JURASANA PARK
(Gregor goes Michael Crichton one better.)
© August 2002
(Once again at the Feathered Pipe Ranch)

Friends, it’s been a year since we left Gregor at the pond but, sad to say, he is still having his ups and downs. He’s not content. And when a lotus is not content, we may surmise that it has something to do with water.

“Cough…cough…” Gregor cleared his lotus throat and looked down with his lotus eyes. “Oh my god,” he exclaimed. “I can’t see the bottom. What’s with all this mud?”
Just then, a large green-brown bullfrog jumped on his leaf and sat down.

“Would you be willing,” Gregor asked in his best NVC voice, “to get your big fat ass off my leaf face?”

“Uurrup,” said the frog.

“Excuse me,” Gregor persisted. “I wonder if you’d mind letting me know what you just heard me say?”

But the frog was not buying into this dialogue. “What’s wrong with mud?” he muttered.

“What?” Gregor asked.

“What’s wrong with mud?” the frog repeated. “You were complaining about mud.”

“And you’ve been taking too much yoga,” Gregor observed in a snit. “You shouldn’t believe that all Loti (that’s a Latin term) are at home in muddy water. And by the way, you’re still sitting on my face. Do you mind?”

“I don’t mind, ” said the frog, and he stayed right where he was. “There’s a whole pond full of Loti here, how come they’re at home but you aren’t?” he probed.

“Get your damn butt off my leaf and I’ll tell you,” Gregor snapped.

After a massive “URRUPP” the frog lept off Gregor’s leaf and dove smartly into the mucky brown ooze of pond scum. He surfaced a few moments later. “So?” he asked.

“Well, actually,” Gregor scoffed, “if you had been paying any attention at all, you’d realize that all lotuses are individuals. Some might be at home in muddy water (or due to a very provincial outlook, think that they are at home in muddy water…)”

“And you?” the bullfrog interrupted, “what do you prefer?”

“Le Source, baby. I’d like to lounge in a lake of Perrier-something nice and clean for a change. I’d like to see my roots. Those dumb lotuses I live with don’t even want to see their roots. This pond is so scum-muddy, sometimes I feel like a politician.”

“Foreign bottled water!” exclaimed the frog. “You better watch out that the Lotus-in-Chief of Homewater Security or his Absurdity General doesn’t get wind of that! What kind of a traitorous lotus are you anyway?”

“To tell the truth,” Gregor lied, “I’m not really a lotus at all. I just spend a small part of every summer as a lotus. The rest of the time I’m a biologist.”

“Really!” The bullfrog’s bug eyes grew even larger with amazement. “So what then are you doing down here at Muddy Waters Pond?”

“Collecting DNA,” Gregor said. ” I work for Michael Iceberg, President of Trocantor Productions, a division of the Wilt Ditzy Corporation,” Gregor said proudly. “We’re building a nature theme park over on that island, over there.” He pointed his stem in the direction of a tiny island in the middle of the pond.

“Come on,” the frog responded with skepticism. “What kind of park can you build in a Mickey Mouse place like that?”

“It’s going to have a Pre-Iyengar Period theme,” Gregor bragged. “To build it, I’ll need a lot of DNA from reptiles, snakes, lizards and amphibians,” he looked over at the now shaky bullfrog, “such as yourself. We’re going to call it Jurasana Park.”

“What’s the DNA for?” Bullfrog asked.

“Well,” Gregor explained, “out on the island I’ve got crates and crates of ancient ossified Pre-Iyengar Period poses and I need some modern DNA to bring them to life. Come on, if you dare, and I’ll show you.”

The bullfrog, now curious, agreed to check it out and they started across the pond, slowly, since Gregor in lotus form had to rely on a breeze from the right direction to push him where he wanted to go. But the breezes were not cooperating. Finally, he said to the frog, “Gimme a pull will ya, or we’ll never get there in time to allow the next act in this talent show to perform.”

When they arrived at the island they saw, just emerging from his hole in the ground, N-Ron Hubbub, the gopher, who managed the park construction.

“How’s it going N-Ron?” Gregor asked. “Meet my neighbor, bullfrog.”

“Great,” said N-Ron. “Everything’s in perfect shape.” He looked over at the frog. “Care to invest? We’ve still got a few shares left.”

Bullfrog ignored the eager gopher. “What’s that over there?” he asked, pointing to a pile of what looked like compost.

“It’s our place of refuse,” said Gregor proudly. “We all need a place of refuse to practice our yoga.”

Bullfrog tapped a back leg impatiently. “That’s refuge,” he corrected. “A place of refuge.”

“Oops.” Gregor shrugged. “I thought I heard refuse. Actually,” he confessed, “lotuses have lousy hearing. Can you clean that up?” he asked N-Ron.

“Not unless we get government funding,” replied the wily gopher.

“C’mon,” said Gregor, changing the subject. “Let’s take a look around….Over there,…see, a herd of Tadasanas grazing….And look at that pack of Pradayamas!….Boy, did I breath a sigh of relief when we finally got them together.”

Just then a group of Verabedrasanas ran by in a panic, almost trampling a snoring Shivasana laying under a blanket of leaves.

Thump…………thump…………….thump

“What was that?” asked Bullfrog.

“What’s what?” asked Gregor.

Thump

“Can’t you hear it?” said Bullfrog.

Thump

“I don’t hear very well,” Gregor reminded him.

“I hear it.” Thump….thump….thump, N-Ron said nervously. “It’s coming closer.”

A moment later, bursting out of a cloud of eyebags and a scattering of bolsters, there it was, coming toward them at a rapid clip. Its tiny upper claws extended, as if attempting to reach to a virtual balcony. Its massive quadriceps bulging. Rotators rotating. Spine in extension. It was a dreaded Tricanasana Rex.

“Shit,” squealed N-Ron. “Time to crawl back into my hole.”

“Whoa, wait a minute. Hold your horses,” Gregor commanded. “How the hell did it get out? I thought we had it restrained with belts around its pelvis.”

The reluctant manager looked sheepishly at Gregor, then fearfully at the beast bearing down on them. “Quick explanation,” he began. “….er…actually…,” he drew a circle in the sand with his hind paw.

“I, …er,…never bought the belts. I was going to but…I had a consultation with Robin Cash our accountant with Steele, Cash & Hyde, a very limited liability, big 2 accounting firm. He recommended that if we didn’t buy those belts we could write off the savings and apply the resulting deduction to receivables; borrow against that asset then lend the proceeds to an off-island yoga studio holding company in exchange for options that we could convert into warrants in a fully depreciated belt company that we could leverage on margin to buy a bigger place of refuse.”

Thump……….thump

And the last thing they heard him say, as Tricanasana Rex turned on the ball of one great foot and the heel of the other, squishing N-Ron into something that looked very much like a 1970s style sticky mat was…”It was all according to generally acceptable accountiiiiiing principppppplesssssssssssssssssss.”

“I’m outta here,” said Bullfrog and in two hops and a leap he was back in the pond.

Gregor quickly followed and in all his life, he was never so happy to be back in very muddy water.

The End.
As always, we have Gregor™ logo tee shirts, coffee mugs and, new this year, tote bags in the lobby.
Be sure to watch for the “Gregor the Lotus” HBO hip hop special entitled “Terrorism? Yo Mama!” coming soon.
Namaste.