The lizard rodeo

Saturday afternoon, the baby crib assembly project got underway. My Hubby and Dad were going to put together the crib in our bedroom where we'll use it as a co-sleeper for a few months, then move it to the baby's room. Hubby and I neatened up the room a bit to have maximum floor space for the project, and moved furniture to clear out the corner the crib will belong. Oddly enough, there was a lizard under a swivel rocker we had. We fetched the cat and tossed her at the lizard. As soon as it moved again, she was on the trail and they darted under the bed. We finished moving the swivel rocker to another room and determined that the corner needed to be vacuumed.

Ingredients to a lizard rodeo: one cat, one lizard, a closed bedroom door, two dingbats and a vacuum cleaner.

Instructions: assemble all and turn on the vacuum.

Hubby turned on the vacuum about the same time I unearthed the the lizard amongst some papers under an end table. The lizard darts towards the vacuum, near the beater bar. Hubby jerks the vacuum up off the ground so as not to have fresh ground lizard. The lizard darts over to the dirty clothes basket. I go over to the cat, now sitting on the bed. The vacuum is still running. I try to pick up the cat to toss her towards the scurrying lizard. She manages to launch out of my arms WITHOUT scratching me and does two backflips before landing on her feet 3 feet from the still running vacuum. Hubby turns off the vacuum while I started to laugh hysterically. The cat is hissing before she actually touches the ground. She then hisses at the bedskirt, at my ankles, walks two steps and hisses at the TV cart, walks to a corner of the room and hisses at it while wiping her face with a paw. All of this took approximately 10 seconds.

Now Hubby is chuckling at the randomly hissing cat. Ok the cat is out of commission as a lizard weapon. I walk over to the dirty clothes basket, and we find it under a blue dress shirt. Hubby says, "well if the cat doesn't want it, then I don't want to kill it." I'm with him on this. So now we try to catch the lizard. We corner the poor thing and catch it in one of Hubby's cowboy boots. Still chuckling, I take the boot out front to free the lizard. I upturn the boot with Mom looking on. No lizard. I thwack the boot against my hand to knock it out of the toe and then can see the lizard. Now it tumbles out and scurries off to hide in the grass. Free and unharmed. End of lizard rodeo.

We now have a crib assembled in the corner of our room, a changing table assembled in the corner of the baby's room, and the mobile for the above the crib is half painted by Mom and I while the men did all that. Very productive baby preparation weekend! Thanks Mom and Dad! And Hubby!