(no subject)

Speaking of Exclusive....:D YOU GUYS.

For everyone who was thwarted by my fake "click here" links in the fic, you should know one of them is now real: Sanura has composed Thor's Epic, The Battle Of Manhattan, in iambic pentameter. You can find it here.

The parts with Tony in are especially good. :D

The Man of Iron, shelled of his defense,
Walked in and came upon us at our talk,
And struck me, with a smile, upon my arm,
And gave me satisfaction in his speech
Erasing insult given earlier.

(no subject)

GUYS I MET SOME COYOTE PUPPIES.

I went out to a farmer's market this morning with the hopes of acquiring Eggplant II: The Moussaka Experiment. I have no idea if eggplants are even in season, but I wanted cherries and rhubarb too, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I try to go to a different market every time, because Chicago has quite a few, but I'm crossing the North Center market off my list; it's small, and I have a hard time not being part of a crowd. I thought about having to make small talk with whoever sold me cherries and decided to casually stroll past the market and be on my way. And go to a cemetery, because solitude is obviously what I need more of.

Graceland Cemetery is almost literally my backyard. You can see some of it from my bedroom window. So I got off the bus before I got home and took a stroll around. I hadn't seen Christopher Manuel in a while and he's by far my favourite monument I've ever encountered. He's hidden behind some shrubbery so unless you know where you're going he's nearly impossible to find, which I also like, though I was sad to see he was rather leafy and cobwebby. So I took a minute and cleaned him off a bit, then thought I'd head home.

So I was walking down Lake towards Greenwood within the cemetery when I saw what I thought were two dogs. You're not supposed to walk your dogs in the cemetery for obvious reasons, so I started looking around for their owner, but then I realised they were a) puppies and b) COYOTES.

I love Chicago's coyotes. I love that we're an urban center with two thousand wild coyotes living cheek by jowl with humans, and that the city allows them because they keep the rodent population down. Chicago's coyotes aren't trash scavengers: they eat the occasional cat, and they'll sometimes go after dogs during mating season (there's always a rash of complaints from the burbs about them around February) but spoor and stomach-contents analysis shows that Chicago's urban and suburban coyotes don't eat people food and they don't eat much trash. They are useful and generally not dangerous.

Until today I'd never seen any; I don't live near a park and I'm not often out for long walks early in the morning when they're most likely to be sighted -- I'm on the train to work. But apparently we have a family living in Graceland.



Smug little guy. (Terrible cellphone photo is terrible.)

I took some photos for proof, but I didn't linger. Given how young but well-fed they looked, I can't imagine Mama was far away, and I didn't want to set her off or scare the pups. They saw me, but they didn't startle in particular, just posed politely, then trotted into a bush and out of sight.

OMG YOU GUYS COYOTE PUPPIES.