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Weird questions, obtuse answers

"Do you think that dog would eat a parrot?" I don't often find myself at a loss for words. But... eat a parrot? Zippy the dog? I was at a loss for words. Maybe it was the woman who was asking the question.
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"Do you think that dog would eat a parrot?"

I don't often find myself at a loss for words. But... eat a parrot? Zippy the dog? I was at a loss for words.

Maybe it was the woman who was asking the question. She looked like a refugee from a 1960s commune. Long hair streaked grey by middle-age protested her concerted efforts to keep it neatly in place. Her eyes said talk to me; her job said move along. And her overall weirdness clearly needed to be wrapped in tie-dye, not a National Forest Service uniform. Authority clung uncertainly to her counterculture frame.

Maybe it was the setting. Had we been sitting near each other at tables outside an herbal tea and organic brownie, co-operatively run café sited with feng shui precision in the centre of a power vortex in Sedona, both she and the question wouldn't have fazed me in the slightest. But with her sitting inside an entry booth at the entrance to the Grand Canyon, well, the only setting that would have been weirder might have been the smoking lounge at Teatro Real awaiting Act II of Tosca. I mean, have they introduced wild parrots into the Grand Canyon?

Maybe it was the dog in question. Zippy? Eat a parrot? When Zippy wades into the tranquil waters of Sulfuric Lake, the resident mallards don't panic. Hell, they don't even swim off. They circle around him making barking noises, mocking him, knowing at some duck-understanding level they're completely safe from whatever sporting breed genes seem to be missing from his DNA... the ones that are supposed to urge him to fetch the duck. Zippy would most definitely eat a parrot, as long as it was cooked, cut up for him and plopped into his food bowl.

"I only ask because I have a pet parrot and I'm thinking about getting a dog," she finally added, perhaps sensing my complete lack of an adequate answer.

"Uh, no. I don't imagine he'd eat a parrot," I finally stammered. "But admittedly he's not exactly what I'd consider a poster dog for all Labs. He's, well, let's just say he's instinct-challenged."

"Have a nice day."

You never know how weird things are going to get when you're traveling with a weird dog. John Steinbeck wrote about traveling around this country in 1960 with his standard poodle, Charley, in the aptly-titled Travels With Charley: In Search of America . I'm not searching for America, just trying to escape the heat of Phoenix, and I'm not likely to be as disappointed as Steinbeck was because my expectations are much lower than his were in that optimistic age.

And frankly, I'm only marginally interested in writing a cute dog and cat story this week but it's a dodge to avoid writing about the disappointment I feel at muni council's wholly inadequate handling of the asphalt plant - just seeing the words make me involuntarily wretch - and horrible optics of old-growth forestry. I can't entirely avoid the former and the latter still puzzles me.

But as an aside, what Zippy will and won't eat - parrots no, everything else yes - has led to interesting encounters on our travels over the years. And yes, I will have to delve into hot asphalt in another couple of hundred words.

On a backroad in northern New Mexico we once encountered a wizened, old Chicano apple seller. It was autumn and the apples grown at altitude in that part of the state are indescribably delicious - juicy, explosively crisp and tart-sweet as only fruit kissed by early fall nights bordering on frost tend to get.

When I saw the crudely printed sign, I pulled over. As the old man counted a dozen apples into my bag, I sliced off a piece of one and popped it in my mouth and sliced off a second hunk and flipped it to Zippy, who with unerring accuracy, grabbed it in mid-air and ate it with both relish and blinding speed.

"Your dog eats apples, ese?" he said, incredulity on his weathered face.

"He'd eat you if I'd let him, dude," I replied. I wasn't sure the look that played across his face was amusement or cross-cultural panic.

And on one border crossing into the US, Zippy's eating habits led to Mello Yello being strip-searched. "Got any dog food?" the border guard asked.

Since Zippy had his nose pressed to the rear window, it was hard to say I didn't. Who thought the US government would be worried I might be smuggling SARS-tainted dog food into the country?

Inside - while they went through every cupboard and cranny in the Westfailya - a heavily-armed officer looked longingly at Zippy and asked, "Do you hunt him?"

Sensing the correct answer might be yes, I looked wistfully into the medium distance and said, "Nothing he likes more than a cool autumn morning and the sight of upland pheasant falling from the sky." Oh dear lord, please don't strike me down just yet.

"So he's good to the gun?"

"Doesn't twitch," I lied... about a dog who freaks each Sunday when the Fire and Ice fireworks go off five kilometres away.

That answer wasn't any more obtuse than many I heard last evening, tuned into the public Q&A on the asphalt plant. We'll never get to know why four councillors support this rezoning proposal because whatever rationale lies behind the legal opinion they're hiding behind is more secret than the formula for Coca-Cola. We'll never understand why a plant they think doesn't need rezoning to be legal needs to be rezoned and made legal. Or what exactly the $400G payment is for. Or why they've chosen now to dismiss Don Lidstone's legal opinion as just another legal opinion when he's always been the go-to guy for things like that.

So I have a modest proposal. Let's drop the whole thing and stick with the status quo. Punt this abortion over to the next council, who I believe will have a lot of new faces.

Council is split, the community is split in the opposite direction, the plant is going to operate one way or another, the roadwork that was supposed to be done before residents moved in is only going to be done now. There are no restrictions on operating hours. What the hell. Let's see just how bad it is.

If the option is to forever enshrine the damn thing with proper, unquestionable zoning, that seems like a bargain with the devil.

Frankly, I think a lot of us would be way happier if this council just walked away from the whole thing and let fresh minds fight the battle after next November. If you can't do it right, don't do it at all, fellas.