And now, the rest of the (lizard) story: Found. (eeek, Alive!) Last seen slithering under the sofa

Leaping Lizards.

You may recall my post of 10 days ago about finding Annie the cat playing with a still-twitching (but detached) lizard's tail in the living room.

I comforted myself with the thought that surely she had captured the lizard while she was outside on the patio, then wound up with only the tail to bring indoors through the doggie door as the rest of the lizard escaped into the backyard.

Wrong.

In a surprise discovery (yes, I yelped out loud), I spotted the rest of the lizard this morning, very alive and looking quite well actually, except for the stub that used to be his tail. Annie had cornered him under one of her slanted cardboard scratching trays in the living room.

Thinking her fascination with the spot meant only that one of her plastic toys had just rolled under there, I lifted the scratching box up. 

Let's just say chaos ensued.

Annie, of course, was thrilled with the full exposure of her elusive prey.

I was horrified. I scooped Annie up into my arms -- she protested loudly -- and tossed her in the kitchen, closing the door (it took two tries to contain her, she was so excited). I returned to see if I could somehow capture the lizard in the living room and shoo it out the front door.

I could not. The reptile was far too wily for me (and I was, admittedly, far too slow-witted to know exactly what to do). The last I saw of it, the brown-striped (and rather pudgy) lizard had slithered out of sight, somewhere underneath the sofa.

Annie was released from the kitchen. I had to leave for work.