The first owl I ever saw was in Southern California. (You do have them, Storyteller…)

My not-yet-husband had a summer job at the RAND Corp. and we got to stay in various homes of RAND employees while they were on vacation. We stayed in two Santa Monica homes — one was a condo and the other was huge and we stayed in a lovely home in the Santa Monica Mountains. Allegedly Peter Fonda was our neighbor but we never saw him.

When we were living in the house in the mountains we invited the owner of the condo to have dinner with us. As we sat on the patio, looking down at the sparkling coastline of LA a huge owl swooped down within inches of the table. I don’t know what kind it was — it was dark and we were too stunned to do anything but sit there with our mouths hanging open.

But it was memorable. Funny how some bird encounters are so memorable, while others are less so. Or maybe not funny at all.