Thing 1. Terrible Yellow Eyes: a really interesting site where a guy named Cory Godbey has undertaken to post a piece of art every week inspired by Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are.
My favorites so far are the “Water Thing” and “Where Are They Now?” But every one is interesting; this looks like a promising site. (Sighted at SF Signal.)
Thing 2. I was pedalling down the bike trail the other evening, thinking about this and that, when I noticed a small furred creature on the trail ahead of me. This happens sometimes and didn’t seem like a problem, as the distance gave the rabbit or squirrel or cat or whatever it was plenty of time to cross the path–or turn back, since I do have a front like Jove, an eye like Mars to threaten and command (or so I pay people to tell me sometimes).
Then I noticed it wasn’t really moving too fast. Was it hurt? What sort of beast was it? Legs too short for a cat. Too dark and slow for a squirrel. Dark, except for the white stripe on its back…
SKUNK!
By this time the skunk and I had reached very similar conclusions about each other. He (?) turned on a rather sluggish dime and waddled back whence (s)he had come.
I was careful not to say or do anything that might trigger his (her?) olfactory defense systems, except to holler, “WHOA! SKUNK!” at the top of my voice and pedal madly onwards. I was sure I was going to be doused with skunkiness and, looking back, it seems like I might have chosen something wittier or at least less Keanu-Reeves-like for my last spoken words as a social being.
Anyway, I survived undoused (though I suppose you’ll have to take my word for that) and the principal effect was that I was primed for adrenalin when I faced The Part of the Trail Where the Wind Is Always Against You.
“This is great!” I thought. “I should get that skunk to cross the trail every night!” But, on reflection, the logistics seemed a little tricky. Also, I suppose you’d get used to the danger after a while and it would lose its effect. So that idea, like so many great ideas, slid away into oblivion, or into this blog entry, which is practically the same thing.
Hey, I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed Blood of Ambrose. You might find this amusing: I’d been stubbornly refusing to admit that my “over-40 vision” (as the optometrist so annoyingly termed it) was not what it used to be. But after a failed attempt at reading Blood of Ambrose, I gave in. I’ve got reading glasses now. 🙂
Thanks!
Sorry to hear about your eyes, though. For what it’s worth, I’m a fellow sufferer: I just got reading glasses and I sort of hate them; they really seem to be affecting my ability to read for long stretches at a time.
Once, on a dead run through some woods, I planted my foot a few inches from a skunk. It was not a happy skunk.
I didn’t find that nearly as traumatic as the time I thought a juvenile skunk was going to climb into my lap. The skunk detoured around me, but the thought of what might have been…[shudder]
–Jeff Stehman
Wow. I’ll have to think about those stories the next time I need an adrenalin rush…
Okay, now I really am going to have to post about the rabid skunk under my front porch.
I just read your story and was stunned by Animal Control’s lack of interest. (And I don’t blame you in your reaction to their implied criticism of your parenting. Their response seems incredibly stupid, given the circumstances.)
It was as if they aspired to be Kafkaesque but couldn’t make the major leagues.
That is a nutty story. Maybe the A-Team wasn’t working the phones (or in the field) that day.
It was a nutty day all around.
Your skunk story made me splorfle. (Which was actually not a good thing, as I was eating breakfast at the time.)
Sorry! It was weird–like I’d cycled my way into a Pepe Le Pew cartoon.
Except that in a Pepe Le Pew cartoon, you’d have been pedaling madly, making the best time of your life as a cyclist, while the skunk skipped merrily along to that repeating little violin trill and mysteriously outpaced you.