A Lesson in Promptness.... and Nature's Course

So, this past weekend, I had a wonderful time camping with a group of friends. I took a medium-sized suitcase, which I filled with my knife set, lanterns, etc. in addition to my clothing. Anyway, I came back late Sunday morning and promptly deposited my suitcase on my bedroom floor, went about my business at church and my parents' house to drop off a bunch of the camping gear. Monday came around and work came too, followed by birthday parties and Stake Family Home Evening. Then Tuesday rolled around with its work and rehearsals starting up again.
I have been quite exhausted (mostly from the over-exposure to the sun, I think) and I've been struggling to stay alert at work, but I've been getting work done. My supervising attorney at work commented today that she was getting tired just looking at me. I said I would be fine and made a joke about how fascinating reading through contracts was. She called me at home on my lunch break and told me not to come back into work 'til tomorrow and to try to recover from the camping/sun-stroke weekend. I tried to protest and said I had quite a good nap during lunch and could come back to finish out the day just fine. She wouldn't hear of it and told me she didn't want to see me 'til tomorrow. I can only take so much arm twisting before I give in to such a notion, so I hung up and began figuring out what I needed to do this afternoon. I decided my housework and laundry needed to be done - including putting away my camping gear still on my bedroom floor.

As I did several loads of laundry, I moved the suitcase to a better location in my room until I took it to the dumpster - it had given up the ghost and it was time to trash it. I saw that there was some dead leaves or dirt or something left on the floor from where the suitcase was, so I bent over to pick it up and throw it away, when I noticed it wasn't some inanimate cling-on that had fallen off the suit case. It was a caterpillar. And he had created half the shell of a chrysalis in my carpet!

I'm sorry to say I quickly picked up the caterpillar and scraped the peanut-shaped cloister from the fibers of the carpet before I thought to take a picture. I did, however, get a picture of my little friend, the caterpillar. I don't know if he'll survive, but I've put him in a jar with some sand from my room mate's Zen garden (shhhh, don't tell!) and some plants to see if I can encourage him to develop another chrysalis. I'll have to keep you up-to-date on any progression I see. I've named him Cepheus.

Right now, he's crawling circles around the perimeter of the bottom of the jar. I wonder if he's trying to get to the Ugly Bug Ball. I might end up feeling bad for him and letting him go in the foliage around my apartment, but we'll see if we can get him to eat - it would be a fun experience to see the metamorphosis of this li'l guy.... And I worry now about him being returned to the wild. I don't think the other caterpillars would accept a bug named Cepheus back into normal society.

All I can say at this point is that it's probably a good idea to unpack and completely clean up from a camping trip as soon as you can or you might end up, as I have, with nature making itself right at home in your home - literally!!