saw two of them carrying on next to an outside restaurant table. They jockeyed for crumbs and any other thing that might fall from the table. These guys are fat ones. There is an excellent and very healthy lizard at CASA TUA. He hangs around on the hard surfaces at night and I have a suspicion he lolls around on the neatly manicured lawn next to the chairs in the day time, probably under some broad leaf or other shade giver.
Pool deck lizards are the hardiest – I think. I can barely walk across the surface of these decks and there they are – Lizards all over the place. They spend the day looking around the deck for food and somehow manage to do this on three feet. You need to see these guys. They systemically lift one foot then lower it in a rotation of feet. I have been told this is to avoid getting a burned by the pool deck. Personally I don’t buy that story. If that was the case, they would wear shoes and be done with it - anyway – not being a lizard and not knowing if our stores have lizard sizes – who am I to judge these finer lizard points. Was at the pool deck of Costa Linda and I believe they were having a convention. Whether or not that is the case is not as important as the fact that they get along famously with the human critters that bathe themselves in oil and then lie there to scorch.
The beach lizards are fun. They live mostly in a Divi Tree somewhere and skitter. Yup – they skitter!! - and do it masterfully. I like the long trails they leave behind. Nice long lines saying “Leroy the Lizard was here”. Little buggers do graffiti in the sand. We may need to report that to someone, maybe the lizard police. Wyndham has a nice collection of these guys on their beach.
Then there are the Cunucu lizards. They live on a rock somewhere close to a Cunucu house. One of these guys is a male lizard model. I know that because every water based painting of an Aruba country side scene has the same lizard on a rock. The artists must be paying this little guy a fortune. I hope there is a lizard union to cover and protect these guys. Maybe one of them needs a manager? Something to think about.
Then there is HOLO. My son named him when he first saw him. The little guy went across the living room floor and Junior pointed and said – “HOLO”. He named him instantly right there on the spot. Kids have a knack for that.
I used to have a pet lizard a few months ago. He was actually a gecko and was a weather man or actually a weather gecko. He was presented to the readers of another (un-named) bulletin board and was given a 60% approval. Not enough approval to run a country – much less to predict the weather. I have to say that he was right most of the time.
Kids carry them to school and house keepers talk to them. We do not see them any longer because they are a part of us. They blend in much the same way particles of sand blend in to make a landscape. They are important little guys. They eat flies and other buggy things and clean up after messy dinner guests - especially at outside restaurants. They walk on Cacti and incredibly small leaves. They sit at window sills and look in. Some sit on window sills and look out. They are in the rear seat of our cars (never wearing a safety belt) and sometimes meet an untimely demise as a result of napping on the fan belt of the engine.
Hot to trot lizards are the most obvious. How often have we wondered what the lizard is doing when he flips out that long bone under his neck and thereby expose that lovely scarlet colored fold of skin? Ever see it and wonder what is going on? Well – that is a boy lizard calling on a girl lizard to go courting! Yup! That is what that is. So…. Next time you see your darling spouse and feel like courting – just whisper in the ear – hey hone – feel a little lizardy tonight? What the heck – never know what the response will be.
The Ones that I like the best are those that Dr. Carlos Viana called Blueies and Greenies. When we were kids he once told me that they were called by those names. Believed him then and believe him now. Hey – the guy is a doctor right? - and a damned good one at that.
They are discriminated against. No such thing as lizard food in the stores and no such thing as lizard collars. And that is just a bit too much for any lizard to bear. Don’t you think??
So why write about lizards? That is not the question. The true question is why not?
charles