that damn Geico lizard

background entertainment: Space:1999 (seriously)

It's a beautiful day here in Tallahassee. 70 degrees, sun shining. I even opened a window! That's something I don't normally do here; for one thing, I have no window screens, and the insect life is rampant here. For another, the weather for most of the year is either too cool (for a few months) or too hot (most of the time). Spring and fall are very short. In the fall we go from temperatures in the 90's to the 70's in a matter of a week or two; then they drop to the 50's and 60's for November through January, with a brief period of 40's around the turn of the year. Our spring is very brief as well; the temperatures rise rapidly back into the 90's.

The predominant insect life seems to be cockroaches. They live in the leaf litter. We have millions of the small German cockroaches everywhere, and the large (very large) American cockroaches, also known as "Palmetto bugs."

Yesterday I saw my first anole of the season. These little lizards are all over the place. We also have skinks, which are not nearly as cute. Some of the lizards get fairly large. I haven't seen any snakes, but there are some big ones around, a few of them poisonous.

One thing I found very interesting, when I read it recently, is that there are no skunks anywhere near here. Nobody knows why. In fact, the local DEC wants anybody who sees a skunk, alive or dead, to report it.

Oh, about that damn gecko. It's not the gecko, so much as the song - "sometimes when we touch, the honesty's too much ..." - I hear that commercial and the song keeps running through my head. Noooooo!!!!