December 9/365 Happy Things

The on-ramp to 80 east at Scotrun merges into the passing lane, making it my least favorite ramp to the highway. You have to accelerate madly, while careening around the curve of the ramp, and merge into speeding New Jersey drivers, who are likely texting, reading, and applying makeup at 80 mph. Today I breezed onto the highway, traffic being light on a Sunday morning, only to have a red-tailed hawk skim over the pavement right ahead of me, a fluid missile of a bird. Rich didn’t notice, probably because he was hand-braking against the dashboard, a habit of his when I am driving. For a moment time slowed, as I willed the bird speed, and watched it swoop down under the lanes going west, heading toward the outlet mall in Tannersville. I hope it caught something tasty, for all that it risked, in that dive.