She's a soul (sole?) woman

Overheard at Hartman's IGA:

Young woman to clerk: "Can I get 100 grams of soul, please?"

I did not stick around long enough to find out if she was trying to divine the spirit of James Brown, or merely had a hankering for a certain kind of fish.

Now, in the movie 21 Grams, one's soul was said to weigh the amount reflected in the title.

That would leave our shopper just short of five full souls.

This just in...

John Baird's cat dies. I had nothing to do with it, honest. But unlike most cats of my acquaintance, it was pretty much the exact opposite of delicious. I suspect environmental factors...

Cue the evil lighting...

An elliptical voicemail led me late last night to the doorstep of Mister Sloppy's evil world domination HQ in Centretown. After I buzzed the intercom and the reinforced door silently swung open, I let myself into the computer room. There, Mister Sloppy looked ineffably smug.

"Oh, hi, Slop! You called?" I said.

"Indeed. I brought you a gift from my trip."

He pushed a small corrugated carton toward me. One heady sniff and I opened it. Two dozen extremely fresh bars of Cailler Ultrafine Dark. None of that Tobler crap... Mister Sloppy's taste in gifts is legendary.

"Thank you!" I said gratefully. "And how was the vacation?"

"It was... very fine," he said. "Ate great ice cream. Sailed a private yacht on Lake Geneva. Took an excellent Swiss train to visit the Large Hadron Collider..."

"And how did that go?" I asked, an alarm ringing faintly in the back of my mind.

"It's working again, isn't it?" purred Mister Sloppy, fixing me meaningfully with a bright blue eye. "And good thing, too. I'm gonna be needing it."

"Eep! So you're still on the world domination thing?

"Does the mayor think he's finally a real civic leader because he hung out with Prince Chuck and John Baird's hair for a photo-op? I'm all over it!"

"Ummm. Oh. Look at that! It's bedtime for little coyotes. Thanks for the chockies. Gotta go! " I yelled over my shoulder.

"Oh, I know." Mister Sloppy's voice followed me out the door. "But you'll be back... I have more chocolate."

Fiend.

why am i riffing on fourth dwarf's gig

First 10 menu pulldown choices upon entering the word "why" into Google:

why is the sky blue

why do men have nipples

whyville

why do cats purr

why men cheat

why do dogs eat grass

why did the chicken cross the road

why is there a dead pakistani on my couch

why did michael jackson turn white

why am i so tired

Finally, a sprinkling of public art

Ottawa's new watering can sculpture at the corner of Kent and Slater streets. Perhaps the can should be filled with vinegar given the nearby chipwagon.

PuBlog - Heartattack and Frank(s)

Fieldwork at the Elgin Street Diner, by Aggie, Woodsy, 4th Dwarf, and Coyote.

Pluses (Concepts to Steal)

• Big booths with comfy seating!
• A congenial view of Elgin Street, centre of the known universe;
• Beer on tap;
• ALL! KINDS! OF! POUTINE! They even have a dedicated section in the menu.

Minuses (Things to Avoid)

• Not so much space under the booth for illicit doggie types who were smuggled into the diner in backpacks and didn't want big trouble with health inspectors. They got kicked. I don't think anybody did it on purpose. Well, maybe that Dwarf. But he's such a shortass, he couldn't really reach me.
• The view of Elgin Street was kind of lost on those of us hiding under the table. Although the others were kind enough to describe what I was missing, and suggest that it was too bad I couldn't stick my head out to look, because the cat parade was really something;
• The beer on tap was domestic. Not microbrew. Selection, according to the Dwarf, was in the tradition of Canadian major brewers: thin, and kinda undistinguished;
• Poutine may just be the single most lethal food known to humanity Or caninity.

Background:
Longtime ESI readers probably suspect (correctly) that by now we've left enough loose ends strewn in our narrative wake to stock a world-class hair extension factory. PuBlog research is one such thread. It's about touring city eateries, baldfacedly swiping their best ideas, pewpewing their worst, and using the intel thus gained to start our own pub best damn pub in the world.

We recorded our last true PuBlog post even before the Dwarf started cooking up his Revolutionary New Dating Paradigm. You'll notice, if ennui hasn't knocked you out yet, that he's been on it for nearly two years and 30 posts. It still ain't baked. Sadly, neither is the ESI pub. But we persevere. And I dogress.

Summary:
We who orbit Woodsy and Aggie know all too well that, despite deceptively delicate demeanours, either is at any moment fully capable of inducing heart attacks in the unsuspecting, for all sorts of risque reasons. But I have never before witnessed 'em scarfing heart attacks on plates...

