March 19
Wednesday, March19, 2003 - 12:25

This morning I was just sitting there minding my own business when I looked out into the courtyard and saw something in one of the trees, something that looked like a big pile of leaves, or maybe a giant pineapple.

"What the fuck is that?" I exclaimed. "Is that an owl?"

I ran upstairs to get the binoculars and then went out to the back balcony to look. But because the leaves were covering up the top of it, all I could see was the bottom of some soft striped thing. I thought it was a stuffed animal, but I couldn't figure out why someone would put a stuffed animal into a tree, and I couldn't figure out how it was just sitting there if it was a stuffed animal.

Then I went back downstairs to get a better view of it. And low and behold, it was an owl. A great horned owl, just sitting there.

My favorite birds are hummingbirds and owls. I love them. But to see one in the daytime was frightening, so I got freaked out and called Mr. Pooh.

"There's an owl in the tree!" I exclaimed.

"Oh," he said.

He was not terribly impressed.

"You could get out the video camera and tape it," he said.

"I could tape it!" I exclaimed.

So I did. It was beautiful. It looked at me, and it moved its head around, and it jumped to some other branches, and it ruffled its feathers. It was very big and soft looking and surprisingly striped. I've always thought great horned owls looked like cats, but now I think they look like tigers.

It was still there when I left.

I like owls.