Things I Will Miss: Vol. II
After a long day at work (and a long weekend of work for that matter), I decided that the evening was too nice to enjoy inside of my dusky old apartment. This necessitated a phone call to Philly to search for a patio. We settled on the Green Room, a well kept 'secret' amongst the locals that could possibly be possibly the best bar in the Tdot for value and ambience. A beer on the patio sounded like a fine way to finish off a harried Monday indeed.
So a smidge past 7, I found myself walking along Bloor from the Spadina subway station, lost in my thoughts of poster organization and data interpretation, when I realized that I was walking through a throng of people who were looking up. This doesn't happen that often, so I stopped and followed the gaze of the other pedestrians to the top of the buildings located across the road. I didn't see a damned thing. I spent at least a minute searching for the focus of said group, and in the end decided that it was a mass Social Psych experiment that I would not be a part of. So off I went, intent on completing the task at hand.
As is always the case, I enjoyed a couple of hours of conversation, relaxation and general social time with Philly, and later Psycho and Cleavers. We decided to leave around 10:30 to go and view Cleavers new apartment. Walking down Bloor, we realized that there was still a mass of people. All looking up. The group now, however, was much larger, and included a group of police officers and firefighters (this is what caught Cleavers' attention, of course). And, around a lamp post, there was a newly formed pile of cardboard boxes and blankets. There was even a protester, with a sign that said "Even A Stripper Couldn't Stay Up a Pole This Long".
Which of course sent our eyes to the top of the lamp post.
There, stuck on the top of the lamp post, was a raccoon. He had done himself a fine job in garnering a shitload of attention, I tell you what. Poor thing was obviously scared shitless. But how in the hell did he get himself to the top of a pole? It was a good 30-40 feet from the top of the closest building, and a good 70 feet high. The general consensus was that it may have resulted from a dare made at his bachelor party. We figured his racoon buddies were probably sitting round the corner, sniggering to themselves and wondering how pissed his raccoon-wife-to-be would be when he didn't show up at the wedding.
While I'm sure that Edmonton is full of nice a lovely people, I have a feeling that I will never walk down a street, see at LEAST 20 Emergency Crew workers, 60-70 anxious onlookers, a news crew (CTV), and a protester, all anxiously awaiting the fate of an animal most consider to be a pest stuck on the top of a lamp post. For at least 3.5 hours.
The sad thing is I'm checking the news sites to see if they've got him down yet.
And Cleavers' apartment is lovely. I have some great accomodations when I come home to visit, I tell you what.
So a smidge past 7, I found myself walking along Bloor from the Spadina subway station, lost in my thoughts of poster organization and data interpretation, when I realized that I was walking through a throng of people who were looking up. This doesn't happen that often, so I stopped and followed the gaze of the other pedestrians to the top of the buildings located across the road. I didn't see a damned thing. I spent at least a minute searching for the focus of said group, and in the end decided that it was a mass Social Psych experiment that I would not be a part of. So off I went, intent on completing the task at hand.
As is always the case, I enjoyed a couple of hours of conversation, relaxation and general social time with Philly, and later Psycho and Cleavers. We decided to leave around 10:30 to go and view Cleavers new apartment. Walking down Bloor, we realized that there was still a mass of people. All looking up. The group now, however, was much larger, and included a group of police officers and firefighters (this is what caught Cleavers' attention, of course). And, around a lamp post, there was a newly formed pile of cardboard boxes and blankets. There was even a protester, with a sign that said "Even A Stripper Couldn't Stay Up a Pole This Long".
Which of course sent our eyes to the top of the lamp post.
There, stuck on the top of the lamp post, was a raccoon. He had done himself a fine job in garnering a shitload of attention, I tell you what. Poor thing was obviously scared shitless. But how in the hell did he get himself to the top of a pole? It was a good 30-40 feet from the top of the closest building, and a good 70 feet high. The general consensus was that it may have resulted from a dare made at his bachelor party. We figured his racoon buddies were probably sitting round the corner, sniggering to themselves and wondering how pissed his raccoon-wife-to-be would be when he didn't show up at the wedding.
While I'm sure that Edmonton is full of nice a lovely people, I have a feeling that I will never walk down a street, see at LEAST 20 Emergency Crew workers, 60-70 anxious onlookers, a news crew (CTV), and a protester, all anxiously awaiting the fate of an animal most consider to be a pest stuck on the top of a lamp post. For at least 3.5 hours.
The sad thing is I'm checking the news sites to see if they've got him down yet.
And Cleavers' apartment is lovely. I have some great accomodations when I come home to visit, I tell you what.
posted by Anderson at 9:05 PM
3 Comments:
We don't have raccoons. At all. But there was a big flurry of excitement last week when someone called the fire department to get a cat out of a tree and was told "no". This led to outrage by the citizenry (evidenced by a big brouhaha on a call-in radio show) and finally the PR person for the fire department announced that yes, in fact, someone went to save the kitty.
Also, once again today, traffic was impaired by wandering moose.
I've been trying to find something about the raccoon, but without success. Watch it still be up there!
I heard that they were just waiting for it to get dehydrated and fall off the pole. People in the neighborhood set up a bit of the watch when emergency people left around midnight, and the raccon got itself away sometime in the wee hours of the morning. I heard that none of the emergency animal people would take responsiblity for getting it off though.
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