Friday

Six AM on Nepean Point

Nights, lately, we coyotes have spent on the move, too hot, too restless to sleep. At the end of one such, I dogtrotted to Nepean Point at sunrise. Near the base of Champlain's statue, I settled on my hind legs, panting a little, thinking to watch the shadows of the bridges shorten on the moving water.

"Nice view, isn't it?" said a near voice.

I was surprised. Not too many people actually see semi-mythical coyotes in this city. They usually dismiss us as figments of imagination. We encourage this, and in fact know a few small charms to help it along. This was an unusual person. I looked over my shoulder into a very tanned face with intelligent eyes.

"It is," I agreed, turning, taking in details of the man in the shade of the statue's plinth: clean copper-sand hair as dark and weatherbeaten as his skin, shabby-neat clothes, open book overturned beside him, indeterminate age, relaxed raffish air. In the growing brightness over his shoulder was Parliament Hill, clouds piling over it into a sky the same deep blue as his eyes.

"I like to catch the breeze off the river about this time of day," he offered.

"It's good," I agreed. "In this heat." I pointed my pointy nose into a scrap of moving air and sniffed gratefully.

"I like the heat," he said. "I spend six months a year cursing the cold."

Then, seeing I wasn't quite poised to flit, as we coyotes often are wont, he began to talk. He seemed have traveled and to know about minerals. He told stories about planting gardens in glacial sand deposits in the Arctic, of holding huge black onyxes in his hands, of illegally moiling for opals in the Australian outback, of diving for emeralds at the bases of South American waterfalls.

His current state suggested none had stayed in his hands, if ever he'd held them. He was obviously knowledgeable and intelligent, but there was hazy point in each story where the facts as I understood them seemed to drag their anchors and begin to drift.

It also might be that he was being completely truthful about the way he saw the world. I did not see fit to get into this. It might, I decided, seem a touch rich coming from a six-odd-millenia-old, semimythical talking dog. Who's not really from around these parts.

His stories had a humorous flair. He seemed serene about the wealth he did not have. He was amiable. I enjoyed his company. That was enough.

As the breeze died in the growing heat, I stood. He closed his book, placed it carefully into a battered pack, and uncoiled elegantly from the base of the statue. We walked companionably down the hill. At the bottom he wished me a very fine day. I wished him an equally fine day. He turned toward the Market, and I turned toward the alleys of Centretown.

It occurred to me as I re-entered the city's heated maze that many of the elite who sit in that fairy-tale Gothic-revival castle just across the bay, the one that had hovered over his shoulder while we spoke, probably wouldn't have much regard for my nameless new friend. I think that perhaps he wouldn't have much use for them, either...

Thursday

Canada Day, 2010...



...have a good one.

Wednesday

Facing the Evil Bunny Threat

Call me fickle. Suddenly, I'm thinkin' of perambulatin' my coyote butt out to Victoria. I mean, better climate, (only slightly polluted) ocean air, and - huge bonus - it'd remove me geographically from the stroke-inducing antics of the surfeit of lame idiots infesting City Hall and The Hill. So, healthy move all 'round.

Oh, and, and speaking of surfeits, BUNNIES! Did I mention BUNNIES? It seems the University of Victoria administration has some kinda problem with several thousand of the cute li'l guys. Says they're a clear and present danger. Seems they, ummm, dig holes, and stuff.

Now, where the hell did I put the hot sauce? Pretty sure I can help with all of that...

Thursday

Nice Tush

I hear that Italy is out. What a shame - such a nice tush.

Wednesday

5.0 on the Richter scale, 1:41 P.M.



A noise like the cliché freight train, a lot of office towers doing The Log Drivers' Waltz, a few busted chimneys, one or two possible cracked foundations. No major injuries in Ottawa, except to our egos after the West Coast started collectively hooting at us for even noticing 5.0.

Although a guy fishing off of a bridge near the epicentre in Quebec, about 50 kilometres north of here, did have to drive himself to the ER after the bridge sorta dropped out from underneath him...
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