A girl and her lizard…

“The greatest purity is nothing or nothingness - no thinking, no desiring, no imagining. You are then one with the moment and the great movement of life so nothing can happen that is not right.”-- Barry Long

So, I moved Maurice today. I had forgotten how heavy he was – not to mention awkward. Degree of difficult for moving is high because Maurice has a weak tail and there is the possibly it will break off. It’s broken before and been repaired before. Maurice is very dramatic and requires at lot of attention. Who is Maurice? Maurice lives under my front stairs…well, more like he lurks there waiting to catch unsuspecting people coming up the stairs. Maurice is a cement copy of a big blue tongue lizard. His head peeps out and looks at you as you walk up the stairs. He can be quite a shock when you first see him.

My front stairs are being replaced on Friday. Stair people will magically come and do whatever they do and whiz-bang-presto I will have stairs to the front
of my house once more. That’s good because I am tried of lugging groceries over a retaining wall and around to the back door. The novelty of thinking how ‘nice the backyard looks’ wears off after wandering around in the cold and carrying grocery bags. Only bummer is people will now go back to visiting. A rope with a red flag on it is an excellent deterrent. Anyway, you can see why Maurice had to be moved. His home was about to be renovated. The funny thing is when I went to move him – he probably weighs about 30 kilos – I had no idea how I had gotten him in under the steps in the first place. So in the end I crawled under the stairs and fetched him out. I must say, it is very peaceful under the stairs. I contemplated that with Maurice for a moment – a girl and her cement lizard – as we sat there in the sunshine steaming between the boards of the stairs. Maurice said nothing but I knew he could feel we were sharing an important moment in our relationship. Its those quiet times with your cement lizard that count don’t you think?

After Maurice was relocated to the garage, I set out making the area around the stairs as male friendly as possible. Have you ever noticed that men, when working, have a habit of falling over, breaking or tripping on things? So I tied back the lavender bushes so that would not break then, pruned the roses so that could they get stuck on them and made an extremely obvious pathway through the garden that is incredibly safe. Ten to one they don’t use it and instead decide to climb over, fall on or break off something I had not thought to secure or move – but what can you do? Men are strange creatures.

I also pulled out the last of this ugly, parasitic bush that used to surround the house. It was so bad when I first saw the house that I wasn’t sure where the front entrance was it was so overgrown. Nine years later, the longest I have lived anywhere, and several doses of poison, the bush is dead. Ha! I knew I would win eventually.

So after spending 4 hours in the garden freezing my arse off – oh, if only that was possible – I called it a day…yeah I could have worked longer but I just thought stuff it I don’t want to. I had already cleaned the house and done the laundry so I decided that was enough. Hell - it is Saturday after all. That’s it – just a boring Saturday at Chez Amarinda. May yours bring you much chocolate and hot men to worship at your feet…or the chocolate is just good on its own.

“Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it.” --Woody Allen quotes

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Go ahead: Live with abandon. Be outrageous at any age. What are you saving your best self for?