A most unusual day
As I left the office this evening and walked into Central Park, there was a group of about fifteen 30-something people standing around, all wearing what from a distance appeared to be costumes. Upon walking closer, I realized they were wedding clothes, in a very bold black and red theme. (Actually, it reminded me of my hometown whenever a home game of football was on, and everyone wearing their red and black outfits all day).
I realized they were no longer doing anything very serious, so I figured it was acceptable to walk through the area, rather than trying to find a path around them. A woman ahead of me had done the same, as well. Suddenly both the woman and I began to draw an uncanny amount of attention, and it took me a minute to realize why, until I looked down at what I was wearing. Today I wore for the first time a red silk shirt which I'd bought ages ago, but which always seemed a little loud for my sleepy morning mood whenever I'm deciding what to put on for work. This, of course, was accompanied by black pants, and aside from the lack of a black necktie, I matched the men in the wedding party exactly — it honestly looked like I'd planned it. To add to the effect, the woman ahead of me was wearing red pants and a black jacket, which, while not exactly wedding wear, did match the inverted color scheme which the girls were wearing, with red skirts and black blouses.
* * *
Shortly after passing through the wedding party area, I was startled by a large dark shape which swooped down over my head and landed among some tree stumps. I thought at first that it might be a flying squirrel (I've heard there are some around here, though I've never seen one). Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be what was unmistakably a woodpecker (complete with bright red Woody Woodpecker head feather thing).
I'd never seen a woodpecker before.
They are big.
Like pheasant size big.
I watched in fascination as it pecked at a tree stump and scattered little pieces of bark everywhere. (I really really wished I'd had my camera with me).
* * *
Not far from the woodpecker's tree stump, I saw the flash of a bushy tail off to the side of the main trail past the playground. The black squirrel sort of scampered over to the edge of the path up ahead, looked at me out of the corner of its eye, and then suddenly jumped looked straight at me wide-eyed and stood straight up at full attention for a couple of seconds, and then equally suddenly burst into a blur of motion directly at me, coming to a skidding halt between my feet.
It was BlackSquirrel, whom I hadn't seen in weeks, only his (her, actually, but I can't get in the habit of not calling him a him) other black-clothed friends. It was good to see that my nut-munching buddy hadn't been scooped up by a dog after all. I offered him (her) a snack, and not long afterward he (okay I give up) chattered off toward the trees, and I was shortly beset on all sides by JumpyGreySquirrel and two other little black squirrels. They fought over the cashew nuts and played and messed with my backpack on the ground.
Great fun, in a squirrely sort of way.
* * *
On the SkyTrain ride home, I got to experience for the first (and hopefully last) time in my life what I can only assume was the result of a skunk who got too close to the electrified third rail of the SkyTrain track.
Forget biological weapons.
Imagine the smell of an already stinky little woodland creature, who, upon being suddenly charged up, immediately empties not only its bladder and bowels, but a lifetime supply of skunk squirt, and then promptly bursts into flame, coating the entire region will a dull fog of burnt skin and hair and barbecued rodent meat, cat-like urine, skunk musk, and shit.
It was the most awful thing ever to hit my nostrils.
I didn't realize just how bad it was until all the people on the train started getting watery eyes and holding their noses and coughing, and it still kept getting stronger. I'd at first assumed that the smell had arrived approximately when we came up to it, but by the time the air finally cleared, it became obvious that a SkyTrain skunk bomb has a blast radius of nearly a half mile in every direction. The other truly awful thing about it is that it was on the train. No brakes. No option to turn around or avoid the area. We were hurtling headlong into what seemed like imminent doom.
So, so, bad.
Luckily, after what seemed like an eternity, the same aspects of the train also carried us at lightning speed away from the stink, and nobody even risked looking back.
One for the books, for sure. I'm curious whether there'll be a news write-up tomorrow in one of the what-seem-like-dozens of tabloid daily newspapers around here.
* * *
To put a nice spin on things at the end, though, there was a sitar player in the Granville SkyTrain station, and he was really good. For once I wished I had more change in my pocket to give someone (67 cents seemed like a really random tip to throw in someone's . . . uh . . . sitar-case).
