Critically Endangered
Around The World in 80 Days - Day 5
If we were on the voyage, we would still be sailing on a steamer in order to get to Egypt. Because There is a large amount of the trip that is over water obviously, and I do not want to have just aquatic animals for large periods of time, that would feel like I was doing a theme within a theme within the project, and I'm not sure I could handle that much insanity!
I like to do different compositions sometimes, but there is a reason for this. Though they are called the fringe-fingered lizard, the front toes don't have such obvious fringe as some of the back toes do. If I showed the whole lizard, you wouldn't see any of the fringe (though it looks more like spikes or shark teeth to me). They used to be very common. Sadly they have lost 80% or by some accounts even 90% of their habitat. Now they are limited to less than 4 sq miles of the Negev desert in Israel and Palestine territory. The lizards are very short lived, apparently only about a year! One of the sites I saw said that along with habitat loss and predation, conservation efforts damaged their numbers. They didn't explain that, but my best guess would be that they captured some, hoping to breed them. Either the lizards didn't survive being captured, or did survive but captive breeding never worked. I don't know, but based on other animals I've looked into, that is what I would think is most likely. Interestingly, for the first few weeks of their life they have bright blue tails with a dark yellow on them, which then changes to their sandy colouration.
Today was the grocery shopping for parents and in-laws day (they are at high risk of Covid). I wore my shirt that my son got me for Christmas that has 2 mugs, one labeled paint water, one labeled coffee. In the coffee mug, it looks like there is a paint brush in it, and it says "The struggle is real". I dress for comedic value rather than for any fashion sense, I like to make people laugh, even if it is at me. I had three people comment on my shirt though. One girl at the first store I always go to said she did one of the paint night class type things. I guess the first thing the instructor said was that you really do have to be careful about making sure you put your brush into the brush water and don't drink it. The thing is, that isn't just a funny shirt or an instructor trying to get a laugh and break the ice, it is really true. I have quite often come very close to drinking my paint water, or putting my brush into my coffee. I don't think any of my pencils have any of the typical toxic ingredients like zinc, lead, cadmium, etc., but I don't lick the paint and certainly try not to drink my paint water or add it to my coffee. When I first had my kids, I stopped working with oils and even acrylics because of the toxicity, and I did not want my kids to be around that. I started doing digital painting again at that time because there is nothing about that which would hurt them. I've done a lot of things that are probably toxic, though I've never smoked or done drugs. I have jokingly told my kids that pretty much I have 2 anti-social brain cells that don't like to communicate with each other, I don't want to jeopardize either of them by doing something that could kill one of them off.