On the way to the El
There were two people a few yards ahead of me, a tall, balding white man and a shorter Hispanic woman. They seemed to be having a argument, and with the snow-narrowed sidewalks, I hoped they got it straightened out before I had to squeeze past them. Then the man's anger suddenly ramped up and he turned around and started SCREAMING in my general direction, something like "You f***ing bigot, you have no g****** right!" He hurried past me (phew!), still yelling, and when I turned to see who he was yelling at (there was nobody there), he had thrown his leather briefcase in anger. Then the woman took his hand and tugged him along towards the train, saying comforting things, and I kept going, feeling vaguely freaked out. I'm guessing someone in traffic said something rude to the woman, and the man's rage grew and grew until long after the person was gone, and finally he just had to do something to blow off steam. People can be such jerks, and there's nothing we can do except just be pissed off about it. He was probably mostly angry at himself for not acting immediately to defend his friend/wife/girlfriend's honor, and angry at a world where she could take an insult in stride because she'd heard it plenty of times before.

I saw them on the El platform a few minutes later, and he seemed much cheerier.

Saw a strange bird on my street the other day. I dug through my bird books but couldn't find a picture that matched, I only saw it from the back and the books only show frontal views. It was a raptor, about the size of a crow, with a slim shape (not bulky like most hawks), dark blue-grey coloring, wide black bars on the tail and possibly a reddish breast. He was just above my head in a tree outside the brick Italianate hidden by overgrown evergreens. I think it was the first time I've gone past that house and *not* seen a thousand pigeons (the people sprinkle birdseed on the ground). I wish the mystery bird would camp out at my house! Anyway, my first guess was a peregrine falcon, since I know those are around, but the picture wasn't right.

- posted by Diane @ 10:27 AM