What the *hell* is that?
So, as you all know, we live up in the Hollywood Hills, Isomeme and me (now that the not-so-little-one is away at her palatial college), and we see more wildlife than the average city-dweller (especially since Wafer, the feline in residence, makes lizard deliveries on a quite frequent basis, and since at least one raccoon figured out the pet door). We see possums, coyotes, deer, a whole variety of birds, and squirrels. You know, squirrels. Fluffy, gray, move like a spastic on speed. I know they're just rats with a blow-out, but still, I like watching them.
So today I'm driving in the flats of LA and something runs across the road. Orange, fast, I figure it's a cat...until I see the tail is fatter than the body. It hits a tree and does that quantum-movement bouncy bouncy thing. I nearly caused an accident. So my question is, what the *hell* was that? Squirrels and tabbies getting intimate? Somebody using Manic Panic on the poor thing? A really pointless hallucination?
I suppose my wonderment was increased by the fact that I'm reading "The World Without Us", by Alan Weisman, which postulates a world in which all the people have disappeared and describes various scenarios of what the world would be like, including descriptions of returning fauna. It's a great book. Not only is it informative about all sorts of subjects, but it causes a certain sense of glee, seeing things fall apart. Stephen King said that part of writing his (excellent) "The Stand" was the fun of killing everyone off. On the same subject, I read Cormac MacCarthy's "The Road", a rather more poetic post-apocalyptic novel, and I enjoyed it. As Isomeme mentioned, we watched Fargo the other night, so now I'm looking forward to the upcoming movie "No Country (or Place, I don't remember) for Old Men", a Cormac MacCarthy book directed by the Cohen brothers.
But in movies, nothing tops the fact that The Other Conquest comes out on DVD in three weeks...I've been waiting to see this movie, about a post-Cortez-conquest Mexico, for seven years...
Love to all, and keep watching the squirrels...
So today I'm driving in the flats of LA and something runs across the road. Orange, fast, I figure it's a cat...until I see the tail is fatter than the body. It hits a tree and does that quantum-movement bouncy bouncy thing. I nearly caused an accident. So my question is, what the *hell* was that? Squirrels and tabbies getting intimate? Somebody using Manic Panic on the poor thing? A really pointless hallucination?
I suppose my wonderment was increased by the fact that I'm reading "The World Without Us", by Alan Weisman, which postulates a world in which all the people have disappeared and describes various scenarios of what the world would be like, including descriptions of returning fauna. It's a great book. Not only is it informative about all sorts of subjects, but it causes a certain sense of glee, seeing things fall apart. Stephen King said that part of writing his (excellent) "The Stand" was the fun of killing everyone off. On the same subject, I read Cormac MacCarthy's "The Road", a rather more poetic post-apocalyptic novel, and I enjoyed it. As Isomeme mentioned, we watched Fargo the other night, so now I'm looking forward to the upcoming movie "No Country (or Place, I don't remember) for Old Men", a Cormac MacCarthy book directed by the Cohen brothers.
But in movies, nothing tops the fact that The Other Conquest comes out on DVD in three weeks...I've been waiting to see this movie, about a post-Cortez-conquest Mexico, for seven years...
Love to all, and keep watching the squirrels...