Why Renard?

After much prompting from Lewis, who finds this story 'funnier than that time in the east grove with the peanut butter pine cones', I reveal the misted and epic origins of my kit-hood and my redundant name.

My mother was a good loving mother, but one thing she was not, was imaginative. At one point before my birth, she met a Goose from northern New Brunswick, who spoke pretty much no English and learned plenty of interesting French swearwords. She also learned how to say 'Fox' in French.

The first four kits in the litter were named John, Luke, Matthew Mark and Mary Margaret and when it came time to name her youngest kit, she'd run out of names (not having read much of the Bible, it seems) so she named me Renard James Fox. Which is literally Fox James Fox. It sounds like some sort of cheesy spy name when you say it that way and it's really entertaining when speaking to native French speakers.

Like the time Marcel Tortue, an eminent playwright, came to the forest. Being the Public Service Fox, I was in charge of greeting him and showing him around. Our first meeting went like this:

Me: Hello, Mister Tortue, welcome to The Forest. My name is Renard, and I've been asked to show you around.
Tortue: Come now, there's no need to be so formal, what's your first name?
Me: Uh... Renard.
Tortue: No, your FIRST name. I know your family name is Renard, I can see the bushy tail, but what's your first name?
Me: My first name IS Renard. My last name is Fox.
Tortue: So... your name is Fox Fox?
Me: No my name is Renard J. Fox.
Tortue: Fox Jay Fox? I hope you didn't legally change your name to that just to be 'interesting'.
Me: No, My mother named me.
Tortue: I'm so sorry...

Lewis still sometimes puts a bowl on his back, gets a fake french accent, totters up to me and goes, "I'm so sorry."

Last night was the bi-annual Forest Safety Awareness Meeting which is HELL for a Public Service Fox, because I am in charge of everything and logistics is crazy. There are so many nit-pickers in this neck of the woods. Mike Bear wanted to hold it at his cave, and that was okay for awhile, but then the Salmon Family began to complain because they wouldn't be able to attend. So we moved it to the river, which was good for the Beavers and Otters too, but of course the Snakes were pissed and The Mountain Lion, Candy, didn't want anything to do with a meeting so near a body of water (not that anybody cares if she shows up anyway). So we moved it to a clearing near the river, where the Snakes were safe and dry but the Salmon could still hear. And then the time. All the nocturnal animals wanted it in the evening, the birds all wanted it early morning, and Lewis and his friends all wanted it at mid-day. We had it at three pm. It was pretty much arbitrary. Nancy ended up not going though, the light hurt her eyes too bad.

We covered safety in the woods to prevent falls and accidents, the dangers of unrestrained grazing or foraging, the importance of having an earth friendly nest or cave, and a bunch of other stuff specific to the animal group (the Snakes had a seminar on looking before you bite, for example).

I've been working on this for a while, and it turned out all right, I guess, but really, I wish the birds wouldn't put up such a fuss when I bring my lunch to meetings. It's not like they knew that Canary.

A Brief History of The Qi-Mong

There's been a lot of talk about Chipmunks here already and this is only my fourth post so I thought I would give, for those of you who don't know, a short history of Chipmunk-kind. I'm not going to do this for Fox-kind because that history goes like: "They ate some chickens." That's about it.

But Chipmunks are much more interesting. You see, Chipmunks originated in China where they were known as Qi- Mong. Which is gibberish of course, because Chipmunks didn't have proper vocal chords at that time and were just named for the sounds they made (like Pokemon). The very first few Qi-Mong were said to be gifts from heaven to teach all of the forest creatures the fine art of kick-assery. They began in Shaolin and eventually worked their way around the world, becoming renowned for both their elite fighting skills and the tasty stew they made if caught. Being rightfully pissed at being made into stew way too often, the Qi-Mong formed into a great army determined to wipe out all other animals so that they would never be made into stew again. Of course that didn't work. But they did impress the other animals so much that everyone became too afraid of them to eat them. If you saw a giant wave of fuzzy squeaking rodentia rounding on you brandishing bo staffs and nunchaku the size of toothpicks you'd be terrified too.
And then later a Qi-Mong hero settled in North America after winning proper vocal chords for all in an epic battle of epic proportions. He Americanized the name to Chipmunk and that's what it is now.

Wrote this with a bit of help from Lewis and Juan (who specializes in Muay Thai, not Kung Fu for some reason)

This blog was recorded using the speech to text software, Woodland Accomplice ver.4.9.

After playing with this speech to text thing for a while, I figured it out. Mostly. One thing I learned is to never let chipmunks write your 'About Me' section thing. The one that's up now, is the cleanest of the fifteen Lewis wrote for me. He's the only one who's any good at using a keyboard so we had to let him do it, the software wasn't enabled for that... widget? What the hell kind of a name is a widget, Nancy?

That's just what they call them Renard.

Whatever, I guess the Internet isn't supposed to make sense.

I'm sure if anyone is reading this, they know that I've been voluntold to write this blog about the ins and outs of my dear local legislature. Not that I'm complaining, Mr. Mayor.

A good example of how the local governance works just happens to also be an explanation of how this new career direction for me came about.

So here goes nothing.

I have a friend from Forest Intermediate School, who recently moved to a different constituency and lost track of the goings on here. I've been getting Lewis to help me keep in touch with her through MSN (a gift from the Internet gods, that thing is). Somehow, Mayor Stag got ahold of the saved conversations (I blame you, Lewis) and thought that I would make the perfect candidate for this new blogging outreach program to get the public more involved in local politics.

Great Idea Mr. Mayor. Pick the surliest, most iconoclastic member of the legislature and get him to write a blog trying to encourage people to get involved in this comedy of errors. Great Idea.

(A note from Lewis: Renard only likes to think he's surly and iconoclastic, because he read too many comic books in the nineties and now wants to be an anti-hero.)

This blog was recorded using the speech to text software, Woodland Accomplice ver. 4.9.

First Post

Nancy? Nancy? Is this thing on?

Yeah, Renard. See how the words are coming up as we're speaking?

Oh, right. Thanks Nance.

No Problem, Mr. Fox. You should probably get down to work now, though.

Okay... Right.


This blog was recorded using the text to speech software, Woodland Accomplice ver. 4.9

An Introduction From The Mayor

Good Afternoon Everyone,
I'm just writing to officially launch this "weblog". On behalf of us all here at the legislature, I'd like to thank Renard for "volunteering" for the prestigious position of Official Forest Blogger in addition to his appointed position as Public Service Fox. For those of you who are new to the Forest Legislature (because of course the Internet is made of many tubes that run globally), a public service fox informs the other forest creatures of important changes in forest legislature. Renard here is an excellent example of why the position is necessary and worthwhile, and I am very optimistic that he will prove the same for this new post.

What we hope to accomplish with this online journal is to create a place where members of other Forest Legislatures may see what works locally for us, here in Queen's County and of course enjoy some of Renard's considerable storytelling talent.

Please feel free to leave any comments or suggestions and enjoy learning about The Forest Legislature.

His Worship Mayor, Michael Stag.

This blog was recorded using the speech to text software, Woodland Accomplice ver. 4.9.