Drama for dessert

Here's the promised postscript to my last post.

You'll recall we had a wonderful, scenic meal, floating on barges along the San Antonio River. (The luncheon was in honor of my [for now, just] locally famous niece, English horn principal and oboist with the San Antonio Symphony.)

As it happens, the honoree herself had just come onto our barge. She and her mom switched places before the dessert course so that they could each have time to visit with a different set of friends.

And it's very fortunate that the desserts hadn't been delivered, as we heard this loud THUMP and then noticed something that hadn't been on the table before. This was right where the dessert would have been for the lady sitting on my right.

What would you make of that? Odd enough, for sure, but then a sharp eye on the other side of the table noticed that the poor thing was headless! 

Now, the guys on the boat admitted later to being quite impressed that this barge-full of women were admirably calm and non-hysterical at this turn of events. (Although my sister-in-law commented later that since the woman in front of whom the unfortunate avian landed was a mother of six, there was probably little that could faze her!)

But we were all quite curious as to how this happened. I mean, after all, here we are, in the middle of downtown in the seventh largest city in the country, sitting at the dock in front of Paesano's waiting for our dessert—and BOOM! There is "nature red in tooth and claw" on display right in front of us!

A squirrel was first suspected as the culprit in this drama, but then some of the guys said they saw a hawk in the tree above us. He might be in this picture, but I didn't see him. However, I thought it forensically important to take a photo looking straight up:

It would be easier to credit a hawk than a squirrel with such a clean decapitation. So it was probably actually nature red in beak and claw, but the sentiment's the same. 

Yes, we all were rather calm about the incident, more excited about its story-telling potential than horrified at the sight. But I did notice that none of the luncheon guests moved to transfer the unfortunate pigeon to a more appropriate final resting place. Our boat driver did that, rather unceremoniously picking the carcass up with a napkin and depositing it in the bushes right on shore. Making room, of course, for the scrumptious desserts, which we proceeded to enjoy with no loss of appetite. Rather heartless, I guess, in retrospect, but my limoncello cake was really, really delicious.

My niece thought the whole thing was quite a hoot and made some significant Facebook mileage out of it, helped, I'm pleased to say, by my photo of the deceased.

As delightful and memorable as the luncheon would have been without this added drama, for sure it's now an outing none of us will ever forget!