20050315   

Michael considered fate at 01:02   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment

Today, somewhere between the corners of Clark and St. Urbain on Rue Prince Arthur, somewhere between the hours of 9:45 and 10:00 AM, I strolled along at a good clip with my fleece zipped to my midchest and my baseball cap pulled low over my eyes to block the brilliant sun from my blinky-sleep eyes. The air, bright and crisp like a morning swim was as calm as a lake and I breathed deeply, enjoying the winter-come-spring freshness of renewal. Stepping along I noted two pigeons milling about a parked car, stepping aside as people passed, waddling around in circles, and generally keeping their heads down for tasty morsels. As I Approached the speckled one gave me a sideways glance, skuttling up a sheet of ice that had layered itself onto an alleyway ramp where the curb was cut away. It wasn't even at the slightest angle, this ice, but I wouldn't have put it out of range of a grandmotherly fall so I skirted around it's edge. As I passed, I watched the bespeckled one watch me, pretending he wasn't watching me watch him. Then, out of the blue, the funniest thing happened. He slipped.

I always imagined pigeons - and birds in generally, really - to be masters of balance and poise since, at a moments notice, they need only stretch out their wings and they are off. Built in trapeze-artists balancing stick, only it's a stick with feathers.. that can help you fly. So it came as a surprise when old bespeckled splayed a leg out down the ice, slipping sideways and sort of turning in a mini-pirouette. His one foot - mostly under his center of mass - held on for dear life, sort of hopping once or twice the slightest bit to avoid committing him to a full-out slide. He did recover magnificently, I will give him that, but it was a close call and I chuckled my way to the corner, a more humoured man for the encounter.

Just when I thought my entertainment was over I noticed an old man shuffling down the street towards me. He had on a cabbie-type hat of some kind, a knitted scarf of some dark earthy colour like olive or brown, and a coat that tucked in under his gut at the waist with a stretch band. His zipper was around midchest, as mine was, and he wore thick glasses. As we approached one another, heading in opposite directions, I became immediately convinced I had seen him before. I wracked my brain, spinning through photos like a desperate casting director, until finally: aha! He was, no doubt, a carbon-copy of the polar-bear clubman in the "Intervention" episode of Seinfeld who told Elaine the joke about male kangaroos and their pouch envy. "At least give me a pocket!". This, the pigeon.. "Okay," I thought. I looked up at the pure blue sky "It's going to be one of those days, huh?" And then he winked at me. Or there was some dust in his eye. Or I'm making it up. Either way.

"Surely," I thought, "this is it." There wasn't anything else I could possibly see worth mentioning. No way. Normally, walking to class, I'm grumpy and tired charging along with head down just trying to get where I'm going. Normally I don't see anything worth even a second glance - and even then, she's usually with her boyfriend. Today, though, there was something in the air. Something on the breeze, I guess. Something. As I came close to St. Urbain, having just left the old man from the polar bear club, I felt and heard something brush up against my leg. I looked down to see a white paper plate - a veseel of dollar pizza, no doubt - flat up against my leg, but only for a second. It sat there for the briefest moment, like a kid surveying the deep end before cannonballing off the diving board, and then took off with the faintest breeze down Prince Arthur. It rolled completely around it's circumference, standing almost perfectly straight up and down, with barely even a hint of drunken swagger. As I walked along it trotted beside me, matching my speed, and before I knew it we were 40 feet down the sidewalk. As we broke the corner of St. Urbain the little plate that could was no match for the crosswinds and she fluttered, rolling around once like a dog matting it's bedding down, before coming to rest on the ground.

On the same stretch of block as I mentioned above there is a round indentation in the sidewalk (north side). It's about 4 inches in diameter and it looks like a cut out or perhaps as though it was specifically kept with a mold in the concrete. I've never stopped to really explore so I only have what little knowledge I've gathered from cursory examinations in passing - whatever 3 or 4 seconds of a moving blur might provide. Basically, I know that it is often free of snow and ice when all around is white. This leads me to believe it's perhaps a cover to a water main or some other sort of system which lets off some amount of heat. I know that it's usually dark and grimy, with what looks like mulch from a flower bed pounded down in it, or perhaps it's just a dark metal cover, I don't really know. On occassion bits of trash can get stuck on the lip of it - I saw the same wrapper two days in a row once. On my way home tonight, however, I was looking directly down at it as I passed over the it's top and there lying directly in the middle of the hole (on top of what I think is dirt) was a tiny paddlelock with a gold body and a silver band. It looked like something you might see securing a girls diary or maybe a small jewelry chest. I'm usually fairly blind - especially in the dark - but I had my glasses on and I think I made out some sort of embossed symbol or image on the front of it. I'm afraid that's all I was able to discern within my allotted few seconds of viewing time as a I sailed by but when reached the other side of the cement slab I felt a little different somehow. Like a giant living above a tiny world of gnomes and trolls and fairies and fraggles.

I can't say I really noticed anyone today. For the most part I just shuffled to class - guest lecturer today so I didn't even have a chance to have that discussion with the professor I was meaning to have - and then I spent 12 hours in the computer lab computing sparse data flow graphs, reverse dominance frontiers, and 3D polygon-edge neighbouring information. Fun with pointers and hashes, oh my. When I finally hit the concrete again I was starving, stomach grumbling, and it was already close to midnight. The streets were quiet as I skipped home and the apartment was silent when I stepped into the foyer. The roommates were cozy in their beds so I reheated some old spaghetti and sauce from last night, plopped myself on the couch next to the dog, and turned Letterman on. I don't get to watch him too often but when I do I am only reminded of how horrible and putrid Leno can be. Al Green was on and David told the audience Paul Schaeffer and the kids were rushing off at the end of the show to perform at the Rock and Roll hall of fame induction cermony for U2, The Pretenders, Buddy Guy, the O'Jays, and my favourite of all cheesy oldies songmen, Percy Sledge. The Globe just published the story about 5 minutes ago, while I was writing this post. Buddy Guy was presented with his honour by none other than Eric Clapton and B.B.King (who I will be seeing this coming month, incidentally, for my first time). Apparently the Boss ushered the Irish U2 boys in, but Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders humorously noted that the score was ''Ohio 2, Ireland 1," since her band as well as the O'Jays are both from the very state where the hall of fame is located. The event, filmed at the Waldorf-Astoria ballroom, should be on VH1 this Saturday evening, March 19th, according to Dave.

"What's a three letter word for candy?"

"Oh, I can never do those things.."