Bad Meteor Luck, and some Phenology

carbonel, with whom I have gone to see the Leonids, is out of town. minnehaha K, with whom Beth and I have looked at Mercury, is even further out of town. I was not organized enough to get to the next level. I did go outside at two a.m., and I did actually see meteors. The only problem was that the sky was full of patchy clouds, especially in the direction of Perseus, and so what I saw were little yellow twinkles and flashes, no streaks. In a different mood, one in which I'd have thought to arrange seating, I might have really liked them, but as it was I got so frustrated with the ambient lighting in the alley and the mere glimpses of meteors that I went back inside.

Closer to earth, I have seen the following:

A clutch of young robins learning to eat fallen crabapples.

A young male cardinal making chipping noises at my cat.

A whole line of white-faced meadowhawks sunning themselves on the back sidewalk, and Ari rushing forward and startling them one after another into glittery flight.

A green darner exploding from under Ari's nose from the overgrown front flower garden.

And this, originally written as an email to Eric, but with the soppy bits taken out:

So I was pottering around the house collecting dirty dishes when I noticed that no matter what direction a window faced, it showed a brilliant pink sky, sometimes with lit-up fiery clouds. I got rid of the dishes and grabbed a couple of bags of trash and went outside. This gave me a good view of the uniformly, now more pale pink sky in the east, and the big fluffy clouds underlined with orange, in the south, but not of the sunset. I went into the front yard and the visible sky was blue-gray and gray and white. A lot of robins flew by.

I walked up to 38th Street, which gives a view due west not much encumbered by trees. The sunset was almost done, but I did get to see some brilliant stripes of pink and orange in the far west, and slate-blue clouds melting into pink above that.

When I turned for home, realizing that I had left the back door unlocked, I heard the chittering of chimney swifts. A triolet of them, and then another, swept the sky just above the treetops, and then they swooped down almost to ground level, one of them flying only a few feet in front of me. They all swirled about in the middle of the intersection of 38th and Blaisdell like a dust devil made of birds, and then rose up and flew away south, still chittering.

Pamela

*sigh* I hate these uphill struggles

I can't talk meaningfully, as some others have today, about what God has joined. But it is meet that I set it down, that I think all those people who got married in San Francisco earlier this year are still married. It's just a pity that hospitals, insurance companies, and people's annoying relatives don't recognize me as an authority on the matter. Furthermore, so long as we are on this topic: If you live in Missouri, and are gay, there is nothing wrong with you. You aren't evil, and you aren't crazy. Those 70% who voted to define marriage in a way that leaves you out, they have something wrong with them. They may be thoughtful, devout, well-intentioned, kind to children and cats, but they're wrong and they have done a wrong thing. I hope they may live to be sorry for it, and to make amends.

I am particularly aware just now of the fact that I get both to be legally married and to have my family arrangements depicted as the terrible ultimate immoral consequence of allowing gay people to marry one another, not just by lunatics but by some of the people working hard for marriage equality.

It's a strange world..

Pamela