A Gecko Obituary, Earth Stars Reborn

Gecko Obituary  I'm sorry to inform you that this gecko known as Lord Thaddeus Squishington, and "The Bugmeister" to his friends, is no longer with us.  Apparently he took a midnight stroll to grab a mosquito... and just picked that moment to up and die suspended on the wall by his velcro/suction cup feet.  Lord Squishington was deeply loved by his family and was known by friends to be a night owl, partying at all the hot spots at bright lights around town.  Female acquaintances were quick to point out that he was great at wiggling and shimmying on the dance floor, and his male acquaintances note that he was never one to drop his tail for nothing!  Authorities are ruling out foul play involving area treefrogs, and tell us that his passing was of natural causes.  Obit by Kermit Q. Tad, Arboreal Amphibian Times

I don't want to sound insensitive or gross, especially since I love lizards very much, but how cool is it that their feet cling that well?  Not to sound too crazy, but I've always wondered if their feet still cling after they pass away and today I've found my answer.  Oh well, at least they're invasive exotics around here anyway.

Earth Stars are Alive!  On a brighter note, I'll tell you the inspiring story of my little cryptanthus bromeliads that were recently found to have cheated death.  Also known as earth stars, they are terrestrial (grow in soil), thrive in humid terrariums and are known for being some of the more tender varieties of bromeliads.
In summer I bought a plant that had put out pups, and promptly potted up the pups before forgetting about them.  I know, I'm horrible, but the pot was really small and fell behind the shelf.  Anyways, I discovered them right before the first freeze when I was corralling all my plants to be brought indoors, and they looked pretty pale and had no roots.  I brought them in for the first couple of frosts, but then decided that they were dead anyways and gave up.  I threw them in the trash pail in almost total darkness through the cold winter. 
Last week I went to reuse some stuff from the trash pail and discovered that my baby earth stars had gotten some color back!  I started to pull them out and found that two of the three had put out some sufficient roots even though they had not been watered in at least three months, not to mention being put out in the cold all winter.  THEY'RE ALIVE! HAHAHAHAHA!  They're the ones to the right in the photo below.

The big one to the left is a brand new one that I got from Target, for a mere $2.50!  It has flower buds in the center, which will soon turn out to be insignificant, but the exciting part is that there are three pups starting to emerge already!  Free plants!  In the upper left is cherished piece of driftwood from my grandmother, with the native encyclia tampensis orchid thriving on it, along with the cold hardy vriesea corcovadensis. Some of the pseudobulbs on the orchid actually look like pearls right now, as the leaf tissue is stretched taut over the p-bulbs.  In the upper right hand corner is the "Easter cactus" that I started from single pad cuttings, growing out of nothing but orchid bark.  As you can see, the flowers will be open soon, probably on Mother's Day.