Ah, I knew thee well, Brother. Your head-bobbing was the pride of the neighborhood. I’ll overlook the hours you spent trying fruitlessly to climb up a newly-stuccoed wall, failing more embarrassingly with each repetition, and still convinced it could be done, for hours upon hours.
Cause of Death will likely remain a mystery for the ages.
Any living creature, in a Universe which makes self-replicating Life immensely difficult to achieve, deserves a Requiem when it returns to the great Unknown.
“And so today, we are all lizards, I suppose.” I said at the little ceremony in the gardens. Went on to quote Leo Szilard, mentioned in that famous note to FDR, which after a bit of work in Manhattan somewhere, brought a kind of peace to a weary world. For a couple years. But that’s a full lifetime for a lizard, I reminded the crowd of flying ants and poppies.
Xanga Question, of course:
Is lying in state always on your back? Cause no one had ever really seen this guy on his back much, ‘cept the day he fell off the wall a hundred times. I laid him out on his belly, which seemed right, although it’d look silly on, like, Lenin, just saying.
And I do have both poses on file, for tomorrow’s papers; one is guaranteed to be kosher that way.
RIP. U were a contenda.
jxsolberg 
The prudes prefer naked lizards on their bellies……Reptile in peace (RIP)
@PPhilip – Right, hadn’t thought of that, and the obverse photo does look a bit disturbing, I’ll admit.
@jsolberg – I dunno, get the mortician to put some clothes on or a blanket to cover him and unfortunately lizards on their backs also seem to be unable to “see” you back. I have never seen a lizard live resting on their back either. It is like you will never see a bird not perched on something when they rest (excluding laying on nests) I suppose when a lizard lays down in their nests that’s when they lay down on their backs.
Pity there aren’t lizards like that around here, in a live state, preferably.
@Lovegrove – yes, my sympathies, but every area and the fauna therein. I have half a dozen species crawling all over the joint. This one looks surprisingly life-like, like Lenin.
That’s one good-looking reptile. I think reptilian Lying In State is the opposite of human Lying In State, and therefore the reptilian version always involves lying on your belly without a flag or a mahogany coffin. I’m pretty sure it’s an Adam/Eve thing. You guys have them in Israel too, right? Adam and Eve?
@PPhilip – Thanks; we’ll get to the bottom of this. Heads of state, in state, are usually staring at the ceiling or the sky, I assume. But for a lizard to do that he needs to stand on his tail. Tried that, but he keeps falling right over.
If you’re going to name a reptile, better to say Stalin
@ordinarybutloud – OBL, I can seriously see you researching this, for exquisite comic effect beyond the simple nailing down of pomp and circumstance. A&E did live here for a short time. in the beginning, but kinda screwed up. Yes reptiles, again. And when their contract was renegotiated with the ‘sweat of your brow’ clause, they moved to Vegas, I think. No one’s really sure.
@Lovegrove – Good point. Or even some US candidates, who’ve been lying in several states, often on the same day.
One lizard who did not get pass(ed)over, or maybe he’s just enstoned, and will rise again tomorrow. No lying, not a Xanga question: How did you get California poppies in the Holy Lands?
@jsolberg – Newt Grinrich or whatever his name is. I’m not hot on colonial hucksters.
P.S. Can’t decide if this is awfully funny or funnily awful (poor silly looking lounging lizard), will rec on that basis.
Sal Amanda Santorum
@an_OM_aly – I’ll check him when the sun rises, feels almost mythical already.And the poppies? Repeatedly re-seeded from a handful of seeds sewn into a jacket lining in ’94. Pretty, ain’t?Tnx 4 Rec. I think I’m innocently asking a question on etiquette and decorum here, but, you know, with a lizard standing in. Kinda.
@Lovegrove – Yup, him and the newt, a nice pair of the proper class of critter. I think Romney is an Amphibian though; not sure what they believe in
This republican contest is leaving me with my mouth gaping in bewilderment. If that is what republicanism is, well God bless Her Majesty.
