A Walk Home

     The thing is time gets away from you. Here I was thinking I was writing this yesterday and it is already today. I walked home from work yesterday. I've done that a few times lately. I find it very peaceful and it's really not a long walk. I stopped a couple times to rest my right knee which was sore because I had been on my feet a lot the last couple days. I had arthroscopic surgery on it 24 years ago and was told then, at the age of 35, that I had the knees of a 70-year-old. My right knee actually will bend but it gets sore if I walk for too long. I might have developed a permanent, almost imperceptible limp after I broke my ankle. It causes me to walk weird and, after awhile, my right knee gets very sore. I need better shoes. My left knee which has never been worked on doesn't like to bend at all. Alas. Is arthroscopic surgery even a thing any more? 

     As I walked, I scanned the bare branches of the tallest trees and the tops of tall buildings like the Embassy Suites hotel looking for hawks of any sort. I almost gave up on my mission but, in a scrawny, not even majestic-looking tree to the left of a children's dentist's office, I spotted a Cooper's Hawk. I stopped under the tree to possibly get a closer look and, as I did so, I watched it lift off.  The barred lines on the underside of the tail were visible as the Cooper's Hawk flew in a northeast direction possibly to some trees behind an old house. 

    I made it home where it was, immediately, time to take my Chihuahua out for a walk or as much of a walk as he will go on in colder weather.  As we walked around the rose courtyard, I looked up and saw a flock of non-descript birds fly in a northeast direction over us and a much larger bird following it. It was a Cooper's Hawk. I have had close encounters with a Cooper's Hawk in that courtyard. I have done enough reading to know that a Cooper's Hawk is not big enough to attack a Chihuahua but, every time I am in that courtyard with my dog which is often, I wonder where there is a Cooper's Hawk lurking. I decided to investigate further. Maybe, it was even the same hawk I had just seen on my walk home.

      I picked up my dog and tucked his portable-sized self underneath my coat as he was shivering. He shivers when his arthritis acts up or his owner acts weird which I was definitely doing. We took a stroll to follow what I imagined was the flight path of the Cooper's Hawk chasing a flock of birds. First, we walked due north on a sidewalk between 2 buildings. As we emerged from between the buildings, I looked up and to the east. There, high up in another tree was probably the same Cooper's Hawk.