999 Posts Later...

...do you love us just the same?

And I thought there was no 5th anniversary.

An irrelevant paws

These are the grey days that try a semimythical coyote's soul. I have many reasons why this is so. Sadly, they are unrelated. So no neat themes or clever segues in this post. Just the usual dogged shagginess. Or shagged dogginess....

1) I have noted that Mr Harpo's personal political party has had a bad week PR-wise, nabbed with their Tory-blue mitts all over the government treasury. And not-so-kosher Conservative Party logos all over the economic stimulation cheques with which they've been stimulating ummm, mainly their own backyards.

The fallback for Tories caught out doing this stuff has become any number of variations on, "Hey, Liberals did it before we did! This ploy's transparency is the only transparent thing left in Mr Harpo's government.

Some people want to fly with the eagles. Some wanna swim with the dolphins. These guys aspire to dredge beneath the bottom feeders.

I've suggested ad nausaeum already that Mr Harpo's idea of political discussion has narrowed to crudely partisan hype. Which I'm afraid means that his ideal governmental model is (ooh, here it comes, wait for it...) a ummm, hypocracy...

2) Light Rail: The mayor says his new plan is visionary. Well, all righty then. He should know....

3) Lansdowne Live. No. Just no. I refuse to go there.

4) Certain doggies have racked up one or two arthritic joints in the last six millenia, and each autumn the chill in the wind takes a little more getting used to.

So I'll take a brief (heh...) paws to recommend Grace Ottawa on Bank Street as purveyors of the best darned handwarmers in town. They cost a buck and a quarter each, they come pre-heated, they're an ideal size, and the toasty Jamaican glow lasts well beyond the time needed for any crosstown jaunt. (I have no idea what makes 'em so heat-retentive, but those chemical HotShot thingies that Crappy Tire sells got nothing on these babies...) Bonus: they're still hot enough to eat and enjoy after the trip, with or without Caribbean pepper sauce. You may want to consider 'em for the coming Ottawa Zombie Walk or the Sandy Claws Parade. And in the interest of full disclosure I want to say that I hold no financial or fiduciary interest in Grace and that that this celebrity endorsement is completely unsolicited. You're welcome!

5) There is no fifth thing. It's a trope. Deal with it.

Fifth things...

Fifth things -- the fifth things that we never include in this blog, because in this dimension of (alleged) reality, the only true fifth thing is our Muse - often awaken me at night. And at the risk of touching off a long, ugly decline into irrelevence, with spring finally here, there's a fifth thing that has lately bothered me. A question, as they say, of import, gravitas, and possibly, crunchiness.

I mean, no less an awesome dude than Bill Shakespeare posed the musical question, "What's in a name?", then by way of immediate answer plopped "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" into Juliet's script.

But I happen to recall an old, small, and according to the great god Google, now completely forgotten story, in which a king and his princess daughter more or less contradicted Juliet by agreeing that everyone would like dandelions a bunch better if they renamed them 'Golden Fancies.' Of course, in this fiction, there was no question of accepting large, evil, international chemical marketing conglomerates' notions of weediness.

Now, Bill was a helluva writer, but not necessarily the final authority on everything. He was born at least five (heh) and a half millenia after certain, nearby, semi mythical coyotes. But while there is no longer any passing mention of Golden Fancies vis-a-vis dandelions left anywhere (And after all, the entire golden construct could be a cruel trick of an ancient and crotchety canine disposed to Alzheimerish daydreams, or a sharp-as-a-tack but completely unreliable narrator - your choice... I digress.) the philosophical saw-off continues to torture my poor doggie brain. Which is it?

Spring, ummm, unleashed

Canadian spring is technically upon us. Oh, I know some of you sneer that you already had this august event timed to the very nanosecond, because your TV weatherman of choice quoted the friendly neighbourhood National Research Council/ Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics' cesium-slurping sidereal clock thingy to you, on last evening's news.

But we six millennia old, semi mythical, quasi animistic, partly totemic coyotes prefer to sniff the wind and read time-honoured traditional sign ourselves, and actually sense spring rising like green maple sap in our creaky old bones. Even if we've lately become a little more citified - and sap headed - than we would like.

To whit:

The receding snowdrifts' stripteasing revelation of a winter's worth of plastic bags full of toy poodle poo, not unadjacent to the mouth of the ol' den. They're courtesy of an elegant lady of a certain age, who looks law-abiding, in whose mouth butter would not melt. She scoops under duress (i.e. If she knows someone human is watching) but invariably chucks the distasteful little baggy into "somebody else's problem" territory, when she thinks potential eyewitnesses are past. Nota bene: Coyotes watch. Always. Yer busted. Happy Spring.

Legions of empty, abandoned Tim Hortons Larges, rocked gently in every downtown gutter by a light, chilly Northern breeze. A marked section of each paper cup lip is artfully unrolled to display the sad comment, "Better luck next time..."

The annual horde of complaints about the annual carpet of pate de merde graisse produced by the annual horde of Canada Geese, often in the immediate environs of Andrew Haydon Park.

The Prime Minister's and Finance Minister's protestations that the economy is just fine, darn it! Ummm, okay, that last one is not technically a sign of spring. They've been spouting pretty much the same "We're delusional! Re-elect us!" shit since last fall.

Ooh. Look! Point Number Five. Anybody see a theme here?

Come to think of it, things don't actually smell like proper spring yet. Not really. Pardon me while I just, ummm, hold my nose here. And keep popping Vitamin D for another week or two....

Fifths

As Aggie often reminds us, there is no fifth thing.

I think that it is charming that she sees, hears, and speaks no fifth.

But, for those who find this idiosyncrasy confusing, here are a few fifths for you to ponder:

• a fifth wheel

• a fifth of therapy
  

• a fifth of Beethoven

• a fifth of Ayabar

• a fifth reason to stop smoking

• a fifth less
  

• a fifth (see #5)