Lucifer Sam

Pink Floyd, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn 1967

Thanksgiving!  Probably my 2nd favorite holiday after Halloween.  Delicious  food that involves gravy and cranberries.  And, of course,  a wee bit of family sans all of the consumerist commercialism huffing and puffing at our doors, waiting with bated breath for Black Friday.  My family manages to dial back the Crazy for an entire day.  We have so many members now, we cannot all fit into a house, so for Thanksgiving, we rent a community hall.  There will be about 40 or so of us.  It will be loud.  It will be fun.  I simply adore my family and it also helps that I feel refreshingly normal after a day with them.  All the while knowing they probably feel the same after spending some time with me.  Touché.

Anyway, that giant sucking sound you will be hearing on Thanksgiving will be me, hunched over my Great Aunt Joan's Weird Whipped Cream Cranberry salad.

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In other news, we recently went to another reptile show.  I have posted about these reptile shows and truly, if you have a kid who is crazy about lizards and amphibians, you would do well to go to one.  They are incredibly cheap and require a minimal commitment of time.  We are usually done in about an hour.

This last reptile show was a special - we were on a hunt for a crested gecko and a new tarantula.

Gentle Reader, I present for you, Gordon...the Gecko

Because if you have a gecko, he simply must be named Gordon.

Arun is over the moon since he has been asking for a lizard for a year and half now.  I have been spending that time doing research.  Also, waiting to see if it was a phase that might pass.  It did not.

A crested gecko fit our needs - he can be easily handled, has a diet that includes baby food and a minimum of crickets.  It also helps that he is simply adorable.

Arun paid for Gordon with his own money.  Dollar bills that he has been carefully hoarding in a plastic bucket.  It was simply precious watching him hand over that wad of bills.  It cracked my heart a bit watching him so carefully pet Gordon and coo sweet words to him.  However, it nearly cracked my brain when I discovered that Arun was giving Gordon "airplane" rides in one of his jets.  Sigh.  Arun still has much to learn when it comes to gecko husbandry, but I think he is up to the task.

And yes, that foliage is what you think it is.  How could I resist that when I saw it in the pet store marked 50%?? No, Nancy Botwin, I am not.  Still, I did snicker when the college kid who sold me the plastic ganja asked how I knew what it was.  Dude, pass the blunt and stop talking.

Oh.  And we also got another tarantula - another Pink Toe (aka avicularia avicularia)

His name is Daniel.

He is not as pretty as Sofia. But do not tell him that. Shhh!

There is a body in Bartlesville, Oklahoma spinning in its grave.  That would be my great-grandmother.  After I uploaded these snaps, it occurred to me that she might not be so appreciative of Daniel's attempts at tickling the ivories of her beloved Steinway.

That second giant sucking sound you hear?  Is the sound of my soul.  It is most assuredly hellbound now.