5:23

5:23

BBQ Beaver Tail
(from http://www.beaversaretasty.com)

Prepare the day before for best flavour.

1-2 beaver tails, skin on
1 cup of marinade (below)
Your favorite BBQ sauce

Marinade
1/4 cup red wine
1/4 cup vinegar
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp ketchup
1/2 onion, diced
1/2 tsp salt
Black pepper
2 whole cloves

• Place tails on a very hot grill.
• Reduce heat to medium; cook until skin blisters and separates from meat.
• Remove and let cool.
• Once cool, remove skin and discard. Place meat in ziplock bag with marinade and refrigerate overnight.
• Remove meat from marinade and place on a hot grill.
• Baste with BBQ sauce and cook over medium heat. Baste often.

Serve when heated through.

Enjoy!

5:22

5:22

The beaver paused and looked at Edward oddly.

“I’m suddenly very hungry,” he said.

5:21

5:21

How to Cook Rabbit

Be sure rabbit is properly prepared. If the rabbit is not butchered properly, the final taste may be affected. Please see page 235 for proper technique.

Serves 2
Prep time: 21 minutes
Cook time: 1 1/2 hours

1 cottontail
3 tbsp olive oil
Salt
Pepper
2 bay leaves
2 tbsp oregano
4 cloves garlic
1 tbsp smoked paprika
1/2 lb. Italian sausage
1 cup of red peppers
1/2 cup of crushed tomatoes

Cut rabbit into serving-sized pieces (see page 238). Place in low pot and arrange pieces. Fill pot with water until rabbit is barely covered and add bay leaves and salt. Simmer for 1 hour.

Meanwhile prepare the other ingredients. Crush garlic; slice red peppers, cut sausage into large pieces.

After 1 hour add the remaining ingredients to the pot. Stir well. Keep turning until rabbit is coated in sauce. Stir occasionally for the remaining 30 minutes. Serve.

Bon appetit

5:20

5:20

The reason for the self-satisfied look on Edward’s face became apparent after about five minutes of gnawing and spitting. The beaver had made a substantial dent in the bottom of the crate; the hole was almost large enough for the smaller rabbit to squeeze through. That is, if the hole hadn’t been on the bottom of the long flat crate and the other side of the hole hadn’t been blocked by the metal floor of whatever vehicle they were travelling in.

“Well, fuck…”

“Now, now. No need for vulgarity,” Edward remonstrated. “There is, after all, still my plan. That is, if you aren’t too much a ’beaver of action’ to follow a mere herbivore with a penchant for thinking things through.”

The beaver glared at Edward but oddly enough got the impression the rabbit was being sincere rather than sarcastic. “OK,” he said finally, “whaddya got?”

“Ah. What I have is simply an application of physics. But that can wait until later. I am much more concerned about what happens once we exit this container. The next steps are much more crucial if we assume we are locked in a moving vehicle of some sort. We could be trapped in a van speeding along a deserted highway. Who knows how long we were asleep.”

Edward paused and took on a lecturing tone that had just an edge of smugness in it.

“What if we are a rail car? Or far underground on a mining cart?”

The beaver started to say he thought this was ridiculous, but the rabbit cut him off.

“What, pray tell, if we find ourselves in a boat upon the ocean or a plane high in the sky?”

“Or worse yet,” the rabbit’s eyes started to crinkle, “what if we find ourselves in a float plane flying high above the ocean? Surely that would be the worst of all possible fates? I think that I could not bear it if that were true, to be trapped in such a float plane. Oh, yes, I can quite imagine it. Trapped in one of those float planes,” Edward’s whiskers vibrated delightedly, “like, oh I don’t know… a beaver?”

The beaver just stared at the gleeful rabbit. “You’ve got to be kidding me…”

5:19

5:19

“So, we can conclude that Caroline is not acting alone,” Edward continued. “And since she isn’t acting alone, it may be that we can elevate these other players to the level of conspirators. I had not anticipated an organized enemy. I shall have to think on this a bit.”

“Think? That’s your solution? We shall sit in this container and contemplate our predicament?” the beaver snarled in a mocking tone. “I have no idea how you managed to survive this long. How about we put the postulating aside and figure out how to get out of this stinking crate before we both end up at the taxidermist? How about that for a plan, eh?”

“Bloody stupid rabbit,” the beaver muttered to himself as he turned to examine the wooden sides of the crate. He wrinkled his nose and sniffed. “Smells like pine,” he pondered aloud.“Not much in the way of preservative. Smells like it was stored in a machine shop or metal-working facility, definitely an undertone of grease …”

The beaver circumnavigated the four sides of the box, shoving the rabbit aside as he investigated all the wooden surfaces. At last he came to a small knot in the panel beneath where Edward had originally been lying.

