Signs and portents - fauna division

These are plastered all over our hood. Beebop, if Beebop is real, has a price on his head. A quick look at his Facebook page reveals that he has been missing for...a year, is 3 1/2 years old (now), "half feral" and was frightened by movers.

I hope he is safe and living well, in a nice person's apartment.

...stuck on a new little hybrid car on Water Street. What does it mean? Cat Division. But Dogs Against Romney? So what's with the cat? Ah, a website. Visit if you like. The sticker is better.

Finally, a cassowary much farther down on Water Street. We were on our way to Vinegar Hill for a celebratory supper. Vincent is now officially a permanent, legal alien in the US of A. His conditional status has been removed. There wasn't too much doubt about it, but the shadow the INS casts is a long one, and we are glad to be out of it. Basking in the sun-shine of-uh fuh-ree-dom! Hallelujah!

Yeah.

The courtyard at Vinegar Hill, where we've never sat, was pretty, with Concord grapes ripening overhead. But it was filled with a skeletal blonde's cigarette smoke, so we have still never sat there. Vince was unamused when the toast for his chicken liver pâté landed on the floor when it was delivered. The server was oblivious of the toast-slide. Brooklyn seems to like this style of pâté  - it was good, and mousselike, like Fort Defiance's. Same bread, too.

I was very happy to find callaloo listed on the menu. It is pigweed. I asked our server if it was, in fact, amaranth. Oh no, she said, it's wild spinach. From that point Vince says I grilled her a little hard. I am sorry. I was excited. I asked to see some, raw, and she brought it on a plate, very nicely. Amaranth, indeed, and perhaps retroflexus, but I'm not convinced. It came back later, with friends, deep fried on a bed of buttermilk-mashed potatoes. Memorably delicious. The legal alien's lobster and tomato spaghetti was more tomato than lobster and he was unimpressed. I got the better deal.

A couple sat down beside us, and filled the air with unsettled bzzzzzzvibes. On their phones all the time. Not From These Parts could have been written on their foreheads. My guess was LA. Scripts, Fox, reshooting scenes, narcissistic ex-wives unaware of others (I think I snorted), child custody, the phones, the phones.

We walked home in the dark, on the cobbles and then along the water of the East Riverwhichisastrait. A movie was playing at Pier One, the lawn packed.

Crickets played a sustained series of staccato Cs in the weeds behind the chainlink fence at the undeveloped piers closer to home. A dog trotted after its bike-riding owners. They lifted him up when they got to the road and put him into a basket at the front of the husband's bike.

The dog beamed. They road on home, tail lights flashing.