Night Life of a Seventy-Something

 A local singer friend kept me awake one night this week. We went to the wine bar here on St. Paddy's day to hear her sing a lot of Irish tunes, including one about two unicorns that missed the boat: that is, Noah's ark. When I got up to pee that night, I was thrilled I'd slept until 4am. Only 2 more hours in bed I thought. 

I had trouble getting back to sleep because I kept hearing "cats and rats and elephants" over and over again in my head. (Words from the song) Eventually it became "bats and rats and elepha'ts". And then "blah blah chimpanzees"... I couldn't recall what the blah blahs that went with the chimpanzees were. Eventually I decided it should be "bees and flees and chimpanzees" to make it consistent. And then that kept repeating in my head. Then, I thought "trees" rhymes with chimpanzees, but realized it was only creatures, not plants that went into the ark. Then I thought well if plants didn't go into the ark how come they survived the flood. Even though seeds float, most will not survive for long in salt water and certainly not for the year Noah was in his Ark.

Then, I also realized it was only Noah's family that got on board. So how come all the races survived, because Noah was only Semitic. Then I thought how dumb for people to have believed the story in the first place, even thousands of years ago, and even if they were illiterate. Then I thought: but my born again brother out west believes it and he's literate. 

And so on it went until I finally rolled over and said to my partner, who was snoring, it must be time to get up. He grunted and said it's only 2:25. So I must have got up to pee at 12:20, not 4:00! ... having got the clock hands mixed up. So it was a very active night. 

I got up at 5:30 to verify that there were indeed trees outside. So everything was okay.

A Beastly Walk on a March Day

On my mostly daily walk a few days ago, I spotted what looked like a small beaver scurrying along the road about a kilometre from our home. It came up from the river side of the road and crossed onto the sidewalk ahead of me. Then, it scurried into the grass parallel to the side walk and kept going at a very good pace. 

I was watching it as I was gradually catching up to it. It was, most certainly, a muskrat. By the time I was about eighty metres on, it was scampering along the sidewalk. I wanted past, so I went onto the grass to overtake it as quickly as I could. It charged at me, coming right up to my feet. I jumped back in nervous and embarrassed fright. 

Every time I tried to pass it, the beast charged again. I jumped again. Finally, I let it get ahead of me. However, after a couple of further unsuccessful attempts to pass the aggressive little monster, I decided to take a wide sweep and get on my way. I went out tino the middle of the road. It was still scampering along the sidewalk parallel to me. But I managed  to get ahead of it. 

When I was about thirty metres ahead, I turned around and saw it running along in the middle of the roadway.  A car had stopped. A woman got out. She walked towards it. It charged at her, just as it had at me. She likewise jumped back. It charged again coming right up to her feet. This time however, she bent down towards it. She picked it up, carried it across the road to the water side and tossed it over the edge toward the river.

Thank god for brave women, I thought! Brave and perhaps foolish in retrospect. The creature's behaviour was most unnatural. It might have had rabies.