Hut hut

A sure sign of spring: This afternoon, I looked out my cubicle window onto Pinckney Street, and there I saw a lovely young woman standing in the middle of the road and tossing a Nerf football to someone I couldn't see. She wore high heels, a white blouse and a smart black skirt. She had a fine arm.

Over near the UW-Madison campus, in the area of Langdon Street, it is common to see unimaginatively dressed young men toss footballs in the streets -- the very streets upon which motorists endeavor to drive. This is part of the fraternity culture, in which the brothers blithely and pointedly make nuisances of themselves.

I suppose this woman was being a nuisance, too. But it was weirdly disorienting and satisfying to see her, immaculately clad and shod, tossing the pigskin in the street -- far from Fraternity Row, and in the middle of the downtown business district.

She really could throw that thing.