Saving Critters

“I caught the lizard!  I caught the lizard in the garage!” I shout excitedly while clasping the cloth covered critter in two hands and fumbling with the front-door latch to get out. It's scritch-scratching against the cloth, wanting to get free. I hold on as gently as I can. Running outside I let it loose near the big olive tree. The lizard sits still a moment then rustles through the golden oak leaves in short bursts of scurry-stop, scurry-stop toward the low wall at the edge of our front yard. I imagine it sitting on the wall later in full sun to thaw out from its scary morning.

“Long life, li’l alligator,” I call softly and go back inside.

I had been worried about “Lizzy” for two weeks. I saw her scuttle across the garage floor when I drove in one afternoon, and made mental note to look for her behind the folding chairs and under the exercise machine we keep out there. Knowing there were plenty of insects who also make their home in the garage, I wasn’t worried about her starving, but I was mindful to keep the door between garage and kitchen closed so critter and humans wouldn’t surprise one another. Never found her until today, while exercising on the Power Plate machine. I’d finished the strengthening exercise and was about to pick up one of the straps you hold onto while inclining your head to one side to stretch neck muscles. Looking down, I saw the eight inch dark gray reptile next to the handle of the strap. It looked stunned and still, next to the base of the Power Plate with just the tip of the tail under the machine. 

The shaky-shaky machine makes lots of noise. It increases G-force which amplifies whatever exercise you do on it by shaking the part where you stand side to side, front to back and up and down. It makes all your muscle fibers fire, increasing tone and boosting bone density. If Lizzy was under it, or worse, up in the machine, she must’ve had quite a ride, poor gal.

I wondered, as I set the lizard down outside on the leaves if it were a guy or a gal… and how can you tell with reptiles? I like to think of her as Lizzy and I’m glad she’s free.

Growing up in a house designed to bring nature in via floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors, I learned early how to save birds which sometimes flew in, as well as spiders, potato bugs, lizards and other creepy crawlies so we wouldn’t step on them or otherwise hurt them accidentally. 

A rattle snake crawled into that Echo Park house when I was ten. I’m glad my mom handled it. Bravely, she got it outside somehow and hit it over the head over and over again with the business end of the shovel, eventually decapitating it. My dad had just left us and Brother Mel was living down in Anaheim. Whacking that snake seemed to be the right thing for Mom to do.  She cried when she buried it. I don’t think I could’ve killed it unless I was really, really, really mad. 

My husband and I keep a cricket catcher by our back door, because we get lots of crawly and jumpy things coming into our Oakland home in the hills. Inverting the jar over the critter and slipping a stiff card under it works well for insects. It would not have worked for eight-inch Lizzy! Although, once on Maui at a cranio-sacral training, a fellow student and I adapted the cricket catcher idea by using a shopping bag and large poster to catch a dragon fly with a fourteen inch wing span. She had been bashing herself against the high transom windows trying to get out. It was heart wrenching to watch. She was gorgeous!  Fellow student Bob and I really wanted to free her. When at last  she spent her strength and rested on the floor, we caught her and took her carefully outside. Watching turquoise, black and yellow wings catching the sunset glow as she flew down the green valley bathed in gold inspired us with awe. 

The lives of critters are important to me. I see lots of skunks, squirrels, dogs, cats, and once a deer hit by cars and in the middle of or on the side of the road. I say thank you for your life as I pass by and offer a prayer for their sweet release. Dead Animal Pick-up gets a call from me when I get home, telling the location where the animal can be found.

Fear and carelessness kill - human creatures as well as non.

I wish we had a better way of living side by side so fewer critters’ and people’s lives were lost.