Wednesday, April 29, 2020

sharing my space


Everyone needs a friend in these days of isolation.

And I have a new one.

Admittedly, the relationship is rather one-sided. I did not even know the relationship existed until yesterday.

I was in the process of leaving the house to head over to the local grocery when I noticed something unusual on the screen door of the library. There was no mistaking what it was by its shape. It was a garrobo -- mistakenly called a black iguana by a lot of people, even though it is not biologically an iguana (switching parties). So, we will call him by his local name. Garrobo.

He was not the first garrobo to visit the house with no name. For some reason, the prior visitors have climbed the screen doors, as well. But there was something unusual about this fellow. As you can see in the photo, he is hanging on the other side of the screen. He was in the library and appeared to be looking for an escape route.

Garrobos are a skittish lot -- unlike their distant green iguana cousins. The moment I moved toward the screen, he fell on the floor with the same sound a crow makes when hitting the ground after an unfortunate encounter with a closed window.

He tried hiding inside my movie chair, but he dashed inside the couch when I tried to dislodge him from the chair. No amount of broom-handle prodding or couch-shaking would break him loose from his hiding place. I resolved myself to the fact that he and I would be sharing the library for movie night. Inexplicably, he failed to show up for the screening of 1917.

While Dora and I were cleaning the library this morning, I toild her about my new friend. She said she had found him hiding in the pool bathroom last Saturday. How he made his way into the library, neither one of us knew.

We searched the library for him, He was not inside my chair or the sofa. Dora suggested he might be hiding in the bookshelf. And she was correct. The moment he was exposed, he was on the floor and escaped in what can looked like more of a waddle than a determined sprint.

And so go some friendships -- even the one-sided variety.

I suspect he has wandered off to some other sanctuary in the house. And he is welcome to stay.

All I ask is that he bring his own popcorn if he joins me at the movies tonight.

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