Dog-tired and starved after a full, lunchless day of full-bore Hallowe'en costuming, Woodsy dove straight for the four-cheese poutine. Amid heated speculation about which four cheeses, exactly, were involved, Woodsy double-dog-dared Agatha to order the same thing. Aggie, her blood glucose levels not so deficient that she couldn't rouse a mild fit of oppositional defiance, ordered chili poutine instead. The Short Guy, pursuing the best of all possible worlds, had a brace of chili-cheese dogs with fries. Nobody heard me ask for catburger from under the table, but all three slipped me fries off their plates to make up for it. Well, okay, the Dwarf tried to pelt me with his. But I am talented. I caught 'em and ate 'em. Thank you, Short Guy!

Conclusion:
Puh-lease. Exhaustion? Mega calories? Empty stomachs? Instant snooze-out. Everybody sloped off for post-prandial naps. At 6:30 on a Saturday night. Jeez, we're dull! Aggie said something about feeling really full and a little ill. But she still gave me a ride home. And let me stick my head out the car window and hang my tongue in the wind on the way. She indulges me. And maybe over-indulged herself...

We're going to be famous

Because Zoom is writing a novel about us:

a dark romantic thriller about online dating, self-betrayal, hidden blogs, horrifying secrets, and a clash of precariously balanced personality disorders. It’s set in that place where love and hate masquerade as each other, and where you can’t trust anybody – not even yourself – because nothing is as it appears

I might take the week off

Because em on Knitting is My Boyfriend wrote a darn fine Google Poem.

An irrelevant paws

These are the grey days that try a semimythical coyote's soul. I have many reasons why this is so. Sadly, they are unrelated. So no neat themes or clever segues in this post. Just the usual dogged shagginess. Or shagged dogginess....

1) I have noted that Mr Harpo's personal political party has had a bad week PR-wise, nabbed with their Tory-blue mitts all over the government treasury. And not-so-kosher Conservative Party logos all over the economic stimulation cheques with which they've been stimulating ummm, mainly their own backyards.

The fallback for Tories caught out doing this stuff has become any number of variations on, "Hey, Liberals did it before we did! This ploy's transparency is the only transparent thing left in Mr Harpo's government.

Some people want to fly with the eagles. Some wanna swim with the dolphins. These guys aspire to dredge beneath the bottom feeders.

I've suggested ad nausaeum already that Mr Harpo's idea of political discussion has narrowed to crudely partisan hype. Which I'm afraid means that his ideal governmental model is (ooh, here it comes, wait for it...) a ummm, hypocracy...

2) Light Rail: The mayor says his new plan is visionary. Well, all righty then. He should know....

3) Lansdowne Live. No. Just no. I refuse to go there.

4) Certain doggies have racked up one or two arthritic joints in the last six millenia, and each autumn the chill in the wind takes a little more getting used to.

So I'll take a brief (heh...) paws to recommend Grace Ottawa on Bank Street as purveyors of the best darned handwarmers in town. They cost a buck and a quarter each, they come pre-heated, they're an ideal size, and the toasty Jamaican glow lasts well beyond the time needed for any crosstown jaunt. (I have no idea what makes 'em so heat-retentive, but those chemical HotShot thingies that Crappy Tire sells got nothing on these babies...) Bonus: they're still hot enough to eat and enjoy after the trip, with or without Caribbean pepper sauce. You may want to consider 'em for the coming Ottawa Zombie Walk or the Sandy Claws Parade. And in the interest of full disclosure I want to say that I hold no financial or fiduciary interest in Grace and that that this celebrity endorsement is completely unsolicited. You're welcome!

5) There is no fifth thing. It's a trope. Deal with it.

Coyote: on the lam (on the lamb, shurely -- ed.)

After recently giving Ottawa's finest the slip, Coyote and a rather comely companion (nothing new for the ol' fox) were spied by an ESI operative motoring about Kingston on the weekend.

The albino disguise, just in time for All Hallows' Eve, wasn't foolin' no one.

Blissfully racking up parking tickets and chowing down on Hasenpfeffer at mouth-watering Chez Piggy,the most semi-mythical of the ESIs proved once again he knows how to roll.

Happy 40th Anniversary...

We of the Elgin Street Irregulars wish to take a moment to thank some of our spiritual forefathers and wish them an extremely happy 40th anniversary. Sure, they're kind of a boomer phenom, and all geezers now, but the partners in this firm find it positively inspirational that the Pythons managed to produce their entire TV series on a budget of about $2.98, or £1 13s 2d, if you remain fluent in the original pounds sterling.

They still cross arbitrary cohort labels to remind the world of a fresher, simpler time, when absurdists could actually make up shit faster than it happened in real life.

It's much harder now. Especially in Ottawa, where reality may never have been much of a prerequisite. Not that we're complaining. The mayor and the PM alone each have contributed enough material to our "for-comment" file to keep us skirting the other side of the outer edges of sanity for years. Possibly longer. And we haven't even begun to harvest the (over)ripe possibilities hidden in John Baird's hair... I, for one, am pretty sure that there's lethal fruit in there somewhere, and I intend to do what it takes to find it.

Happy Ruby Anniversary, Pythons!