Dear Tong Tong~

Nope! Not the late Leslie Chueng's gay lover! It's my pet, a lady Praying Mantis.

I've always liked predatory bugs like scorpions, spiders & mantises. However, they are rarely seen around (ok,ok, I'm not talkin' about the tiny spiders that you see everyday), especially when I'm living in concrete jungle HDB.

One morning about two months ago, when I was about to leave for work, I saw this beautiful green creature in front of my lift - Praying Mantis. It's almost like seeing Sora Aoi (Jap AV star) nude tanning in front of me. Like the Flash~ I took the lizard tank from my store room (ya,ya, I used to keep a pet Bearded Dragon too, Siew Kiong was its name), & try to catch it. As I approached it, instead of fleeing, It actually came to me...*aww~ how sweet~ I quickly lured it into the tank, closed it & flew to work! At a pet shop near my office, I bought 50 cents worth of meal worms for her. Damn! that was alota worms!

The name "mantis" comes from the Greek word for 'prophet' or 'soothsayer.' (don't ask me why...I???) Too deep...I need to name her something sweeter, so I came up with Tong Tong. Tong Long is mantis in Cantonese, Tong can also mean sugar. There, a perfect name! *Wee~

Ever since Tong Tong's arrival, I would feed her nightly with meal worms, beetles, moths, spiders or even cicada that I can find around my block. By far, the cicada was the most interesting, it actually made buzzin' sound when Tong Tong is feeding on her. As she chewed on, the inside of the cicada was something you won't learn in biology class. It resembled a severed prawn! If I had a DV, I'd record the whole thing down.

Until about a month later, I saw her hanging only around the log I put in. When I looked closer, to my woo~hooness, I saw her eggs attached to the side of the log. Obviously, she had some "nasty" before I met her.

Soon after that, her food was running out, so I decided to leave the top cover opened for her to gain freedom again, but she never leave. I took her out & left her on a potted plant at my corridor, she's still around to-date. I wish she'll fly away, I hate to see the death of my pet.