South Mountain is a peaceful spot that has many beautiful peaceful hiking trails and the best part is that it is just couple of minutes away from Tova’s house. Tova or Tovazzie as spelled on her pendant is my window to the Native Indian culture .She lives with her elsi (grandmom) a kind-hearted warm soul. Tova can write many a haiku about her handmade eye arresting silver jewelry ..ohh..so am so J.
As the house is at the base of south mountain, it is also the residence of a lot of non rent paying occupants that look good only in biology books and nowhere else. Yesterday as we sat on her porch after the hike trying to bring our heart rate down, we spotted two caterpillars on her porch which reminded me of this one time with my Nanaji (Mother's dad). I am always pushed to do more things by him . His only regret with this philosophy he admits is when I want to talk about those things AND he has to listen about it .With grades in my report card tipping in the lower scale of Biology, a subject which I never enjoyed ( I am so glad Ma you are the doctor in the family and not me..Biology..Euugghh.), he came up a indigenous plan.He spotted caterpillars in the park and started asking me all sorts of questions about butterflies (basically let the goblins in my head think that it was my idea to raise a butterfly ). I fell into the trap and picked up the caterpillar carefully on a mango leaf and brought it home.I fed it with spinach leaves (My driving licence would have stated my height as 5' 7 inches tall had the caterpillar not eaten my share of the spinach).
After 21 days of feeding ,staring,petting,singing,cajoling and lot of praying and waiting and waiting and waiting for the cocoon to break and a beautiful butterfly to unfold instead the cocoon yielded a
Black grotesque bug with 11 tentacles and 4 eyes.
My beautiful caterpillar had turned into a monster (I blame spinach)
Some anthropoid’s DNA is just sequenced wrong and they never learn from their mistakes so when I spotted the caterpillar at Tova’s house I was still tempted to pick and see if this one turned into a butterfly. The goblins in my head resurfaced and I reached for the caterpillar. Before I could begin my journey of discovery, Elsi with her kindest warm heart stepped out and looked at the object of our captive attention . She brushed the caterpillars off the ledge with an air of complete nonchalance.
Tova and I echoed “What did you do ?”
She shrugged and chimed “Dinner”.
Exasperated we sit on the dinner table. I am pretty sure that if we had housed this caterpillar this would have turned into an amazing butterfly, a rare species whose wings could be used to cure the Ebola virus.
Ah well ! We will never know now. This one’s Elsi’s fault..So close to a breakthrough..
2 min later..Bannock melts in my mouth..all is forgiven!
After all the pharmaceutical industry needs few viruses to make a living.
Live and let die!
As the house is at the base of south mountain, it is also the residence of a lot of non rent paying occupants that look good only in biology books and nowhere else. Yesterday as we sat on her porch after the hike trying to bring our heart rate down, we spotted two caterpillars on her porch which reminded me of this one time with my Nanaji (Mother's dad). I am always pushed to do more things by him . His only regret with this philosophy he admits is when I want to talk about those things AND he has to listen about it .With grades in my report card tipping in the lower scale of Biology, a subject which I never enjoyed ( I am so glad Ma you are the doctor in the family and not me..Biology..Euugghh.), he came up a indigenous plan.He spotted caterpillars in the park and started asking me all sorts of questions about butterflies (basically let the goblins in my head think that it was my idea to raise a butterfly ). I fell into the trap and picked up the caterpillar carefully on a mango leaf and brought it home.I fed it with spinach leaves (My driving licence would have stated my height as 5' 7 inches tall had the caterpillar not eaten my share of the spinach).
After 21 days of feeding ,staring,petting,singing,cajoling and lot of praying and waiting and waiting and waiting for the cocoon to break and a beautiful butterfly to unfold instead the cocoon yielded a
Black grotesque bug with 11 tentacles and 4 eyes.
My beautiful caterpillar had turned into a monster (I blame spinach)
Some anthropoid’s DNA is just sequenced wrong and they never learn from their mistakes so when I spotted the caterpillar at Tova’s house I was still tempted to pick and see if this one turned into a butterfly. The goblins in my head resurfaced and I reached for the caterpillar. Before I could begin my journey of discovery, Elsi with her kindest warm heart stepped out and looked at the object of our captive attention . She brushed the caterpillars off the ledge with an air of complete nonchalance.
Tova and I echoed “What did you do ?”
She shrugged and chimed “Dinner”.
Exasperated we sit on the dinner table. I am pretty sure that if we had housed this caterpillar this would have turned into an amazing butterfly, a rare species whose wings could be used to cure the Ebola virus.
Ah well ! We will never know now. This one’s Elsi’s fault..So close to a breakthrough..
2 min later..Bannock melts in my mouth..all is forgiven!
After all the pharmaceutical industry needs few viruses to make a living.
Live and let die!
