Dearest Reader,
Our latest adventure finds yours truly up to his dew claws in butterfly madness.
The girls have grabbed hold of another issue – this time saving the Monarch butterflies – with as much gusto as Lucy used to have when she’d tug my tail as a toddler. And this “save-the-butterflies” thing is just about as annoying.
I’m not wholly anti-butterfly. In fact, when I discovered that early in their lives, they’re known as cat-er-pillars, I almost respected them. Although they resemble a large, squishy treat at that stage of their life, it’s apparantly a thing they all have to do as they metamorphasize from one stage to another.
Metamorphasize … what kind of word is that? Sounds like an expensive way of saying “growing up.”
Anyway, after a steady diet of milkweed (which is a misleading name, it doesn’t produce any drinkable milk as far as I can tell), the delectable little chew toys turn into cocoons and change into butterflies and live out the rest of their lives annoying the rest of us with their flitty flutterings and general inability to fly in a straight line.
The mighty Monarch Butterfly … king of what? Other butterflies?
Lucy tried to explain to me that all butterflies, including Monarchs, actually do something – but that gets to my point. If the Monarch butterflies were really butterfly royalty, they shouldn’t be doing anything but lie around and eat and sleep. After all, look at the lion … king of the jungle and they don’t even bother living in the jungle – they just hang out at the pool or watering hole or whatever and work on their tan.
I do much the same thing in my household. Lucy and Marina’s mother is well-trained and able to open the cat food can and put it in my bowl with barely an instruction needed other than the occassional “meow” from me reminding her to make sure it’s may favorite flavor. If she does a good job, I may even purr for her to show my approval. If not, well, the next hairball is going on the carpet (if you know what I mean).
Compare that lifestyle to the hard-working, short-lived life of a Monarch who spends more time distributing pollen to other plants than he does living the life of entitled luxury like all other regal species. Or, at least like cats.
Until next time, my faithful servants, I remain …
Yours in tater tots,
Hubble