Again, I wished I hadn't left the camera at home. . . .
I realized they were no longer doing anything very serious, so I figured it was acceptable to walk through the area, rather than trying to find a path around them. A woman ahead of me had done the same, as well. Suddenly both the woman and I began to draw an uncanny amount of attention, and it took me a minute to realize why, until I looked down at what I was wearing. Today I wore for the first time a red silk shirt which I'd bought ages ago, but which always seemed a little loud for my sleepy morning mood whenever I'm deciding what to put on for work. This, of course, was accompanied by black pants, and aside from the lack of a black necktie, I matched the men in the wedding party exactly — it honestly looked like I'd planned it. To add to the effect, the woman ahead of me was wearing red pants and a black jacket, which, while not exactly wedding wear, did match the inverted color scheme which the girls were wearing, with red skirts and black blouses.
* * *
Shortly after passing through the wedding party area, I was startled by a large dark shape which swooped down over my head and landed among some tree stumps. I thought at first that it might be a flying squirrel (I've heard there are some around here, though I've never seen one). Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be what was unmistakably a woodpecker (complete with bright red Woody Woodpecker head feather thing).
I'd never seen a woodpecker before.
They are big.
Like pheasant size big.
I watched in fascination as it pecked at a tree stump and scattered little pieces of bark everywhere. (I really really wished I'd had my camera with me).
* * *
Not far from the woodpecker's tree stump, I saw the flash of a bushy tail off to the side of the main trail past the playground. The black squirrel sort of scampered over to the edge of the path up ahead, looked at me out of the corner of its eye, and then suddenly jumped looked straight at me wide-eyed and stood straight up at full attention for a couple of seconds, and then equally suddenly burst into a blur of motion directly at me, coming to a skidding halt between my feet.
It was BlackSquirrel, whom I hadn't seen in weeks, only his (her, actually, but I can't get in the habit of not calling him a him) other black-clothed friends. It was good to see that my nut-munching buddy hadn't been scooped up by a dog after all. I offered him (her) a snack, and not long afterward he (okay I give up) chattered off toward the trees, and I was shortly beset on all sides by JumpyGreySquirrel and two other little black squirrels. They fought over the cashew nuts and played and messed with my backpack on the ground.
Great fun, in a squirrely sort of way.
* * *
On the SkyTrain ride home, I got to experience for the first (and hopefully last) time in my life what I can only assume was the result of a skunk who got too close to the electrified third rail of the SkyTrain track.
Forget biological weapons.
Imagine the smell of an already stinky little woodland creature, who, upon being suddenly charged up, immediately empties not only its bladder and bowels, but a lifetime supply of skunk squirt, and then promptly bursts into flame, coating the entire region will a dull fog of burnt skin and hair and barbecued rodent meat, cat-like urine, skunk musk, and shit.
It was the most awful thing ever to hit my nostrils.
I didn't realize just how bad it was until all the people on the train started getting watery eyes and holding their noses and coughing, and it still kept getting stronger. I'd at first assumed that the smell had arrived approximately when we came up to it, but by the time the air finally cleared, it became obvious that a SkyTrain skunk bomb has a blast radius of nearly a half mile in every direction. The other truly awful thing about it is that it was on the train. No brakes. No option to turn around or avoid the area. We were hurtling headlong into what seemed like imminent doom.
So, so, bad.
Luckily, after what seemed like an eternity, the same aspects of the train also carried us at lightning speed away from the stink, and nobody even risked looking back.
One for the books, for sure. I'm curious whether there'll be a news write-up tomorrow in one of the what-seem-like-dozens of tabloid daily newspapers around here.
* * *
To put a nice spin on things at the end, though, there was a sitar player in the Granville SkyTrain station, and he was really good. For once I wished I had more change in my pocket to give someone (67 cents seemed like a really random tip to throw in someone's . . . uh . . . sitar-case).
Again, I wished I hadn't left the camera at home. . . .