I think I stared death in the eyes today.
I was walking back from the Dr's office and wasn't really paying attention to what was in front of me for a moment. This was because something in the front yard of the house I was passing had drawn my attention. As I redirected my focus back to the sidewalk / direction I'm going, about 5 sidewalk squares in front of me is something in my path.
As I'm muttering to myself, 'WTF is that' the something starts to move.
I stop dead in my tracks as the next thing I know I'm staring eye to eye with a hawk who appears pretty pissed off that I'm interrupting its squirrel breakfast .  Then the hawk, at most 10 feet in front of me, spreads its wings and just stands there looking at me. This thing was hugegantic. Its wingspan was as wide as the sidewalk. After about 3 seconds of stare-down the hawk took off in my direction. It got about half way to me and veered off to it's left and headed up into the tree behind me.
I think I stood there gaping at the thing like a slackjawed yokel for about 30 seconds
When I started walking I didn't even pass the squirrel because I didn't want the hawk thinking I was a threat to it's grub. I went to the other side of the street.