Inscrutable

Midday yesterday in CA's Southbay was drizzly, the pleasant kind of drizzle because it was a Sunday, because it was a change from the seemingly imperturbable January summer, because a change in weather especially where it doesn't change as much as other places can't help but make Nature a little more noticeable.  Perched on a telephone line just before the stoplight I was approaching on the one-way drizzled on street was a hawk.  I noticed him/her at the same time that I had to navigate a curve, and I was instantly too late to stop and take a picture.  So, I did what any reliable blogger would do, I sat at the one-way light and then circled back through the neighborhood, all the while multi-tasking to get my camera on some sort of wildlife insta-lens.  No dice.  The hawk had departed for more inconspicuous perches.

Hawks, man...hawks can't help but look dignified.  Sure, they're perhaps the most notorious of birds of prey, so that's a pretty dignified moniker to begin with, but something about their beaks lends itself to a totally dignified countenance.  They are utterly inscrutable.  Hawks, could they grip playing cards in their talons or nestle them against their feathery vest, would probably make really good poker players.

Alright, alright.  I don't even have a good poker-face from my invisible blogging perch; obviously, I've got games on my mind.  Dominoes in particular.  It's superfluous to get into the details, but, truly/madly/dangerously, I thought that I was kind of royalty when it comes to skills with those ever recognizable black and ivory tiles (referred to by the pros and their proteges as "bones").

So, it is with supremely/royally/dangerously negative capacity that I admit to having perhaps slipped a notch or two from my throne.  Again, let's leave the details to the birds, but I lost pretty significantly last night in what should have been a routine round of 7's.  I'll keep left of unsportsmanlike behavior (that's where this ruleless blog draws the line), but my opponent's strategy seemed to consist of predicting which tile numbers I was sure to be short of and then playing those tile numbers end to end, thus leaving me with no option but to take a much dreaded, much unfamiliar trip to the dregs of the bone yard.  My opponent seemed to not only revel in this effective (albeit, shiesty) strategy but also revel in my lack of self control.  I was informed that a line creases my forehead, a proverbial shadow seems to cast itself upon the resident sparkle in my eye; in other words, I am completely readable when I have no tile to play; I am sans poker-face (or domino-face as the case surely is).  It is times like these, when I suffer perhaps brief tumbles down the thorny hillsides of domino matches against the ruthless moves of scheming competitors that being a hawk would be especially advantageous.  In addition to the dignified and utterly expressionless face, a beak could certainly come in useful.  (It would, after all, be so tacky to wear brass knuckles to a domino match.)

Life sometimes can be inscrutable.

Inscrutable: –adjective

  incapable of being investigated, analyzed, or scrutinized; impenetrable