Leapin' Lizard!

I'm having a bad lizard week here at Casa ParkHopper.  Monday I came home to a dead-ish lizard in the middle of my kitchen floor and two cats completely disinterested in assisting with its disposal.  As it turns out, the lizard was only "dead" until Elphie took a half-hearted swat at it and her claw hit it mid-back.  THEN it was miraculously cured and running right at me!  It's now dead (I assume) in front of the kitchen sink.  I won't touch it*, and haven't yet been motivated to pull out the vacuum to suck up the tiny carcass.

Today I kept thinking I was seeing motion out of the corner of my eye, but both cats were asleep on the couch.  Finally I realized there was another freaking lizard in the house, this one very much alive and on the move.  On the stairs.  And then the little effer JUMPED from one step to another.

Did you know they do that?

I guess Little Orphan Annie did!

Anyway, I took some video and uploaded it to Instagram.  I can't figure out how to embed it here, but here's the link.  For the record, once I made my new pet do its party trick for the camera, I did try to rescue it.  I grabbed a big plastic bowl with lid and actually managed to get the bowl over the lizard.  But the lid was pretty thick, and sliding it under the bowl gave the lizard a big enough opening to dart through... of course, straight toward me!  After I squealed and nearly lost my balance 7 steps up the stairs, I chased it down the steps.  It evaded capture and darted under the TV cabinet.

If I'm lucky, I won't see it again until the next time the furniture is moved.  Of course, my luck isn't actually that good...I bet I see that lizard again before bedtime.

*I can't touch dead things, even when they've been motionless for multiple days.  Blame this on an unfortunate fish tank incident when I was a kid.  I was carrying a dead swordtail to the bathroom for a burial at sea, and right when I got to the toilet, the thing resurrected and flopped out of my hand right into its watery grave.  NEVER AGAIN -- zombie creepy-crawlies are REAL!

UPDATE: not sure this is the same lizard, but I managed to catch & release this one! (Sorry for the blur - the phone didn't want to focus through the plastic bowl)