“I’m pretty sure I can get muh teef …” The rest of the sentence was lost to mumbling as the beaver managed to get his two incisors locked onto the small out-jutting edge of the knot. He clamped down his powerful jaw and carefully and slowly extricated the knot from the slat.

“Well,” the beaver said triumphantly after spitting out the remains of the wooden plug, “there’s a good start and I didn’t even have to break a sweat. How’s that thinking going, hare-brain?”

Edward looked at the beaver and and sniffed. “Bon appetit.”

5:18

5:18

“Caroline?”

“Yes,” murmured Edward as he unfolded his stiff body and banged his head on the roof of the crate as he tried to stretch, “You do recall I mentioned that there were other players. Or were you once again failing to listen to anything other than the sound of your own voice?”

“Now, now, bunny-boy. That’s a pot/kettle comment if I’ve ever heard one. You wouldn’t take advice from a hovering angel of god if it contradicted what your big furry ears wanted to hear,” the beaver said in a snide voice. He continued, “I bet …”

“Enough,” barked Edward. “I believe there a few more immediate issues confronting us. Shall we move on?” Before the beaver could answer, Edward settled back down and said, “Did you happen to glean any facts or information about our present predicament either before or after the gas affected us?”

“Gas, that explains it.” The beaver cocked his head and was silent for a moment. “No. No, I don’t think… Well, there is one thing. I thought I smelled aftershave or cologne. I remember thinking that was strange, because I can usually smell only the lemon when it’s nearby.”

“Cologne? Are you sure? I am quite positive that this is the work of Caroline, and she is known for her feminine accoutrements. If she was wearing a scent, I am certain it would be a classic like Chanel or Givenchy.”

The beaver’s only response was a grunt as the vehicle they were in hit a bump or pothole and both his and Edward’s heads banged off the low roof.

“Still, it is unlikely, I suppose, that she would be doing this alone. She is unnaturally terrified of all things natural. An abduction of two ’animals’ in the middle of the woods would be rather unlike her.”

“Hey,” the beaver snarled, “Speak for yourself. Animal.”

Edward’s face quirked into a bitter smile. “Indeed.”

5:17

5:17

The beaver awoke in a box. It was dark, damp and bouncing up and down. It was obvious he was in some sort of vehicle. He tried turning around but something was on his tail. Peering over his shoulder he realized it was that interfering rabbit. Anger momentarily rose up: if it hadn’t been for the rabbit’s stupid intrusion into my affairs I’d not been this stupid box, he growled to himself. Gah.

With Edward still unconscious on his tail it was hard to tell how much room was left in their little wooden crate, but with a little effort he succeeded in pushing the limp rabbit off his tail and managed to turn around. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light filtering through cracks in the wood, he saw that he and the rabbit were in a long, low wooden box about a metre long, but not tall enough for him to stand properly.

The beaver pushed again and settled Edward in the far corner so that the beaver could move around without interference. Now, just where the hell am I? he thought. And for that matter, where the hell are we going?

“And who the hell did this?” he asked the pile of rabbit fur in the corner rhetorically.

“I believe her name is Caroline,” the pile replied quietly.

5:16

5:16

The beaver yawned. My god, this rabbit must really be boring me. I can’t believe I’m actually that tired. Lord, he’s even boring himself. Look at the size of those teeth!

Edward tried to finish his sentence but was suddenly overcome with the uncontrollable need to yawn. “And …,” he yawned “… and then I …” His eyes were so heavy. It had been a long couple of days and there was still much to do. But it suddenly seemed too much. “It’s all too much,” he mumbled between yawns. He raised his head and watched the wily beaver in front of him settle into a compact furry ball and yawn.

Just as Edward’s eyes closed for the last time, his nose twitched. And twitched again. “What is that smell?” Edward wondered and then fell asleep beside the already-dozing beaver and an out-of-place lemon tree. And if anyone had remained awake, he would have seen that a slight mist hung in the air for a few moments more before slowly dissipating.

5:15

5:15

The rat paused at the top of the stairs and looked all around in panic. Recent events were proving all too much and he didn’t know what everything meant.

His home, however new it had been, was lost to him now, and outside was never good. He could hear rustling below and ducked into the corner behind an open door. And there he sat like a rabbit caught in the open. He paused and then realized he had to leave. There was a hole in the wall in the massive meeting room that led eventually to the outside. He made his way slowly, fearfully, through the dappled light, hardly daring to breathe until he reached the safety of the space between the walls.

