Anyway...

[rain_gryphon]

So, I have the flu. Right at the tail-end of the season. I got a shot as I've done every year since (IIRC) 1988, but it got me anyway. At any rate, it's a rather mild visitation, so either the shot helped some, or perhaps the strain, if not one for which I was vaccinated this year, is close enough to one I've been vaccinated for before.

I'm tempted to write to Sanofi/Pasteur, and ask for my $25 back.

*****

I almost ran over a Bald Eagle a couple of weeks ago. It's amazing! For 50 years, I never saw one outside of a zoo, and now they're just everywhere! I was driving down the highway, and she was diving on some prey off to the right side. Instead of coming straight at it, she dove almost to the median strip (divided highway) on my left, sharply flattened out her dive, and shot across the road in front of me just inches off the ground. She passed just in front of my car, but I suspect that she was very much aware of the car and its velocity, and knew she had time. It may even be that she was using the car as a sort of cover, in the sense that a mouse doesn't expect an eagle to come shooting across a highway at surface height just in front of a car, so in that sense traffic on the highway might be perceived as a safety barrier by the prey.

Comments

[xolo.livejournal.com]

The thing is, I grew up in southern Indiana, and we never saw them there. So far as I know, they weren't on the river back then. Now, suddenly, just in the last few years, they're everywhere!