Monday, August 06, 2007

A Long Weekend in Canada

It is a Long Weekend throughout Canada. I’m not sure if “Long Weekend” should be capitalized. It isn’t a holiday that celebrates anything in particular. I think they call it a “statutory holiday.” As near as I can tell, the Canadian Government decided that everyone in Canada should have a three-day weekend about every month so they made it happen. It is a civilized thing to do.

Friendly Manitoba, at least the part I am in, was covered with a canopy of gray when I more or less willingly climbed out of bed this morning. There wasn’t a whisper of wind. A couple of blue jays had diarrhea of the mouth, but that isn’t particularly noteworthy. Blue jays always have something to bitch and moan about.

I killed a blue jay once. As I recall, I was 13 or 14 years old and full of whatever boys/young men of that age are filled. I’m guessing that would be a combination of an almost lethal amount of testosterone, a dollop of arrogance, and a liberal helping of piss and vinegar. Anyway, this blue jay was sitting on a fence post about 20 yards from where I was standing. It was a fence post in name only. Any wire that had been affixed to the post was long since gone.

The blue jay wasn’t doing anything other than taking his or her ease and singing what it considered to be a tune. At least, I assume it was singing a tune. In actuality, it could have been taunting me in bird language. It could have been making disparaging remarks about my pimple farm.

I don’t know if you knew that I was a pimple farmer when I was a teenager. I did everything I knew to do to get rid of the damned things. I even scrubbed my face with lava soap and a scrub brush. It didn’t do a damn thing other than make me look as though I had a sunburn. Obviously, I didn’t want to be a pimple farmer. What I wanted was to look like Elvis Presley and have a harem of gorgeous, nubile, non-virgins at my beck and call.

Anyway, the damned bird was sitting there on the fence post that wasn’t really a fence post. Suddenly, with absolutely no forethought, I decided to see if I could hit the bird with a rock. So I bent over and picked a rock of the appropriate shape and configuration. I didn’t have anything against the bird. After all, it was just sitting there. Neither did I have any real hope of hitting said bird. There are those who can chunk a rock with amazing accuracy. If I tossed a rock at my foot, I would have missed by a mile.

So I reared back and gave the rock a sidearm toss; sort of like I was trying to skim a flat rock across a farm pond. In case you’re wondering, I was pretty darned good at skimming stones. I’d tell you my world record but I probably misremember the true amount of skips it made.

You know what happened. I hit that bird dead on the head and it fell over the same way – dead. I went running over to it and picked it up. As the warmth of life fled from its’ little body I felt like absolute shit. So I buried it.

And I’ve never tossed another rock at another bird. I have, however, gone out with a shotgun and done some serious damage to eating birds. There isn’t much in this world that tastes better than quail and homemade dumplings.

Feel free to supply your own moral to this little tale. There isn’t a prize for coming up with the best one though.

Life is sweet – because it is a cool, cloud-covered day in Friendly Manitoba.
Buffalo 3:21 PM

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