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Monday, August 12, 2002 I've been sleeping restlessly since my return from Madrid. Why? Good question. Not sure. But I found myself awake at 3:30 this a.m., and after as spirited an internal debate as I could muster at that godawful hour re: getting up to check out the Perseid Meteor Shower, I finally surrendered, hauling myself out of bed, managing to find my groggy way to a window on the north side of the house. There's been morning fog here most of this summer, this morning was no exception -- stars shone above, but everything more than halfway down the dome of the sky remained obscured by mist. So that the two or three shooting stars I witnessed were brief, unspectacular, underwhelming. Bugger. Meanwhile, the weather here these last few days has been hot -- low 90's each day, made liveable by the temperature's immediately droop to more humane levels when the evening sun drifts down behind the trees. Hot days, cool nights -- a combo I can live with. Today the heat brought humidity with it, intense enough to render the air hazy, the haze dense enough that any hopes I had of spying some earthgrazers this evening are shot. Buggerbugger. The only other time I've ever tried to get an eyeful of the Perseids: several years back, also in Vermont, during a ten or twelve day stretch when I housesat at a place out in the middle of nowhere. The house sat on a dirt road way the hell off in the hills and hollows west of Thetford, hidden from the road by foliage, the property in a natural bowl, completely sheltered from outside eyes. An interesting place: belonging to a family with something like seven kids, three cats, a dog, a sable, a rabbit, a turtle and a good-sized trout pond stocked with rainbow trout growing more ravenous by the day ('cause I couldn't find anything to feed the poor buggers except bread). A long deck flanked the morning side of the house, providing a fine spot to hoover down a leisurely breakfast, maybe soak up some pre-noontime rays, taking a moment now and then to commune with Albert, the family dog, who generally flopped by an occupied chair, knowing that the chair's occupant would scratch his belly and tell him what a good boy he was. (And he was.) Gardens flanked the deck, well planted with flowers that attracted hummingbirds which the smallest of the three cats attempted unsuccessfully to catch. A stream cut through the middle of the property, parallel to the house, providing a constant background soundtrack of water running over gently-descending rocks. Trees lined either side of the stream and a bridge arched over it about midway along its transit through the property, providing numerous spots to pass afternoon hours with a book. The trout pond came equipped with two huge inner tubes, suitable for carrying human bodies around the pond, hands, feet and butt in the water. The trout (being ravenous) developed a tendency to nip at fingers and toes in the hope they might be edible, ensuring one wouldn't doze more than a few minutes at a shot. A beautiful place. An excellent spot to get in touch with one's inner lazy bastard. My brother and sister-in-law showed up at one point and, this being mid-August, my brother and I talked each other into getting up at an unspeakable hour to take a gander at the Perseids. Which we did. And we saw some. But the night was cold (not unusual in August), the mosquitoes -– undeterred by the temperature -– attacked every square inch of my exposed flesh, and I was enjoying the nights of that portion of my stay less 'cause I'd voluntary decamped from the master bedroom to allow my brother and sister-in-law the use of the house's only truly sizeable bed, relegating me to small, uncomfortable teenager's rooms, strewn with clothing, CDs and miscellaneous stuff. (The bed I finally settled in -- crammed into a cubbyhole small enough that I couldn't straighten my body out -- had a large poster hanging over it, a big, ugly, dayglo-colored thing that read "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil 'CAUSE I AM THE BIGGEST SON-OF-A-BITCH IN THE VALLEY!") And the simple truth is I'd rather be asleep at 3 or 4 a.m. So I didn't enjoy the display the way I might have if someone had been considerate enough to schedule it at 9 or 9:30 p.m. But that was then. This is now. I'll give the meteor shower another shot. I'm sure it will be worth the rws 9:07 PM [+] |