A few minutes later he was in the wooden porch at the back of the building. Cold but dry and mercifully alone. As he calmed down slowly, he knew he had to leave again. He crept to the dirty window and saw the unkempt grounds, all overgrown lawn and rambling shrubs. All was quiet. He moved slowly out through the milkmaid pass-through, battered doors swinging on rusty hinges, and then ran for the nearest shrub. He would be safe here for a moment. No one ever came back here. Soon it would begin to get dark and he would move to the front of the building through the clearing and then on to who knew where. Somewhere. And so he waited.

Waited for something, anything, to make some sort of sense to his rat sensibilities. Waited for something to make it all good again.

Unfortunately for him, that wasn’t going to happen. No sooner had he crouched down low in the shadows when around the corner swung a figure: a cold, wet wind and a monstrous human roared into the rat’s already confused existence. Looming out of the rain, the enemy approached from the rat’s erstwhile destination. The rat shrieked. And ran.

The human, startled by the grey shape hurtling towards it, also shrieked and stumbled back. Thankfully, for the sake of the story, the rat managed to avoid yet another collision and darted under the long-legged intruder and out into the wet rain. He spun ninety degrees to the right and hurtled under a bush, along the concrete foundation and slowed to a stop before he hit the massive stairs at the ground of the building.

His heart fluttering like aspen leaves in a windstorm and his lungs heaving like tiny bellows seemed to block all of his other senses. Afraid, confused and lost in the moment the rat huddled down in the wet, cold soil under a scraggly rose bush and panted.

As a rat’s life went, this was not the best of days.

5:14

Sometimes I float alone in time
Bobbing up and down
Occasionally I stroke my arms
And wonder where I am

Other days I swim in schools
Of unknown people and places
Vigorously I kick and flail
To try to match their paces

The currents flow coldly past my soul
Driving me back to the beginning
To start again in a sad attempt
Shall we do it right this time?

There are many agents of time and fate
Weaving tales around us
I try to break their uncaring embrace
But fall back in their fold

The goose flies on ’til it arrives
A salmon fights ’til death
The bear wakes each frigid spring
And starts again its quests

But must I deal throughout my time
With missions, fates and monotony
Striving on to unknown goals
At sea in my vast regrets

Or can I awake, rise up from the flow
And stand above the land
To watch the beauty of here and now
And breathe in my own plan?

5:13

5:13

Rowan’s phone binged. She rolled over on the ratty brown couch and reached to grab it off the side table. A quick glance revealed a text from Gareth

Srsly thx.

She smiled and replied:

no prblemo. Its nice to be nice to the nice

Then she added:

G’night

A few minutes later, Gareth’s reply popped up on the screen:

Yah… But u kow
Thx
Night

The typo made Rowan smile again. Where was autocorrect when you needed it?

She dropped the phone on the end of the couch and fumbled for the remote under the green velvet pillows. “Time for a bit of decompression …”

But her mind really wasn’t on the TV. After all these years, I can’t believe I still act like a kid around him. She stared through the screen and saw herself and Gareth as children in the neighbourhood playground. What a klutz. Good thing he had me to take care of him. She leaned back into the pillows and closed her eyes with a wry smile. He really did need me today, didn’t he? The thought brought a wave of contentment, and she abandoned the TV in favour of her own personal dialogue.

I’ll just sit here, I think. Sit here and think.

5:12

5:12

I’ll give him this, Edward mused, he spins a good tale. Tail…huh. You’d bloody think a beaver would know a thing or two about tails. And that bit about the flowers. I don’t know whether he’s pulling my leg or he’s really that clueless about things botanical.

The beaver droned on, swinging into a sidebar about leaf drop and poplars.

“My dear beaver,” Edward began in his professorial voice. “Fruit is formed from the fertilized flower. Your young protégé was never going to get any lemons if you continued to … ’nip them in the bud’, shall we say.”

“Really?” the beaver asked earnestly. “I had often wondered what Gareth was going on about. Do you suppose if I had let them go, stink and all, that he would have actually gotten some fruit?” His tone implied a sad mix of regret and genuine curiosity. It was the kind of situation Edward could rarely resist.

“Well. I believe this particular variety of lemon is known as a Meyer lemon. Citrus × meyeri, the Meyer lemon, is a citrus fruit native to China. It is commonly thought to be a cross between a true lemon and a mandarin orange. In 1908,it was introduced to North America by the agricultural explorer Frank Nicholas Meyer. Meyer was an employee of the United States Department of Agriculture who had collected a sample of the plant on a visit to China.”

