Grimm passed away on June 26th, 2020.
To honor his memory, my website and all social media accounts will forever be in his name.
The thing I admired most about Grimm is that he could be so still.
He would bide his time but I never knew what for. His days were spent lurking through this life. I often felt his spying eye, but when I would turn to look, all I caught was the familiar glimpse of his closing eyelid.
Despite his calming charm, Grimm was half-wild in a way that was different from other captive bred dragons. It was not instinctual or cunning, but brutish. Domesticated life was all he knew, but predatory bravado seeped out of him anyway.
For as large and powerful as he was, as mean-tempered, he was a blockhead.
If he felt even a little bit threatened, his usually calm demeanor would give way and he became a holy terror.
I understood why he was isolated from his clutch, and why he tried to attack me the first time I saw him. It was the for the same reason he would take a steamy sh*t all over the things that he hated.
It was the reason I chose him and called him grim.
GRIMM T H E D R A G O N
Grimm is the namesake of my website because he was always the one for me. THE bearded dragon that jumped me into this world. I was afraid of reptiles before him.
When I look back I feel like I rode a 6-year high with an angry angel. I fell completely in love with the entire reptile kingdom because of him!
I know I described him like he was a villain, but I would not be doing him any justice if I didn’t recognize his proclivity for evil. And I always root for the villain.
In any case, the warring sides of Grimm’s personality, the patience and the rage, were not the only interesting things about him. If you had the chance to observe him as I did, to see all the little nuances, you would have seen a silly soft boy.
Norman demonstrates specific cues that correlate to specific desires but Grimm had one dominant behavior with many meanings—good old fashioned glass-surfing rage.
I had figured out some ways to calm him when he was riding the glass wave—warm baths, vibration from speakers, watching television (seriously), and spying on the neighbors through his favorite window.
Warm Baths for Grimm
Give me content of bearded dragons splashing around in bath tubs or give me death! Seriously, what is cuter than a fully-pancaked dragon, floating in a tub of paradise? It’s a good look for the entire species.
To the point though, nothing in this world had quite the affect on Grimm that a warm bath would. He enjoyed them in the morning when he was grumpy and after experiencing something stressful and he especially liked them when he was ready to sh*t.
Good Morning, Upper East Siders
Okay this one isn’t unique to Grimm—but whether I was playing a podcast, a show or a playlist, the vibration was really attractive to both of my bearded dragons.
But Grimm was extra special in that he had preferences. I swear it by the old gods and the new.
For obvious reasons, he has always liked watching hockey, trying to catch the players as they race across the screen. But his true love, the show that practically saved my life last Christmas break (when he woke up angry every morning), is Gossip Girl. I would turn it on and he was instantly calm. If I tried playing anything other than Gossip Girl, he would lose his mind.
No clue what that’s about, but hey, you learned another fun fact about Grimm!
Flowers in the Window
In standard grand finale fashion, there is one final thing that Grimm coveted. The one thing that could calm him down no matter what he was going through. It was his security blanket.
HIS WINDOW.
Seriously, never was there a tale of more woe then that of Grimm and his west-facing window.
