Resort Lizard

The iguana of my dreams

As a child, my family had a lot of pets.  We started with the traditional family cat and dog, then moved on to a slew of rabbits (that's slew, not stew)--starting with "Starsky" and continuing on through a steady stream of androgynously-named (no one wanted to check) soft, fuzzy, brown, black, white and grey bunnies.  There were a few guinea pigs and miscellaneous rodents in the mix, the last one--a small, brown, vampire of a hamster--ended badly, with a nasty bite to my index finger, immediately followed by a slow arc through the air and soft and final thud on the carpet.

After that, I shifted my attention to cold-blooded critters.  I had an aquarium full of tropical fish for some time, but I never was very good at cleaning the algae off the glass walls and plastic plants.  Eventually, after they all died--it could have been way after they all died since the visibility was obscured by all of that algae--I drained the aquarium.  Don't worry, the fish died of natural causes that did not involve an eyes-wide-open porcelin slide into oblivion. 

Iguana tracks

This led me to my reptile phase (doesn't everyone have a reptile phase?).  I really wanted an iguana, but the idea of a giant lizard roaming freely around the house eating her plants did not immediately appeal to my mom.  So, I settled for a smaller version--a normal-sized lizard that could easily be contained in an aquarium and subsist on crickets and mealworms.  My miniature iguana-substitute led a brief, boring life before joining the others in critter heaven (a.k.a. a small plot in the backyard or the suburban septic tank version of burial-at-sea) and I left for college. 

Happiness is a palm tree and a large lizard

I guess I've never fully gotten over my iguana-thing, as I was a bit fixated on them, to LSB's amusement (or was that unease?), while on our recent vacation in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Loads of these guys roamed the hotel grounds in St. John--climbing trees, grazing on flowers, and doing other cool lizardlike things.  I watched them with with interest, took way too many photos, and followed their tracks on the beach, but I did not take one home to our apartment.  I think the customs people frown on that sort of thing.