The beaver tuned him out. “I swear that rabbit swallowed an encyclopedia, or spends all of his time surfing Wikepedia. But I’ll take what I can get,” he mumbled to himself. “Three or five more minutes should do, I’d guess.”

“Citrus × meyeri is reasonably hardy and grows well in warm climates. The plants are also fairly vigorous; a tree grown from seed usually begins fruiting in four years, potentially yielding thousands of lemons. Meyer lemons are popular as ornamental plants due to their compact size, hardiness and productivity.”

Yup, definitely Wikipedia. Probably word for word, knowing him. The dumbest bunny I ever met. Come to think of it, the only bunny I ever really met. And boy, do I wish I never had.

“Meyer lemons are highly decorative and suitable for container growing. While trees produce fruit throughout the year, the majority of the crop is harvest-ready in winter…”

But that should just about do it…

“One more point and I suppose I should get on with business …”

5:11

5:11

The light was fading in the little grove and Edward, while possessed of slightly better night vision than the beaver, didn’t want to take any chances.

“First things first. Why the lemon?”

The beaver regarded the nosy bunny for a moment and replied, “Why is that any of your business?”

“Just curious. It certainly looks tasty but not what I would have termed ’your thing’.”

“And what would a long-legged busybody like you know about ’my thing’? In fact, what the hell would you know about anybody’s ‘thing’ outside of your own little, self-righteous world?” the beaver spat out with an acid tone. “Seems to me you aren’t capable of seeing anything beyond that twitchy pink nose of yours.”

“But as for the lemon, I think I will indulge your curiosity.” The beaver thought hard: he needed to buy some time. It’s not that he was afraid of the hare — at least not very afraid — but Edward was dangerous and handling this wrong could be disastrous to the beaver’s plans. And while manipulating humans was all well and good, the phrase ‘animal cunning’ wasn’t just a saying. The bunny had teeth, both metaphorically and literally, and knew how to use them.

“Well,” the beaver began, “it’s like this. When I first arrived in the city and was searching for the boy, I was struck by the different nature of the trees around here. I’d never been to this part of the world before, you know …” The beaver could see Edward’s ear relax and knew he had the time he needed if he could just keep the bunny’s attention.

“And well, I thought to myself …” he continued …

Brandi-whine

Well she’s dragged me off to music again. This time it’s Brandi Carlile at the Winspear. I thought I swore never to come see music at the Winspear again after the Los Lobos debacle. Yet here I am.

Still, how bad could an alt Country singer in a formal venue be? I’m sure people will at least nod their heads…

Act I
Scott somebody or other. What can I say: the people beside us bailed and went to drink in the lobby and I wanted to go with them. Leslie wouldn’t let me. Let me sum up by saying there was some nodding… Into sleep.

Act II
Brandi came on with two backup guitar to much hooting and hollering. There’s a grand piano too so I guess we will see

She got everyone a little grooving. Enthusiastic crowd.

And she sure knows her audience: great performer. Too bad I don’t actually know any of the songs

5:10

5:10

Rowan pondered the the ice-cold glass of water slowly dripping condensation on the old wood table. She always kept a mug or two in the freezer so that on those evenings she needed an extra cold drink she could grab a beer from the fridge and pour it into a frosty mug. She enjoyed watching the ice on the glasses slowly melt, and her furniture was nothing she ever worried about. A few more rings or stains just added more character.

This particular beer was a pale ale she had picked up on the way home. She’d never had it before but the scruffy older guy behind the counter at the liquor store had recommended it. The store was fairly well known for its beer selection, so she took his advice and picked up four 500-ml bottles. It had been a good pour and she’d nailed the head; it had just barely dribbled over the rim, the excess quickly turning to half frozen beer slush and adding to the overall pleasant esthetic.

It was at these times, with a cold beer in front of her that she had not yet tasted, that she always felt in the moment. The moment before the next moment, the next phase, and she like to savour them. The anticipation of the ice-cold mug with its frosty contents soon to be quelling her thirst. But she knew that the instant she grabbed the mug, the picture would change and would become irretrievable. That wasn’t a bad thing, but somehow she always felt melancholy at moments like this. By reaching for that thing that would satisfy her, she would change that little piece of the world. Forever.

She sighed and leaned back with one more appreciative glance at the slowly pooling liquid. And then she reached out and drank.