I heard a nice meteorological chappie yesterday talking about the “atmospheric river” BC is currently experiencing. I listened carefully. We’ve all been feeling like we might just get washed into the Salish Sea if it doesn’t stop raining soon. It seems September and October of this year have had 200% of the usual rain, and this week in two days we had what we’d normally get in the entire month of November.
Thoughts of arks floated through my mind. And rang a bell….
November 2015 All Aboard For Unnecessary Mountain
At last the rain has stopped. I was beginning to think I’d have to get hold of an ark from somewhere. I wonder if I could get one on EBay? Or perhaps our new hardware store might have one. I’ve told the cats that if it starts raining again they will have to pack their bags and get ready to evacuate. In fact if the weather forecast is right then we should all be getting our ducks in a row. Along with all other available species.
The planning begins.
I have promised Sketch and Drifter that they can be the two representative cats, though they are both male and I’m not altogether sure that was the idea when Noah packed his ark. But they don’t like each other so I think the chances of them getting up to anything dodgy in the ark are pretty small. I look around at the rest of the species living in my house. One teddy bear. One hippopotamus, one owl. One wise man (for seasonal duties). One black and white stuffed creature with orange nose and red-and-white hat, species undetermined. One papier-mâché cockerel. Oh dear. Things are not looking good for the resettlement stage of the enterprise. They’ll just have to improvise when it comes to the procreation stuff, but I have a bad feeling about the owl and that wise man.
I see a few blue jays flying around outside but how am I to catch them? Did Noah go charging around shooting assorted birds with a tranquiliser gun? As far as insects are concerned I know I can lay my hands on a few pairs of termites and carpenter ants but unless I do better than that we might not even get there.
Get where? Didn’t Noah just float around for a while until the floodwaters receded and deposited him somewhere? Did he have a say in it at all? Could he navigate? Did he have GPS? If my ark is fitted with GPS then I think I’ll head for another island and see how it compares with Gabriola. Preferably one with lots of good food and drink. I know there is Madeira on Madeira, and there are canaries in the Canaries, but are there any sardines on Sardinia? Rum on Rum? Champ on Champ? Yes, there really is an island called Champ Island – it is Russian, and champ is food. In case you didn’t know, it’s an Irish dish made mostly of mashed potatoes, with a few chopped spring onions and just a dash (that’s Irish for “lots”) of melted butter. Mmm! I look up Champ Island on Wikipedia.
Oh too bad! It seems the island wasn’t named after the dish, but after William S. Champ, the leader of a relief expedition sent in 1904 to rescue stranded explorers. It is in the Arctic Circle, population zero. This does seem to cast some doubt on whether we’ll be welcomed by locals bearing plates of steaming champ. But why was Mr. Champ called Mr. Champ anyway? Was he named after the food? Was he large, white and fluffy, with yellow hair? Green bits? I look him up on Google and it tells me he has a Facebook account, a Twitter account and is in the U.S. phone book.
Having established that Champ Island might be just a little too quiet in the way of social life, I take another look at the map and decide that it’s more likely we’ll run aground on a mountain anyway. Probably “Unnecessary Mountain”, thus giving it a purpose and rendering it a misnomer. I will tell the ducks to pack their crampons.
The Animals Went In One By One. L-R: papier-mâché cockerel, black and white stuffed creature with orange nose and red-and-white hat (species undetermined), wise man, owl, hippopotamus, teddy bear (Bruin).
The Blethering Ant 