Hello Ninja in the Snow

Longtime readers of this blog know that there's a ninja living in my driveway. He is, to all appearances, a harmless ninja, and back in October when I wrote about him I indicated that it made me feel safe to know that he was out there guarding me from the denizens of NoHo who might attack me in the night.

Well, after I posted that the ninja went into hiding. I don't know if he sensed that his presence was being publicized and, fearing that his mission might be compromised, decided to go underground for a while. Or maybe he had been called away on some urgent errand in another part of the Valley, some troubled corner in more need of his vigilant eye than my humble Submarine. Whatever the cause, the ninja had disappeared, and I had begun to despair.

But I needn't have worried. This afternoon the first major snowfall of the season began - it's still coming down as I write this, and the city is beginning to close down - and, as I stepped out a few hours ago to run some errands, I saw him again. At first I didn't recognize him, dressed as he was in a Smurf-blue down coat with the hood pulled tight and a rainbow-colored scarf wrapped around his neck. I was a bit perplexed, though, as I ducked out of my hobbit-door and saw a person standing with his back to me, staring thoughtfully at a line of footprints running to the middle of the driveway and back. This, of course, was the ninja-path he had created for himself as he charged up and down the driveway, and as soon as I heard his telltale "Hey! Hey-yay-yayayayayayeeeeeeeeiiiii!" I knew he had returned. I was caught off-guard, though, and before I had time to retreat back through my door he saw me. We exchanged glances, and then we said hi. I walked quickly past him and didn't hear the battle-cry again as I turned the corner onto the street. When I returned about an hour later he was gone, and his footprints had been all but buried by the falling snow.

I'm afraid I may have scared him away for good.