Menaced by Mallards

Ah, yes, that was what I don't like about poppy seed bagels: the stupid poppy seeds spalling off in great profusion and getting into absolutely everything on my desk. Also, word to the wise: if you forget to get plastic cutlery, and wind up spreading the cream cheese with your pocket knife, the cream cheese tends to wind up in the notch at the top of the blade and refuse to come out again. Ick.

On the whole, I would prefer Noah's, but it's really too far to walk down the hill to U Village and back in a coffee break. So I went along to the HUB in a slow fall of cherry blossoms. The pale pink drifts line the brick walks now. As I was about to pass down the stairs between Smith and Miller Halls, I heard a nearby quacking, but only saw a seagull. That's odd; one doesn't usually find ducks up on the main campus, let alone quacking seagulls. Then down by the Union Building more quacking as a handsome mallard drake sailed in for a landing between the redwoods on the hillock there. Very odd. There really isn't any water anywhere very near the HUB. Back on the quad, with my hot chocolate and bagel in hand, I spotted the probable source of the first quacking - a mallard duck sitting solo under a cherry tree. I can't help thinking the two of them belong together and somehow got separated. I hope they find each other again. It's cherry blossom time; everyone should be pairing up in happy couples (or happy multiples of whatever floats your boat).