So, as I often do, I was driving home last night, keeping the beat to "Fire Water Burn" when something darted out in front of my car.

So what was it? A raccoon? A small child? A possum purusing a solo career? No, it was a...wait for it....A COYOTE!

Sadly, he/she was not comically strapped to a pair of rocket shoes. Instead, the coyote jumped out of the forested area on SW Terwilliger in front of an SUV, narrowly avoided its front bumper and then, in a display of gumption that would make any extreme-sport fetishist proud, immediately proceeded jump in front of my car. I would have felt sorry for the coyote if I hadn't spotted it my rear-view mirror exchanging high-5's with a group of skaters.

Coyotes, which I always assumed prefered lingering on the arrid outskirts of cowboy campfires, inexplicably pop up occassionally in Portland's West Hills. When they made their first appearance in the mid-90s, the local news media had a field day sending local cat owners into paranoid hysterics. Several friends with outdoor felines kept them inside for months and, if memory serves, the coyotes...mostly stuck to rumaging through trash cans and those yellow recycling bins.

So the coyotes are back in town and I imagine they have a crashpad up by OHSU, which doesn't make a lot of sense. While the West Hills has plenty of forested areas, the trash cans in Northwest would provide better eats and easy access to spacious Forest Park, a virtual paradise for wayward quad-peds. After a night of slinking around the dumpsters behind Escape From New York and Pastini Pastaria, they could jump on the Max Line up Sylvan if they're feeling lazy.