Watch for Hawks

Quote of the Day:

"If you are clawed by a hawk you should consult with a physician about the need for a tetanus shot"

-UND press release about the campus hawk

Tonight after work, I had high goals for myself. Was going to do some more cleaning and arranging in my room, going to head to the grocery store for milk and make a bank deposit. Instead, I went home and took off my work clothes and talked on the phone for an hour and a half.

By the time I hung up, I was hungry so I roped my mother into Green Mill. I tell ya, tortellini and beer never tasted so fab.

But onto the main topic of this post... hawks. Pissy ones, as this photo (which I ripped of Google images) shows.

Tonight Tyler called and suggested we ride bikes. Since my bike is a killer 1950's model with a squishy seat, I was game. Plus I like Tyler. However, I hung up the phone and the beer and tortellini kicked in. I awoke to him knocking on my garden level windows. I opened the blinds to see him riding away dejected and I lept out of bed and tore out of my house-- almost-- had to grab some pants (I had underwear on, stop freaking out) and yelled at him to come back.

So we were tooling around campus together and going right by "my" building. I call it mine because I literally live there-- all my classes are there. It's the religion/english building, after all. I see all these signs up of "warning- hawk attacks"--- Um what?!! So, Tyler informed me what has been going on at UND. Check it out here. Craziest shee-yat ever. Seriously, that is right out of the show Family Guy, where the birds nest in Peter's beard and he can't move them cause they're endangered.

So people going to summer school have to run to class to avoid being attacked by the hawk. A hawk attack on my way to class is now on my list of "Scary shit I don't want to experience at school." It's right up there with that old-faithful nightmare of showing up to take a test buck naked.

Speaking of school and lists, I found something pretty funny today while sorting through loose papers. Tyler and I used to have a communication class together and since it was boring, we often resorted to writing notes. I found our infamous "Axis of Evil" list which we made one day in honor of George W (we all know I'm such a fan of his). Here it is:

Emily and Tyler's Axis of Evil circa Spring 2005 semester

• Crummy films and their makers
• Alarm clocks
• Bills (but not Tyler's friend Bill)
• Badly written tests
• Mike Liffrig (former republican candidate for senate in ND-- real weirdo)
• Disappearing socks
• Bad dreams
• Plasma people that poke you too hard
• Wanting to sleep in class but the professor stares at you
• Conglomerate rip-offs (aka Barnes & Noble school bookstore)
• In-class essays
• Teachers from 1915
• Overhead projectors
• Falling down
• People who clean the bathroom and complain that no one praises them (do it and shut up)
• Menomic devices (no clue on that one)
• Simplot
• cars... correction, cars in the shop
• flat tires that happen weekly
• shooting two interviews all wrong (studio one memories)
• The girl to Tyler's left with the huge boobs (Tyler, stop staring!)
• Wells Fargo
• People who are falling down drunk when we are sober

I think that list took a good while to accumulate. The rest of the sheet has random scrawled things like "You have a friend named Bill?" / "I want big boobs!" / "Ahh, I think your boobs are fine!" / "Hey! Quit looking at MY boob!" -- wow, good thing we learned a lot in that class.

I am really enjoying summer. I don't mind working 8 hour days really because at the end you go home and have no homework, you can take late night bike rides and just chill. This Saturday, Tyler and I are off to yet another wedding and on Monday I fly out to Duluth for a conference on how we can make the media more aware of domestic violence. I am looking forward to it providing there are no snakes on my plane :)

One last thing before I go. I found this poem today and I really like it. It can be about romantic relationships or friendship and family ties. But when I read it, I was reminded of so many people in my life...

~~~~~~
Comfort

Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person,
having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words,
but pouring them all right out, just as they are,
chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand
will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping,
and then with the breath of kindness
blow the rest away.

- Dinah Craik (1864-1887)