Beyonce the dragon. Rawwwwrrrr!

One dog resulting from Tom's sister bringing her dog over while ours was in a friendly mood, one cat rescued by lesbians, one turtle kidnapped from the New Mexico desert, one albino catfish that survived by eating all the goldfish, two parakeets in a teenage girl's bedroom, two tree frogs (the last of their kind after a mass pool-cleaning genocide killed off the rest of the tadpoles), and now a bearded dragon inherited from a friend's daughter who got tired of upkeep when the novelty wore off.  I thought Tommy would love the lizard (I've named it Beyonce) since he loves dragons. But he alternately tells me that dragons are scary in real life (he has a point, there) and that dragons fly, therefore this must be a "Caymen" (chameleon, which just means small lizard to him).
So, maybe Beyonce's a bit much for this house.  It's not a large house, and the tank it came with is huge, and as we learned this morning, not at all cat-proof.  So I asked on facebook if anyone would like it.  I got an almost immediate response from a friend whom I've known for 15 years, but by then Tom was talking about maybe keeping the thing so I said I'd have to get back to her.  Then this morning, after we fished the cat out of the tank admit screams of "Tee tat, don't bite my caymen!" I got another response.  My half-brother, who will not speak to me because I remind him of my father whom he never knew, has children I have never and may never meet. And my brother's wife says their oldest son would LOVE to have a bearded dragon.  So, if we do get rid of the thing (and it's looking like keeping it would require buying a whole new tank with a cat-proof lid, there's a slim chance I could meet my unknown nephew, and maybe my half-brother if he comes to get it.  And I would love to get to know my half-brother, or at least see him once.  He looks just like my dad, and he's a close enough relative that he's on the list of people I need to suck up to if I ever need a kidney transplant, and I like to know relatives that close.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go chase the cat off the top of the entertainment center again. He's peering into Beyonce's tank.  I think he just wants the crickets, though. When he was in there earlier, he never even looked at the damn caymen.

Pets, including Frog Babies

I never really thought of myself as an animal kind of person. I've never dreamed of living on a farm, I fear all dogs larger than a beagle and anything large enough to ride on.  But every time we get some new type of pet and I hear my mother sigh when she hears about it, the more I realize that while I may not be an animal kind of person, I am an animal kind of mom.
Growing up, I had pets. Or rather, we had family pets. A dog and a cat, and later a dog and two cats. But no fish, no birds or hamsters or guinea pigs or snakes or turtles or anything like that. Every once in a while we'd have a caterpillar in a mayo jar, or some ill-fated lightning bugs, but no one had any pet that Mom wasn't willing to snuggle with.
Ryan has a bird. She bought it sometime around the first of the year, with her own money, and it lives in her bedroom.  I told her from the beginning that it was her bird: hers to feed, hers to clean up after, and hers to bury if it comes to it. Surprisingly, Fibonacci is still alive.  So we did some asking around and found a great used cage, much larger than the one she had, for free and for her thirteenth birthday we got Ryan a second bird. And so far Fibonacci and Wycliffe are the best of friends in a giant cage in the corner of Ryan's bedroom.
We have a turtle named Spike. He lives in our hallway and eats veggies and bait. He lives next to the albino catfish who has managed to outlive and/or kill all our other fish. We also have a cat named Cat, a dog named Cheyenne, and 5 of what Tommy calls frog babies in a tub on my kitchen counter (to keep Cat from getting them). I named one of the tadpoles Blondie, because it is slightly lighter than its brethren, and I can't wait to see what kind of frog or toad they all turn out to be.
I understand why my mom didn't want a house full of animals to take care of. But dropping fish food into an aquarium or tadpole tub doesn't take a lot of time.  Neither does setting a cup of nightcrawlers in a turtle tank or giving him some lettuce.  As for birds, I guess the joke is on her.  Her boss loves birds and part of my mom's job description now is to take care of the parakeets, macaws, African grey, cockatoo, and other assorted pet birds in the office. In fact, her boss is the one who gave us the giant cage. It wasn't giant enough for the bird it came with.