pixiecrinkle | (no subject)

OK, so yesterday I saw one of the oddest things I've ever seen. Some of you will have already seen this via

laughingrat who was also there. We were at our Stitch n' Bitch, which meets at MoJoe in the I-670 cap. I was standing up showing a beaded sweater I'm working on to a few people, trying to get advice on whether or not I should pretty much start the thing over, when something caught my eye. It was a *large* bird, which swooped down and flew diagonally across the little brick plaza beside the coffee shop.

We followed his trajectory (because by the time I screamed OH MY GOD WHAT WAS THAT? everyone in the whole place was now looking) and saw him just as he slammed, full speed, into the glass storefront across High Street. Several of us ran outside, just in time to see a really stupid guy wearing his iPod just bop on past the bird, now lying stunned on its back on the sidewalk, not even really noticing how odd this was. At this point we decided it was a red tailed hawk. BIG freakin' bird, no matter if we were right or not. It got back up a couple of times and slammed into the window again, at which point we realized it saw its own reflection and was trying to fight the "other" hawk.

I had grabbed my phone on the way out, but by this point, several people were already calling, so I decided to take a photo. While I was fiddling with my stupid phone and trying to get it on still rather than video,

laughingrat said "LOOK! He's ok!" and saw him fly off, under the archways of the storefronts on the other side of the street. We caught a slight glimpse of him then flying over the top of building and off towards Goodale Park.

Weird. I've seen a hawk before close up in captivity, and I've seen them from a distance out in the country, but I've never seen one that close up, and certainly not downtown on a Saturday afternoon.

It wasn't until later that I realized what a bad scene it would have been had there been any traffic sitting stopped at the light on High Street at the point he initially swooped across the street. A person in a small car would probably have been significantly injured had a bird that size come through their windshield, and a larger SUV or truck would not have been good news for the hawk. Lucky bird.

I also can't imagine what it would have looked like had someone seen the bird go sideways in front of their car, wings spread, either. Wow.

In other, unrelated news, my disdain for the Wexner Center's marketing grows. I just pulled out the calendar I picked up and found that Cat Power is playing Tuesday night. Why don't they advertise their shows??? Especially since their website is utterly unusable. Grumble, grumble, elitist art bastards, grumble grumble. And yet, I'll still probably buy tickets.