Oh waiter…

I have been cooking and baking up a storm this Labor Day weekend. And why not? I got a huge box of produce from my CSA, I had some experiments to conduct with beets (the jury’s still out on that one) and some healthy recipes I wanted to test on both kids and pups.

I had a big pile of carrots to work with as well, and despite the blistering heat I had a bee in my bonnet to make carrot soup. Don’t ask me why. It just sounded good.

I have a ragtag collection of pots and pans, one of these, one of those, and a couple that work well for soup. Rather than pull out my Dutch oven, I decided I would use my pasta pot- one of those that has a strainer insert, since I was feeling extra cheflike and wanted to make my own stock while I was at it. This attention to detail was a rare moment in my otherwise box-filled cooking life, I assure you.

So I opened the pots and pans cabinet, reached into the back, and pulled out the soup pot.

And screamed like the mom on Tom and Jerry.

After realizing it had legs and wasn’t some sort of viper planted in wait by an assassin, I regained my composure and looked a little more closely at the interloper. He appeared to be passed from this world. I tilted the pot back and forth and watched him slide sadly back and forth motionlessly.

Since I was alone in the house and had no one to witness this odd phenomenon, I had to take a picture. It was while I was positioning the pot that I thought I noticed a flicker of a toe. Could it be? Was he alive?

I took the pot outside. Brody, sensing something interesting afoot, was right underfoot. When the sunlight hit the bottom of the pot, the lizard started squirming like a vampire hit by the first ray of dawn. Oh yes. He was alive.

Shooing Brody away, I dumped the lizard into the iceplant and went back in to scrub the pot. And inspect the cabinet, which was found to be otherwise skink, skunk, bug, and other creature-free.

Cute, isn’t he?

My husband’s first response was, “Why didn’t you keep him?” This from the guy who threatened grave consequences should I take home any more pets. I said I figured the poor thing had suffered enough without being subjected to a lifetime of being stared at by Apollo.

I am flummoxed- positively befuddled- at the notion of a lizard, soon discovered to be a Western skink, arriving in my soup pot from his standard scrub habitat. He needed to enter the house, then enter the cabinet, then get up the side of a large slippery pot. I suppose he could theoretically have wound up there when the pot was last used and drying in the kitchen, but I don’t even know when that was.

It has been suggested that Apollo, jealous of my cooking segment for the dogs, was merely trying to give me a suggestion. In which case, he is surely sorely disappointed. The Potage Crecy Sans Skink, c’est magnifique.