a good day in winter

this morning i walked to work because my car is in the shop. (it died on the hwy., on the way home from green bay, in a snowstorm, at night. but that's another story.)

my office is about 3/4 of a mile away. due to my tendency to walk too fast for conditions, i decided to put on the cool pair of yaktrax that em and patrick gave me for christmas. it was a bit of a fight but i got them on over my shoes and off i went.

amazing!! i felt like a human tank, just cruising down the block, tearing up the icy sidewalks. they are the greatest things! about $20 a pair, go over boots or shoes. i think they should be a federally mandated requirement for anyone over 50 years of age living in a northern climate.

a half-block from the office i heard birdsong that was a soft buzzing, almost a murmur. sure enough--a flock of at least 50 cedar waxwings was at the tippy-top of a maple. groups of about 5 at a time were swooping down to a flowering crabapple, still heavily laden with last summer's fruit. they were taking turns feasting on what the flock had found. it was so cool. and there i was, i had my yaktrax, but alas, no camera.

if my car hadn't broken down, i wouldn't have walked to work, and i would have missed the waxwings!