@jsolberg – Have to admit, when i read the title, i was hoping i was first hearing about someone like Dick Cheney, who could also be described as poor ol’ and silly, plus dangerous.One can only dream. Oh wait, that comment goes to the post @Lovegrove
Such a shame — lazing there lasered in the gizzard like Rocky vs. Ezzard.
With La Nina bringing spring a month early, it’s a bug planet out here in the hinterland. We are praying for many lizards and their big appetite for bugs.
Aww, he will be missed. I think it’s appropriate he is on his stomach.
This has to be the biggest fly iv’e ever seen in my life ! I bet it’s thinking of eating this lizard. I see greed in it’s stance.
This comes as a bit of a surprise to me. I had no idea that the size of your lizard was out of proportion to the lizards here, locally. It must bring you great happiness to have such a creature flitting about. Have you tried resuscitating your sweet creature?
Alas the lizard is dead. He must have died broken, maybe hearted to find he couldn’t scale the stucco. You never said his name – perhaps it was amnesia induced by the poppies?
Your eulogy might have been more flowing. Certainly, he deserved mention of his ancestry, those beasts who, in past lizard glory days, ruled our planet and to whom you would have been a mere appetizer.
@DEISENBERG – Yes, D, I considered evoking the proud ‘terrible-lizard’ tradition, but thought better of it in the rewrite; might put on the table the un-complimentary comparison “how far we have fallen in a scant 65 million years.” He might not relish being thought of as the Edsel of the Ford dynasty.
@sometimestheycomebackanyway – Yes, they will probably sneak northward through the US/Can border hiding in the wheel-wells of SUVs. Only fair, considering the source of the ‘Silent Spring’. (El Nino apparently had a trans-gender whim.)
@we_deny_everything – Death is never a wholly-positive occasion; I did my best to accentuate the up-side.
@lanney – Yes, that’s the reason for the post- the nagging quetion about ‘WWJFKD?’ (What would JFK do?) I placed him facing the setting sun. Heaven will judge.
@locomotiv – You see Greed, and I didn’t even see the fly! Until now. Good eyes. I do have a profound hole in my field of vision on the left side, so there’s my excuse. still, Dick&Jane of a professional funeral-director is to at least keep the flies off the corpse, ha. In that I failed
@an_OM_aly – 5:45 AM in Israel and he is there as he was. Same as it ever was. And I’d thought him perhaps the Son of God. But not to worry; I’ll find a miracle somewhere. A rock, rolled out of its position by a posited Creator. I mean, a universe this kewl couldn’t have just built itself, amirite?
@Kellsbella – Mouth-to-mouth presented difficulties. But I’ll not blithely admit ‘It is finished’. Lazarus, according to foreign sources, is still alive and well, on the strength of Jesus’ overwhelming power-point presentation, and I aspire to no less a feat.
@murisopsis – I did work a bit with the poppies, but there’s apparently an inscrutable far-eastern trick to extracting the amines. As to ‘Lazarus’, he lost no sleep over his humorous failed conquest of Everest. Lived very well, thank you, with the evolutionary first-approximation of a brain, which we humans still use as a back-up, to ‘smell’ whether the check-out girl (or the hair-dresser) really loves us in earnest, or is only in it for the money, ha.) Thanks for your unique perspective
The ants I understand. I mean, they were celebrating, right? The wicked witch is dead, kind of celebrating. (Or am I wrong that lizards eat ants?)But I’m not sure about the poppies. Maybe it was the poppy juice that did in the poor lizard?
I’m just glad you care enough to give notice to the death of a lizard!
If you put lipstick on him he’ll look as good as new.
Lizards are fascinating creatures.
@twoberry – Two good points. Ants taking turns being photographed standing in front of the great satan. But I’m not sure what alkaloids, if any, are in the poppies
@SomeDeepStuff – It seemed only fitting; he’d do the same for me:)
@Roadkill_Spatula – Thanks, Tim. I went with a Tahitian vermilion shade, plus a darling sun-hat. Looks really Gauguin
@Inciteful – Yes, this is the first I got to see one close up; they’re so scared of strangers.