I’m not a deer!

More childhood memories. My gramma always tried to call me a dear when I was a little kid, and for some reason I took this really literally. “I’m not a deer!” I would wail, and she would say “Oh dear!” as she knew she offended me, and then I would get even more fussy, and cry out “I’m NOT a deer!” I don’t know what kind of an insult that would be anyway, to call someone a deer.

The ungulate family features in yet another misinterpretation story from my past. On long road trips through the prairies (aren’t all prairie road trips long?) when I could see nothing for miles except field after field of wheat, on occasion my my mother would say “hey, Thirza look, antelopes!” And I would peer out the window, searching searching the vastnessness, only to see tiny deer-like things. “Cantalopes!! I don’t see any cantalopes!!” I was really hoping to see a field of round melons, and all my mother had to offer were small deer-like things.

Hmm, other ungulate stories. Well, when I lived in Montana for a year on Saturdays my mother used to pack me and my sister into the car with some food and we would drive out to the bison range. Modern urban Indians re-visiting our roots by driving through herds of bison. Buffalo I used to call them, until someone informed me it was actually Bison. We never hunted them or anything, although we did buy frozen bison burgers. When we had to leave Montana I was told I had to part with my extensive rock collection. My mother said it wasn’t fair to take rock spirits so far away when they would just sit under my bed. So one day we drove out to the bison range, and I unrolled the window and one by one threw the rocks out so they could play with the bison. I still like the idea of my little rocks being nosed by a big hairy bison.

We also had a cookie mold that made cookies in the shape of bison.

Once I fed a deer by hand in Banff. Terrible I know, you shouldn’t let wildlife get used to humans.

Which brings me to the wildlife around here. A couple of months ago I took a cab home from Stef’s place and a big coyote ran right in front of it. I hadn’t seen a coyote in this neighborhood before, but apparently they are here. Hopefully it is not hooked on crack, like everyone else in my neighborhood in those wee hours.

And last night I got off the bus and was almost chased home by a skunk!! EEEEE!! As I saw it’s little black and white body scuttling around I had nightmare visions of having to call in sick to work because of being skunk-sprayed and needing to sit in a tub of tomato juice. Oh yuck!!!

Off topic now, I had this weird dream last night. In it I was walking with a friend and we came to this really old almost Aztec looking circular architectural complex, and I said “I’ve been here before. This is where they perform human sacrifices.” And then some men showed up who were going to sacrifice us, and we had to run out of there as fast as we could, only I had to pee. But suddenly there were cages of chickens everywhere, and I couldn’t pee because if I did I would pee on a chicken. And some of the chickens were half pig, and had pig snouts. Now WHAT THE HELL was that all about?

They say all dreams mean something, but sometimes all they mean is that you have to go run and pee, which is what I did when I woke up. No chickens were in my bathroom though.