Leapin' Lizards Livonia! What's goin' on here?!

It's been raining off and on, all day today. The sea is restless, slamming against the seawall and exploding into a salt spray. Stephanie's brother, Clyde, and I, spent a long hour silently watching the wave action from the shelter of the porch on the guard shack of the fish sanctuary. The shack sits on stilts over the beach that forms the land boundary of the ocean sanctuary.

Once in a while I would say a few words and Clyde would smile or nod, conserving energy for the more-important business of being hypnotized by the moving ocean. We simply watched the powerful waves churn themselves into foam, while tumbling rocks, shells and sand in the deep rumble of the surf.

Earlier this morning, Clyde helped me shovel rocks and shells into an empty feed sack and carry loads of it across the street to the house, where they were dumped in the grassy space between the corn field and the fence around the yard, creating a parking space for the tricycle. In the hour and half we worked at it, I wore my sweaty self out and my lungs and ticker were calling for a reprieve.

As we stood at the railing of the guard shack, looking out to sea and at the beach below us, I noticed that each wave, in its second or two of washing over the shore, moved more rocks than we moved in the hour and half of toting the heavy sacks across the street. The waves quickly changed the arrangement of rocks back to the way it was before we meddled in nature's affairs with our shovel.

I am sitting at the kitchen table, writing with a ball pen, on a school tablet. No spacebar. No Enter key. Man, this old-fashion! I love it! I can hear the steady rain on the roof and street and the waves pounding out a beat on the shore. The light is subdued. A quiet light. A hint of twilight and the coming darkness. A glance at the watch tells me it's 4:30PM. The sun is retiring early because of rain.

Wow! What in tarnation?! A 2 1/2 foot-long lizard - black and with a mile-long, pink tongue that darted in and out, tasting the air - just slithered under the space between the bottom of the back door and the floor. He jumped and clawed and wiggled here and there, around the house, trying to get back out. (I can sympathize. I get into things all the time without an exit plan.) Knocking bottles down, moving boxes, his commotion stirred us into a lethargy bordering on sleep.

Not hardly! Clyde grabbed a club. I grabbed a broom. Stephanie grabbed the baby - a useless tool against a giant lizard, but there was no time for argument. After we helped Mr. Lizard find the front door and our adrenaline rush was given vent in the form of chatter, Emelie told me that that kind of lizard is harmless unless it bites you. Hmmmm.....