Oh the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful. And since we've no place to go...

It is a chilly, rainy day here in Bozeman.

But the clouds lifted off of the mountains, and I looked out the window...

and can see SNOW in them thar hills!!!!

You have no idea how excited this makes me.

Normally, back in Wisconsin, I would start to get the itch in September, and begin visiting various resort websites, dreaming of my February or March winter snowboarding trip(s). That itch would go unscratched for months, while I waited.

A very good friend of mine, Leo, once dubbed me Instant Gratification Man. With that kind of a nickname, you can imagine how painful it was for me to wait and plan, looking at sea-level landscape, eagerly awaiting the next time I would be above, say, 8000 feet, strapped into a board.

I am sure this snow won't stick around; it is August, after all. But, man.

I think I am getting a little verklempt. My pulse rate definitely increased. I may be hyperventilating.

Crikey, that's exciting.

Baby, please don't go. Baby, please don't go down to New Orleans. You know I love you so, baby, please don't go.

Like the drunk who staggers away from the accident unscathed, it looks like New Orleans dodged the worst that Katrina and the Waves had to throw at it.

Mississippi, on the other hand, wasn't so lucky. But when has Mississippi ever been lucky?

==

I received an email from my friend, "the Wave," out in NY, that was the funniest email I have received in a long, long time. It was the high point of an otherwise shitty day.

I can't post it, since it refers to his job, but here is one quote:

"I'd slit my wrists, but that would interfere with my chronic masturbation."

You kill me, Wave.

==

Ah, it is that special, back-to-school time of year, when we reinforce the socio-economic divisions in our society at a grade school level.

Johnny opens his box of 8, fat Crayola crayons. He deeply inhales the aroma. He enjoys it, until Dakota takes out her box of 16.

Dakota sees Johnny's box of 8, and she feels, warm, fat and happy. And she probably is fat.

Then, that bitch, Madison, pulls out her box of 64, with a sharpener, and starts lording her burnt sienna, cyan and goldenrod crayons over Johnny and Dakota.

It won't be long before Johnny is tying Madison's braids to her chair and sniffing rubber cement in the back of the room, while Madison is "eating her feelings," mainlining Tahitian Treat and Pixie Stix.

I am calling social services now. Before Johnny and Dakota have to experience high school without cars, X-boxes, and cell phones.

===

President Bush is fucking up by not stopping to spend ten minutes with that lady camped outside the ranch in Crawford, demanding an explanation for her son's death.

(Um, wild guess, here... he joined the army while we were at war?)

Seriously, though, he can't spare ten minutes from clearing brush and bike riding to talk to her (and avoiding my smart-assed explanation above)?

Seems like his handlers are making a p.r. blunder by just ignoring her. Seems like it would be good "strategery" to at least talk to her.

Then again, bad things happen when he goes off script.

===

Don't know why it took me so long to write about this, but the day I went fly-fishing, I saw a wolf.

I was in the middle of a long drive home, on 191, up the Gallatin River Canyon, between West Yellowstone and Big Sky.



I rounded a bend in the canyon, and I saw what I initially thought was a deer. Then I did the Bugs Bunny double take.

I didn't believe my eyes, and tried to tell myself that it was a mutant coyote or a hybrid dog with no collar in the middle of the wilderness.

I hit the brakes and looked behind me to catch another glimpse as he disappeared toward the river.

I would guess this guy was about 90 pounds, maybe 5-6 feet long, and about 3 feet tall at the shoulder. Which would put his head at about the height of my chest.

Way too big to be a coyote. Coyotes around here max out at 40-50 pounds. Like I said, at first glance, I thought it was a deer.

I irrationally thought that the wolves wouldn't leave Yellowstone, like they give a rip about arbitrary, man-made boundaries. Since that day, I have done some research and found that the wolves have greatly expanded their territory from their original reintroduction in the Lamar Valley of Yellowstone.

They have expanded North and East into the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, south into Wyoming (one was euthanized in Grand Teton Park yesterday, because he was dragging his back legs and was unable to fend for himself), and... West, over the Gallatin Range, and across the river.

I have thought about that guy a lot since. I wondered if he was part of a pack, where he hung out, where he wintered. I felt privileged to have seen him, yet weirdly haunted.

It felt like I saw a ghost.