Walk

Today my love and I took a walk with our dogs. We chose to go to a local park that is very close to a plot of land owned by the University of Illinois that is used by its forestry students. It is open to the public and is mostly fenced in, so the better behaved of our dogs, Emma, is able to be off leash and gets to run and sniff and play.

We had walked in through the gate and had gone to the western most perimeter and were headed south along a plowed field. About a quarter of the way through, I saw a hawk fly up out of the field and land on the fence. We walked a little further and I saw the hawk struggling against the fence and it appeared that he may have been caught. He got himself free and flopped around on the ground for a little while. He looked like he might have been hurt. I took the opportunity to get Emma back on her leash because she was quite interested in what was going on ahead and I didn't want her to hurt the hawk or vice versa.

I handed Emma's leash to Julie and I slowly approached the hawk. He was calming down some as I took careful and measured steps towards him. I got down on one knee and held my hand out. The hawk backed up a little bit, but did not attempt to flee. I got so close to this hawk that I was able to touch it on it's neck. It was amazing. This was not a huge bird, but he was big enough. He had bright golden eyes that showed his intelligence. He had been banded by somone at some point in time. He had a white breast and a light reddish brown back. The white on his breast was ticked with brown. I believe that this was a red tailed hawk, but I can't be certain. I stood close to him for what seemed like about 2 or 3 minutes.

I TOUCHED A WILD HAWK. It was a highlight to my day, my week, my year and my life. I have been close to captive raptors before, but never close to a wild one. It was amazing and I will never forget that moment.

Julie was attempting to call the U of I wild animal hospital, when the hawk flew up into a tree. Then, as if to prove to us that we were wrong and he was ok, he flew from tree to tree. He faltered a little on the second roost, but seemed to be ok after that.

Native American spirituality says that seeing a hawk or an eagle means that you will encounter good fortune. I touched it. I wonder what that means?

My own personal "L word"

I will preface this post by saying that ALL the names listed here have been changed to protect the innocent . . . or not so innocent, depending on how you view this.

I will also say that when I lived in Sioux Falls, SD, I spent a lot of time in the gay community. I knew that there was a lot of partner swapping had gone on, but was not aware of any that was currently going on. I also knew one of the "players" in town and nearly every woman I met had slept with her at one time or another.

I have an ex-girlfriend that I am fairly good friends with. Her name is "Diane". She lives in a fairly large city in Missouri. She knows people in this town (also of the lesbian bent). There are 2 couples. "Linda and Amber" and "Daisy and Stephanie". Currently Diane is living platonically with Stephanie. Linda and Amber do not live together and Daisy lives by herself. Daisy and Linda have been best friends for about 12 years.

Diane has been sleeping with Linda. . . f**k buddies, if you will. Diane and Stephanie have been talking and Stephanie told Diane that Linda has been hitting on her. Linda and Amber are basically "over" according to Linda, but Linda is afraid to tell Amber. Diane also found out from Stephanie that Amber has been sleeping with someone else on the side. It's all this ugly, convoluted mess.

Linda is actually angry that Amber is cheating on her. She is angry. To me that is very odd. She is angry at her partner for the same thing that she herself is guilty of. . . hmmmmm. And I thought that the L Word was a little over the top.

Out of the Mouths of Strangers

My partner and I have had some wonderful experiences of late with strangers in public places. This has been especially good for Julie who tends to get scared of people in public. It has also shown me the humor in everyday life.

The first instance that we can both laugh about happened in our local Blockbuster on a late Saturday morning. We had made our decisions on what movies we were going to bring home and were on our way through the checkout. There was a man in front of us carousing the bagged candy and sodas that are there to entice us all to make poor diet decisions and cause the people with children to have to say "NO" a zillion times. He had picked out a bag of M&M's and a couple of Dasani flavored waters. We did not hear what ensued, but the man was at the checkout and turned around, walked past us and put the food items back. Whether he did not have the dough to pay for them or he discovered that he owed on late fees for movies, we don't know. However, what he said to us while he was putting the items back was great. He said "I didn't need this stuff anyway. . . thong season is just around the corner".

The next instance happened early this morning (after work) at a grocery store that we frequent. We walked in and saw an abundance of unsold Valentine's day balloons and roses. We went through and got what we had gone in there for and walked up to the checkout. As we were walking up we see a very large (think a mountain of a man) county police officer. The guy was easily 6'2" and probably topped the scale at well over 250. He had in one hand one of the unsold balloons and in the other a bouquet of red roses. I walked up smiling and said to him, "It's too late, Valentines day is over". He responded, "Oh no, I am trying to make up for having to work tonight. I am armed, and I'm scared". He continued on, "She's a little thing, but she'll cut me". We laughed, he paid his bill and as he was leaving he said "These flowers will look good on my gravesite, that's really why I got them".

We laughed all the way home.

Haircut

I got my hair cut yesterday. Not just cut, shaved. It is less than an eighth of an inch long. You can see all manner of bumps and blemishes on my skull.

Brrr. I'm cold!