Lizard!!

So I'm sitting on my couch watching the news and eating my chili when I hear a sudden, soft thud from across the room and see something move in my peripheral vision. What is it? Oh, just a freaking LIZARD jumping onto my armchair.
The weather's gotten chilly lately and so evidently, my little anole friend (who lives outside by the recycling bins, and whom I recently spent a silly amount of time chasing off of my car) had decided to come inside where it's warm.

I'm pretty good at catching insects and letting them go outside. Unless it's going to bite me, or is a centipede, I usually try to just relocate any home invaders. (Cockroaches are another story; I went after one a few weeks ago with hairspray and Clorox bleach cleanser to no avail.) However, I've never had a lizard pop up onto my living room furniture fixing to make himself at home. It took me some time to find a box I could put over him without catching his ridiculously long and fragile-looking tail, but I finally managed to corral him into one of the big filing Tupperware we keep our students' work in.
As much as I'd love to have a little pet, I'm not trying to breed crickets, or fool around with heat lamps. While he waited patiently in the Tupperware, I did a little research and discovered that the Carolina anole usually hibernates in winter, hiding under wood or rocks or in other sheltered places. Apparently it's not uncommon for them to find their way inside when it gets cold out. It still is cool as shit to a yankee like me, however, as I've never lived anyplace where wild lizards show up in your living room.

I took him outside and set him out in some sunny grass. And then, because I'm a giant nature dork, I sat and watched him for a while. Everything on him is so tiny! He's got these tiny little eyes, and the pattern on his skin is so delicate and precise. I get a little blown away sometimes by things in nature that are beautiful. He was almost sparkly in the sun. He's shedding too, which you can see starting on his two back feet.
Anyway, coolest thing to happen all day. I get way too excited about wildlife, but like, how can you NOT be amazed at that? Does it ever just blow your mind how there are like, millions of kinds of animals and they all work perfectly and are perfectly adapted to wherever they live, and they're all completely, completely different from each other? Cause I get a little freaked out sometimes by just how insane nature actually is, when you sit down and think about it.