Omens and Portents

I've never been big on Edgar Allan Poe (and in fact find the story of the pilgrimage's to his grave with roses and cognac more interesting), but one thing that has stayed with me since seventh grade English class is that ravens are smart and spooky and BAD. Perhaps I never got into Poe because my only real exposure to him is seventh grade readings of "The Raven" and the Wishbone episode of "The Purloined Paper" (a great episode, actually, and presumably a good story). Anyway, that was my major exposure to both Poe and ravens, until two days ago.

I was sitting on my couch, typing an Italian presentation that I was giving that evening, while also gchatting one of my good friends while she worked the reference desk in Syracuse. Suddenly, I noticed that there was a squeaking noise outside my window and looking out I saw a raven with a baby chipmunk in his mouth. Another chipmunk already lay on the ground. I'm not going into details about what happened next, because it was genuinely awful, and after freezing for a minute in horror, I screamed, grabbed my computer, and ran into the bathroom. Even with my carpet-drying monster fans on and music still playing, I could still hear the chipmunks. My poor friend got to deal with my frantically typing to her, with many exclamation points. I wrote the presentation sitting on my bathroom floor, since I couldn't deal with looking out and seeing the...aftermath. I called my sister practically in tears. She understood--they had a mouse in their house earlier this year and got attached to it, and before their ordered humane trap had come, maintenance came and killed him, and she was really, really upset.

Now, it should be noted that I like birds. I spent a lot of summers as a part of Audubon camp, and my parents are both birders, so though I'm not great at identifying calls I am ok at identifying birds. And I like them. Even hawks. But I am also not exaggerating when I say that I hate this raven. Especially because of his killer beak. I realize this is totally not fair to the raven. He (or she) needs to get food. Maybe they were even taking the chipmunk back to their young. He (or she) has to kill to eat, it's not like they're doing it for the fun of it. But it put me in a terrible mood for the rest of the day.

And then, yesterday, I got back from running errands and was in the process of opening an AMAZING belated birthday present (Twilight trading cards meets a Caravaggio themed birthday card meets a holographic wrestler cup from 7-Eleven--my friends know me so well!!) when I looked out the window and the raven was back. Staring at the chipmunk hole. So I did what any self-respecting adult would do. I banged on the window, and yelled something along the lines of, "go away! you BASTARD, you already ate them!! LEAVE ME ALONE!!" to which he gazed at me very implacably and slowly flew off.

This is a rambling blog post, but the raven has rattled me. Not so much because it is perceived as omen, because I don't reaaally believe in those, but because it killed two creatures six feet from my apartment, and that is weirding me out. Such food chain examples probably happen close to me more often than I'd like to admit, but I don't usually SEE them. I'm in the process of a paper about celestial signs, so maybe omens and portents are just on my mind. And after having daily thunderstorms for the past two weeks, is it so much to ask for a rainbow, like the double one my sister saw last night, if we're talking about celestial signs? Give me a different sign than a raven, please.