Early Friday morning, I received a phone call. I usually hate these early disturbances to my sleep--especially because they're telemarketers trying to get me to part with my precious money for crap. However, as I laid in bed listening to the answering machine, it was my husband who had just left five minutes ago.

"You don't have to get up if you don't want to, but I wanted to let you know that there are peacocks on top of the carport. You can see them if you go out on the balcony and look to the far left."

Since I've never seen peacocks hanging out in our apartment complex before, I grabbed the camera and went out. In the corner were three peahens (the ladies without the pretty tail feathers) and one peacock resting in the shade of a tree.

After snapping some pictures and watching them watch me, I went back inside to figure out if they were escapees. However, Arcadia and Pasadena actually have quite a few wild peacocks that traverse their streets. Lucky Baldwin, the Santa Anita rancher (who gave his land for the LA Arboreteum and Santa Anita horsetrack) introduced these peafowl to the area by bringing them from India. Unless one is injured, they are free to roam the streets and the Humane Society won't do anything about them.

While gardening was happening during the morning, the peafowl left and I went on about my day. As I was sitting and writing in the afternoon, I then actually saw them marching once again across the carport and past my balcony window. I went out to watch them and saw them all jump at least five feet over the edge of the carport into the lower parking lot. After that, I haven't seen them again.

However, this rare sighting made me think about one of the Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper articles that has Joshua Bell, a famous violinist, play in a Washington DC metro stop. It noted how so many people are busy with their lives that they pass these magical, once in a lifetime moments by without even seeing them. The peafowl reminded me of that too, that you need to take the time to see what's special every day.