On the way to lunch at Sycamore Canyon Park, I spotted this praying mantis perched on a wooden post. For a while we stared at it - Phyllis and I. I took a number of shots. Eventually, Phyllis gently put out her hand, and it casually walked up her arm, across her shoulder, up her neck, and straight across her face - on its way crawling between her eyeglasses and her eyes. Finally it came to a rest on her head. We traded places - she took my camera, and I took the mantis, and it did the same thing: went up my arm to my head.
We walked to a park bench beneath the dappled shade of a large California oak and ate lunch...but all this didn't phase the mantis one bit: in fact, it actually appeared to snuggle down on my head. We marveled and laughed for some time, but conversation turned to other fare, and we more or less forgot about it as Phyllis sipped her Dr. Pepper and I ate beans and rice with a praying mantis on my head.
When we were done we dropped it back off on the same wooden post, he none the worse for wear, we with an added spring in our step.
For an hour - in the middle of what can seem to be the chaos of life - there was a wonderful order in the universe.
