Twenty five days ago I found a monarch butterfly in the street--- on its left side, flapping its right wing wildly. I grabbed a couple leaves and tried to set it upright but no luck, it fell back onto its left side. Couldn't leave it there in the middle of the road as it would either get run over, eaten by ants, or chewed up by a dog...... so I put my finger next to it and it crawled up and into my palm. Got it home and googled what and how to feed a butterfly. Turns out they like a concoction of: simple syrup, juice, and soy sauce. The website even said you don't have to like it, it's for the butterfly. Oh and they like bananas and watermelon. I honestly thought it would die that day but fortunately.... that's not the case.

First thing was to stop saying "it" so I named the butterfly Mimi, just because. Mimi has never to this day flown. She'll flutter her wings but never ever gets any sort of lift. My guess is she flew into the side of a car and sustained some sort of injury that's preventing her from flying. She lives on a large shallow serving bowl covered in paper towels as that has a texture she seems to be able to maneuver around on.

I slowly started taking photos with her and this is what I've come up with:

In front of our Christmas tree.

In front of our ode to insect nook.

On my face.

On my hand as I draw. (And yes, she's packing on the pounds. Too many bananas apparently.)

On my painted fingers. That's MAC Cosmetics body paint.

On my partner's back. He's body painted with MAC Cosmetics and Wolfe FX.

In front of my face.

On a friend's hand body painted with Mehron and Paradise AQ.

On my hand with a line drawn on me and that paper with a Tombo pen.

In front of me on our bed.

Here's a little video of Mimi eating. Turns out they taste with their feet so she'll put a leg onto whatever she's about to consume and if she's really into it, she will continue to stir her foot around. :)

Don't know how much longer my little winged friend will be around but I plan to fully document her life and make it fully fab!