I hung upside down for this?

It's really me this time. After two days of fiction - which I've really enjoyed posting it and am going to continue doing - I'm back to annoying you all with my random thoughts for an evening..

The other day at work, a co-worker and I were talking about going through changes and metamorphoses , et al - y'know, all the B.S. you shoot the breeze about in order to avoid actually working. She said something about going into our chrysalis (chrysali?) and emerging butterflies. The trite sentiment would normally have inspired a vicious yet hilarious remark. But this day, I was feeling thoughtful. Or at least I wasn't feeling very mean. All I could think of when she said it:

Where do butterflies live?

When they're caterpillar (should that be caterpillars? ah, the plurality!), they crawl around in gardens, on trees and leaves, eating up stuff to get fat and prepare for the cocoon stage. Then they hang upside down from a branch or something and emerge a little bit later with wings. After that, it gets a little hazy. Once they can fly (this apparently doesn't happen right away, leaving them pretty vulnerable to birds for a while), they flit from place to place on the breeze, settling on flowers and stealing nectar and pollinating in a benign fashion.

But when it gets dark and they aren't fluttering by, where do they go?

Bees have a hive. Spiders have webs. Butterflies have what - a Butterfly Cave? Wikipedia was as helpful as ever on every point but this. I finally tracked it down on, of all things, the Butterfly Website. Apparently, the little fellas hide between the crevices of rocks or hang from under leaves during the evening or in bad weather. So they do sorta have a Butterfly Cave.

Random question of the day answered.

J's Thought: Very often we tell people going through changes or difficult times that they will emerge from it more beautiful than before, like a butterfly emerging from it's cocoon. How different would they react if we said this instead:

"You'll crawl on your belly for while eating just about anything you can find. You'll go into seclusion, come back prettier but more fragile and vulnerable than ever and end up basically homeless, drifting from place to place, inclined to hide in the dark or during bad weather. Oh, and you'll die not long after that."

The lesson: don't oversimplify things, kids. You never know.

We're back to fiction tomorrow, I think. After this oddball post, you all probably think that's a good thing!

Back to the Butterfly cave wth me,
-J.

This post was sponsored by the Pin Me Down Committee.