An Old Friend Found - A New Friend Lost

Several days ago, I was surprised to find an email from one of my high school buddies sitting in my gmail. It's been almost 20 years since I last saw him (he was a year ahead of me) but he hunted me down. It was a lovely surprise. And if he's reading this... "Hi".

You see, I was a band nerd. First chair flute, as a matter of fact. And he was one of the two oboes. The other oboe was one of my best friends, so we'd all sit together on bus trips to band competitions, and at football games, etc. My memory stinks, but if I remember correctly, we had a lot of fun. And he was one hell of a nice guy.

Now, while I'm a firm believer that one can never go back... (I've tried... believe me... It never works.)... I also believe that maybe one can move forward with the people you knew once upon a time. It's hard, I know, but there's hope.

As to the new friend... Well, not to put a damper on the happy note, but...

Last fall we were visited by a spectacular pair of Western Screech Owls - male and female. They're gorgeous little things, and funny to watch. They make this long, low-pitched warbling sound when they call to each other in the night. Occasionally, they would grace us with their presence at dawn and at dusk, where we could watch them and they would watch us from their perch in the tree. I was very taken with them both, and I became attached to them.

This morning, I found one of them in the middle of the road. I don't know which one it was, but I'll think of it as the him. (It's hard to tell the gender of a Western Screech without lifting up its dress, so to speak.) He must have been chasing prey when he got hit. Since we were on our way to my daughter's standardised test, the best I could do was move him to the side of the road so he wouldn't get smushed worse. After I dropped her off, I postponed my errands and swung back to retrieve him. He's now buried in our garden patch, just a few feet down from the squirrel I interred last year.

I'm a little bummed. I don't know if they mate for life, but that would suck. The only positive I can see is that the birds aren't nesting yet in this part of the country, so his mate doesn't have to worry about raising a brood on her own. Having to live without your mate sucks enough.

And this on the heels of my husband almost getting run over by a Great Horned Owl this morning. It swooped over the house, and when it came over the back part of the house, there was my husband. Lucky for both of them, the owl banked sharply and few to the next tree over.