(no subject)
Today I forgot to pack lunch. I was annoyed at myself -- I don't like to spend money on buying lunch, because of how it adds up if you make a habit of it, and anyway packed lunches are nearly always better than the decent-but-limited fare at the lunch cart nearest me -- but now I'm delighted that I did.
I closed up the office doors and stuck up a sign saying I'd be back in 10-15 minutes, because I'm manning the office alone this week while my boss is on vacation. And I slung my purse over my shoulder and headed out into the summer afternoon. It's sunny and warm, treading that hazy borderline right between uncomfortably muggy and comfortably summery, and the grass is thick and soft; on the quad, they're putting up some kind of event tent that I peered at curiously.
The building's ITS guy invited me to meet his dogs, whom he'd brought along in the car for a quick errand, and I gladly assented. They're sleek and friendly and wriggly, some brown slim breed I can't identify, and they licked my palms and shoved their heads under my fingers for petting while they pranced around the car.
As I was walking from there to the lunch cart, a mouse scurried across my path. And a very plump mouse it was; somebody's found a good food source! It froze when it saw me coming, and darted back under a parked car, and I went on my way amused.
And then, when I was almost to my destination, I heard a screech from overhead, and I spun to see a hawk swooping over me. It soared over to a nearby building and perched there on the gutter, flirting its rust tail at the world before it picked its way neatly around and glared around, saying k-k-k-k-k-k to all and sundry. I tossed a grin at Grazia, the lunch lady, who'd come out to watch with me. "There are two of them," she told me.
"Do you see them very often?" I asked, and she shook her head. Today was the first time, she said, but there were two of them, and weren't they beautiful? While we were saying this the hawk soared over us again with another cry, sun-silhouetted and barely twenty feet above my head, and disappeared over the trees. Its calls punctuated my lunch-buying, and half my walk home.
I think it was a red-tailed hawk, though I'm not good enough at raptor identification to be totally certain. I've seen them around before, once in a great while, and maybe even that same bird -- but never so close and so brazen. It was gorgeous.
A ten-minute walk like that is more than worth buying lunch for.
I closed up the office doors and stuck up a sign saying I'd be back in 10-15 minutes, because I'm manning the office alone this week while my boss is on vacation. And I slung my purse over my shoulder and headed out into the summer afternoon. It's sunny and warm, treading that hazy borderline right between uncomfortably muggy and comfortably summery, and the grass is thick and soft; on the quad, they're putting up some kind of event tent that I peered at curiously.
The building's ITS guy invited me to meet his dogs, whom he'd brought along in the car for a quick errand, and I gladly assented. They're sleek and friendly and wriggly, some brown slim breed I can't identify, and they licked my palms and shoved their heads under my fingers for petting while they pranced around the car.
As I was walking from there to the lunch cart, a mouse scurried across my path. And a very plump mouse it was; somebody's found a good food source! It froze when it saw me coming, and darted back under a parked car, and I went on my way amused.
And then, when I was almost to my destination, I heard a screech from overhead, and I spun to see a hawk swooping over me. It soared over to a nearby building and perched there on the gutter, flirting its rust tail at the world before it picked its way neatly around and glared around, saying k-k-k-k-k-k to all and sundry. I tossed a grin at Grazia, the lunch lady, who'd come out to watch with me. "There are two of them," she told me.
"Do you see them very often?" I asked, and she shook her head. Today was the first time, she said, but there were two of them, and weren't they beautiful? While we were saying this the hawk soared over us again with another cry, sun-silhouetted and barely twenty feet above my head, and disappeared over the trees. Its calls punctuated my lunch-buying, and half my walk home.
I think it was a red-tailed hawk, though I'm not good enough at raptor identification to be totally certain. I've seen them around before, once in a great while, and maybe even that same bird -- but never so close and so brazen. It was gorgeous.
A ten-minute walk like that is more than worth buying lunch for.