Lizards and Shivers

Apart from a very pleasant new cologne I have discovered and one of my favourite clothes shops has a sale on, there is something of a lack of colour at the moment. This is partly because sandstorms are frequent and this pestilential desert I call home turns up the heat from June onwards. According to my car thermometer, yesterday touched 52 degrees Celsius, that's one hundred and twenty five point six degrees Fahrenheit. Added to which, wearing glasses outside isn't possible since they instantly mist over. Normally, I have no idea what effect humidity has, but it topped 59% today, and I slowed to a crawl, mentally, physically and emotionally. Purists might find this interesting.

Ironically (sorry to whine - just bear with me) I have picked up a cold, thus screwing my homeostatic mechanisms and between hot flushes and the shivers I have to wear a fleece indoors in the aircraft hangar I call home at the moment because the AC is chilly. Which brings me to lizards. Lizards are not altogether common here - only thirty-eight species -  it's probably too hot for them. Lizards are poiklothermic or cold blooded so they have to sit in the sun until their enzymes warm up sufficiently to initiate metabolism so a good time to see them is in the early morning in the desert when, laughably, it's relatively cool. The Bedouin hunted the most common species, the dhub as a dietary supplement; apparently it bloats its chest and makes a ferocious hissing sound if disturbed which discourages predators. Those with a Biblical turn of mind might like to look with me at Proverbs 30:18 which is quite an unlikely verse to use when teaching on worship. I've been in meetings where the worship leader has cranked the congregation up from cold too soon and they end up hoarse - "we don't know what else to do so let's sing some more". Had they been invited to wait, like the lizard on the rock, until their spiritual metabolism had warmed sufficiently, the ebb and flow of the meeting would have been more congenial. I shall be glad when my own settles down again.