Thursday, February 07, 2008

R

Football is officially over. What to do with sundays now? Sure, there's the pro-bowl this sunday but who the heck watches the pro-bowl except people in Hawaii hoping to see their relatives in the stadium? My sundays are open now. I need to come up with a plan. Plus, the wife has left me for another guy called India.

You know what I realized recently is that having nature and woods behind your home is all well and good in theory but these things get kinda scary at night. The other day I thought I heard a whistling sound coming from outside. I was concerned that it was coming from my gas heater so I walked down to my basement, out onto my patio and inspected my steam vent. In the distance, something howled. It was a very short distance, somewhere near my right elbow. I jumped back into my basement, ran back up and walked out onto my deck which is above ground level and luckily, way way above ground level. I peered into the dark. The howling was strange. It was a combination of a dog with tuberculosis, a baby choking on sand and a cat drowning in a well. This cat-dog-baby thing appeared to be loose in the woods and was probably hunting for mouse-bone-toy things which are its natural prey. Occasional splashing sounds in the creek appeared to confirm my hypothesis. To this day, namely, the day after that day, I do not know what that thing was. Maybe the nature of teeth-marks on that corpse will confirm its identity.

But during the day these woods are great. They are a bird-watcher's wet dream. By the time this article went to press, I had already seen a family of cardinals, a group of blue jays, a happily married purple finch couple, a nuthatch, a red bellied woodpecker, a hairy woodpecker and something that looked like a hawk with a yellow chest. Deer yes, they've been around too and they appear to be well fed and healthy. The only thing I haven't seen yet is a fox and by God, those things are awesome. I still remember the sight of a red fox running around in the snow as I watched it from my bedroom window in New Hampshire. Foxes, whew, they are beautiful creatures.

By the way, for anyone who was feeling sympathetic towards me for living next door to a band, that issue has been solved. I had a talk with the guy the other day and I asked him, hey man, are you in a band, and he said, yeah, sorry about all that noise, and I said, oh come on, it wasn't that bad, in fact I worry more that my television might be disturbing you, and he said, okay then. Uh, I said, okay then, keep playing. Did I just tell him to continue playing? Sure I did. So to recap, I am okay with people who live next door to me and play loud music in their basement as long as they come to me and apologize for it. I would make a bad president.

Hey Iran, I heard you were making nuclear weapons.

Oh yes, Mr President we were meaning to tell you about it, we apologize.

Oh okay then Iran, I guess I will see you around.

So basically don't bother voting for me in the primary.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

R for?

J. Alfred Prufrock said...

I've been having a biyatch of a day ... month ... no, year at work so far. Bloglines offered no relief, so I gave up on it.

Then today I remembered the Egg. Stopped by. Read. Laughed plenty. Cheered up.

You still have my vote for the Funniest Man on the Net.
Thanks.

J.A.P.

gawker said...

TGFI : R for basically giving up on trying to come up with a title.

JAP : JAPsan you humble me. Thank you. Hope your day, month and year gets better which they surely will because spring is almost here.

Anonymous said...

My place has woods in the back ( no creek though) and plenty of creatures . So we have a fence. But one day the door of the fence was open ( dont ask me why there's a door leading to the woods)..and it snowed 4 ft of snow. The next morning, there were these tracks all over the backyard. Probably whatever came in from the woods was looking for food, and circled the couple of trees we have in the back yard, and went back..but it was creepy as hell when I first saw it..

btw, sorry for blogging in ur comment space.. :)

gawker said...

sqrl : No problem, look upon this blog as a public forum to air your grievances or as in your case, tales of animal maraudery.

I am actually waiting for the first major snow storm of the season to occur so that I will be able to find out what kind of zoological colony is living in my backyard. I hope to discover a new species and thereby make my contribution to science.

RobRoy said...

Why do you know what a baby choking on sand sounds like? The other things, sure, but a baby and sand? I thought India was mostly humid?

gawker said...

We have lots of babies and lots of sand, most of the sand being in the same place that contains lots of babies. Therefore, it would only be surprising if there existed an Indian who has not yet heard a baby choking on sand. We are also very humid.

RobRoy said...

Wow, all my college education . . . wasted.