Addio, buona fortuna. . .

Our Muse has broken her silence to say goodbye. She says it's time for a new narrative, and really, she's right. A fairly classy wrap, I think, all things considered. So long, ma'am, and good luck...

Sign of the times

Turn right at the fallen statue
Past the spent shell casings
That litter the flats
Till you see the charred bones
That don't seem real
Until you smell
The unmistakable smell
Of burning flesh
If you reach an olive grove
Stroked by the sun
And hear the quiet cooing
Of those who sleep without fear
You have gone too far

Our dog is back on top

Several of us had the opportunity to participate in a delightful soiree on Sunday. The evening consisted of a wide variety of performances.

The Chair playing his hurdy-gurdy with the first act, a trio of old-timers playing favourite songs from their youth. After this the Chair became the master of ceremonies, introducing the other acts with his usual wit and charm.

As a regular at these soirees, I usually do a solo performance of some kind, but for once I took a back seat and did a whistling harmony and counter melody accompaniment for two folks who do lovely Kate Bush covers.

Conch Shell was there, but like here, she stayed in the audience.

Then there was Coyote. He read a selection of some of his more popular poetry. He started with two of his emo poems, then went dramatic with Yelling for Stella (dedicated to me of course), and closed with a breathless Straight Eight.

And after the show, it became obvious that our furry friend doesn't need an online dating service. He just needs to get out and read his poems in front of eligible babes. One little honey sat down next to him and started telling him that his poetry held thoughts she had but didn't know how to express. While her boyfriend was in the same room.

I'm told that another woman who may or may not be attached poetically said, "that Coyote is just my type. I'd like to jump his bones."

Emergency: supplemental report

"Ah..." said Agatha, over the telephone.

She's far too collected to ever raise a flap, but I sensed a certain strain untypical of her for a Saturday evening. When she told me that she had inadvertently slashed her hand, and that an ER was in the cards, I told her I was coming with her. Her 'thank-you' sounded relieved.

It was a measure of her condition that she also asked me to drive. Now, Aggie's auto these days is a 60s-vintage Mini Cooper. None of this recent revisionist Teutonic crap -- the noisy little original, with wheels the size of tea saucers, a pair of cranky side-draft carburettors, and a general mass suited to go-kart tracks, or being beaten up by Swatch Smart Cars in back alleys. In (naturally) British racing green. Perfect, actually, for coyotes that drive by chinning themselves on the steering wheel with their front paws, shifting the stick with our right hind paws, and tap dancing between the, uh, petrol, and the brake with our left hind paws. Clutch? Coyotes don't need no stinkin' clutches. We don't need no stinkin' cops, either. We not only don't have a valid operator's license, we don't even have pockets to put one into.

Wth a blip or two of the throttle (in vintage Brit, one never revs, one blips) we roared smokily off to the ER, Aggie clutching a sizeable towel around one hand, and the weekend Times of London in the other. She knows the state of Canadian health care, and she's a planner. I considered asking for details of the accident, then thought better of it. I considered asking details of the wound, and thought better of that. We chatted about other things.

The intake nurse had her seen-it-all, Saturday-night game face on, but it was early, so the regulars weren't out of the bars yet, and seating was plentiful. She said the wait would be only two hours. We settled in with the Times, Hockey Night in Canada, and a little anthropological observation. With aid in sight, if not yet very close, Aggie amused me greatly with her adventures at IKEA. We yukked it up so hard that a couple of possible heart attacks began to look askance at us. We were, frankly, obnoxious. Lucky for them, they were ahead in the line-up and could escape

We waited for the predicted two hours, knowledgeably discussing the other intakes: "I bet he's gangrene," and, "Ooh, d'ya think she's a prussic acid overdose?" -- that sort of thing. We noticed that that women with large stomachs and labour pains got quick preferential treatment, and approved. Then the PA quacked, sending Aggie to Urgent Care. Where she stayed for another two hours, as Saturday night reaped its Darwinian toll. The waiting room grew feistier, and more festive.

Two female cops brought in a handcuffed guy with no shirt. Shirtless Guy was impressively fat, and otherwise unremarkable. But I was fascinated by the cops. I couldn't help scoping ring fingers, and facial expressions for signs of recent decree nisis. Was it possible that the tall blonde amazonish one might conceivably have an ex-husband who is a firefighter...? She gave me a fishy stare, kinda brushed her Glock with her hand. I thought better of asking her about it and hastily lowered my snout into the Times personals. Coyotes don't got no IDs in their non-existent pockets either, and I wasn't aiming to cause trouble. Aggie needed my moral support. Or at least her car keys, still in my hot paws.

It was well past the witching hour, and both hockey games had long ended, when Dame Agatha sauntered back in. A glance at her spoke volumes.

"Ma'am, unless I am highly mistaken, you have been behaving extremely saucily with a very young medical intern or three, have you not?"

The answering smile was pure, vintage Agatha -- mysterious, demure, ladylike -- positively Mona Lisa. But I'd seen the complacent micro-smirk that preceded it. Our Aggie was definitely well on the mend, already. We broke into howls of laughter, then beat a hasty retreat into the night. The third possible heart attack, in the queue behind, seemed, perhaps, relieved...

And maybe that intake nurse had seen a thing or two more than usual. Certainly she'd had the night cleaning staff wet-mopping around me pretty regularly....

Image: www.hungryhugo.co.uk

Emergency - No Meeting

Last evening (ie. Saturday night) after the Ikea Incident , I had an accident that involved running with scissors that resulted in my index finger looking like the above photo. It was an EMERGENCY.

I thought about calling an ESI Emergency Meeting, but instead, I called Coyote, who I know is level-headed in these kinds of situations. He very kindly drove me to the ER while I held my bloody finger in a towel in the passenger seat. Some people gave us strange looks when they saw Coyote's pointy little snout peering over the steering wheel. However, he seemed to fit right in with the motley crew in the ER.

In the ER, we waited and waited and waited. We watched the hockey game and commented on how ridiculous the 15-second-delayed closed captioning was, and how annoyed we'd be if we were hearing impaired. When the hockey became tiresome, We watched the deadpan-faced intake nurse interview patients: "You slid off the roof?" "How many feet?" "How did you land?" "On your feet?" Then, we commented on the fellow who walked in with a bottle of coke in a mixing bowl, and agreed that it is a myth that Coke is good for nausea.

Finally, they called my name and I followed a series of yellow dots to Urgent Care where I waited for another couple of hours in an examination room. I walked around a bit and checked in on some of the patients. My wounded finger was not considered to be top priority. The guy who fell off the roof spent some time in a stretcher in the hall after a fainting spell. The barfing guy was just noisy and annoying so I stayed away from him.

Close to midnight, a sixteen-year old intern named Matt came in to examine my finger. He said, "Hmmm. I don't know if you need stitches or not. These are the kind of decisions I guess I should be making myself." I assured him that it was ok if he wanted to get another opinion. He brought in an old geezer doctor who said to Matt, "Yes, definitely stitches. Three of them. A digital square. Do you know how to do that?" Matt said he did. Then, when the doctor left, Matt confessed that my index finger was the first he'd ever stitched. He added that he was proud of the work he was doing and was excited about how the stitches were turning out. I congratulated him. Then, we talked about the tetanus shot I would get later, and he explained what "lockjaw" was, which just sounds nasty.

Finally, I was ready to leave. Coyote had his nose in a newspaper, and didn't complain about the wait.

Lessons learned: 1) Coyote is good in an emergency. 2) Don't run with scissors.