Drama Solved

Well, the drama of the bearded dragon is over. Turns out he probably just had water in his ears. Grayson had dropped him in his water dish and his head went under... an apparent no-no. The water in his ears messed with his equilibrium, so he was walking drunk. Once the water dried up, he was just fine. He now eats about 10 crickets a day. Lets not do the math and figure out what that's going to cost a year, shall we?

Still, he's darn cute.

In other news... tomorrow's my birthday. I will be 43 years old. I don't feel a day over 42.

Mealworms, crickets and flies, oh my.

So the baby bearded dragon gobbled down three mealworms the first night. Lickety-split. Snarf. Snarf. Snarf.

But he hasn't eaten since.

As the mom who is patently guilty of having murdered Grayson's tadpoles, turtles, AND the goldfish that I quickly replaced before he got home and he thinks is the same one... I am highly anxious about the health and well-being of this very expensive little lizard. We tried tempting him with large mealworms, and small mealworms. No. Wiggly ones and not so wiggly ones. No. I chopped up cucumber, grated carrots, and thawed out fozen peas and corn. No. Grayson picked fresh clover. No.

This morning... still no eating. So I went to Petsmart at lunch to talk to the Lizard Lady there to see if she thinks it's going to die. No. She says they don't always eat every day. He may be still full from gorging on three giant mealworms (his tummy IS tiny), OR he could be getting ready to shed, which will decrease his appetite. Then she suggested I take home a few small crickets to see if he has a greater interest in those. So I paid 32 cents for three crickets so small you can barely see them, and I have them on my desk to take home after work. See them? Way smaller than a dime.

At ten cents apiece, if Mambo eats three crickets a day, that's $108 a year on CRICKETS. Expensive tastes, this guy.

Now lets talk about flies.

After Grayson's birthday party, there were dozens of flies in the house because of course the kids were in and out and leaving the back door open a lot and the flies came in to buzz around the food. Well, the next day, the dogs knocked open my back door (which does not latch so well), and it stood open all day long, allowing HUNDREDS of flies to come in and swarm what was left of the birthday cake, tented under tin foil on the table. I got home and was HORRIFIED at the number of flies. It was the frikkin' Amityville Horror in there, I'm telling you.

So I found a cardboard fan (courtesy of the Metropolitan Libraries, thanx), in lieu of an actual flyswatter, which I do not own, and the slaughter began. For an hour and a half I killed flies. It was a fly holocaust. I killed them all over the table (and yes, even on the cake, which I was obliged to throw out), until I chased them off. Then I turned to find them swarming the kitchen window, so I stalked over there and slaughtered them for awhile until they got wise and migrated back to the table. So it went, back and forth, back and forth, until the counter top, sink, windowsill, table, and carpet surrounding the table were littered with dead flies, and my improvised flyswat smeared with fly gore. Dis Gusting.

I got out the vaccuum cleaner to suck up the corpses and Grayson suggested I suck up the ones flying around the living room window, as well. This was a good idea on paper, but in practice, the flies are much too quick. Though I do rather wish I had video footage of the interesting little dance I did, swirling the vaccuum cleaner hose around trying to catch up with them.

As of this morning, I'm down to a couple dozen flies, I think. So I bought fly strips, and plan on trapping the little bastards tonight.

It's too bad bearded dragons don't eat flies, is all I've got to say.

Ahhh, fall.

There's that day every year toward the end of summer when you feel the season change. The air is a little cooler, the breeze a little fresher, and there's just that feeling... like the breath of fall. We had that day a couple of weekends ago, and though there have been plenty of hot-as-hell days since then, you know it will all be over soon.

I love fall. My birthday and Grayson's birthday are both in September, so of course it's the best month. There's football (which I could care less about, but I always enjoy the carnival atmosphere of home game days in Norman), cool nights, the annual surprise of the leaves changing and falling. Ahhhh.

It's not here yet, but it's coming. It's coming.

In the meantime, there are birthdays to celebrate! We celebrated Grayson's big day on Tuesday with a blow-out bash at our house in Norman. I rented a bouncer, my mom and I made our annual bizarre contraption of a cake, and we invited everyone in Grayson's third grade class, as well as old friends from OKC. We had about a dozen kids, and it was complete rampant chaos for two hours. But a glorious good time was had, and we rang in Grayson's ninth birthday in high style.

Yesterday I took him to Petsmart to buy the Bearded Dragon baby he has been wanting. G and I chipped in to buy him a gift certificate for the lizard, cage, lights, gear and all the necessary accoutrements to keep our new pet happy and healthy. Grayson was beside himself with excitement. He's named the newcomer "Mambo," and I gotta say, he's darn cute. Right not he looks like a long, skinny horny toad. But in a matter of months, I guess, he'll be much bigger, and around two feet long when he's full grown.

Mambo's a sweet, docile little guy. He placidly allows himself to be picked up and handled, sits still and patient in Grayson's hand while he holds and pets him, and doesn't seem bothered in the least by the attention. He eats meal worms (with appropriately disgusting gusto and much lip-smacking), as well as dragon chow pellets and fresh veggies. He has spikes all over, and a soft, scaly belly. He has long toes and little grippy claws that allow him to scramble right up your arm or cling to your shirt if he so pleases. All in all a very satisfying, low-maintenance sort of pet. I look forward to seeing how quickly he will grow.