Pretty Coyote

My Dad has an expression: If someone is clever, he says, “that’s pretty coyote.” Well a couple of days ago, Dad was coyote enough to be up before the crack of dawn – 5:00am – and he stepped out in his front yard to watch the dark go by. But what he got to watch go by turned out to be two coyotes – real wild coyotes, not dogs – strolling up with center of the street in the shadows.

Dad said that he looked up the street and thought “that’s a very big dog,” then saw another coming behind it. And as they got closer he realized they weren’t dogs at all.

My folks live about two miles from me, here in a little beach city near Santa Barbara. They’ve lived in that house since 1963, and this is the first time coyotes have been spotted in their neighborhood. Which begs the question: why? Why now? What strange new world does this portend?

Mistah Clarke, he dead

Speaking of strange futures, Arthur C. Clarke is dead, they say. He was a fine writer, no doubt. But he was more than that: the man had vision. He not only imagined the future, he understood our place in the context of time.

Deadlines

“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”

— Douglas Adams