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Jul. 4th, 2013 09:32 pm
Fireflies, not fireworks
Yesterday I met up with Lakshmi and Shriman Chai for dinner at Blind Faith Café after work. (Bumiputeri couldn't make it.) Lakshmi was the usual mixture of delight and complaint--her job has worked out well but she hates Long Island--but we kept it all light by teasing her incessantly about her (nonexistent) "New York" rudeness and attitude. And I learned something important about vegetarians: If they've never eaten meat before, they're liable to find seitan and gardein weird and gross. (The waiter was super nice about bringing her another dish at no charge.)
Afterwards, I picked up some sausages and rode the shuttle back. In the growing dark as I walked the last few blocks to my house, I counted fifteen lightning bugs. I was pleasantly surprised. Just last weekend, I was mentioning to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
monshu that I hadn't seen any so far this year. (I mean, I saw two during daylight hours, but they weren't luminescing so they hardly count.) I associate them with hot weather and speculated that a cool June might have played a role, but yesterday was uncannily fall-like, so maybe I only have that association because a summer without smothering heat was outside my ken when I was small. In any case, it prompted me to get off my ass and go for a walk tonight and, sure enough, I saw too many to count. The first three were in our very backyard, so maybe I'm just especially oblivious these days.
But one thing I am sure of is that the lindens are late this year. They're in full bloom now, but the smell is not as overpowering as I remember, so maybe I'm already experiencing a dimming of the senses. As I was making a circuit round the hood, I spotted some columbine gone to seed, so I grasped some of the drier pods and crumbled them in my hand until the released their tiny black seeds. These I carried all the way back home and tossed onto the earth at the west end of the parkway, right at the border where the shade becomes too heavy for grass to grow. Another experiment to see if we can get anything to grow there.
Aside from a fountain being set off at the edge of the playlot, I haven't really seen any fireworks this year and that's fine with me. It's fun to watch them when I can do so from a high floor or rooftop deck, but I'm not one to subject myself to the crowds and chaos of the lakefront. I sure can hear them; Kitty put up with them for most of the day, but now that the big shells are coming out, he's gone to ground. I will soon as well. No four-day weekend for me--tomorrow is our last planning meeting before the division retreat on Tuesday. (Tomorrow at 2:30 p.m., because the head of the division apparently hates us all.)
Afterwards, I picked up some sausages and rode the shuttle back. In the growing dark as I walked the last few blocks to my house, I counted fifteen lightning bugs. I was pleasantly surprised. Just last weekend, I was mentioning to
monshu that I hadn't seen any so far this year. (I mean, I saw two during daylight hours, but they weren't luminescing so they hardly count.) I associate them with hot weather and speculated that a cool June might have played a role, but yesterday was uncannily fall-like, so maybe I only have that association because a summer without smothering heat was outside my ken when I was small. In any case, it prompted me to get off my ass and go for a walk tonight and, sure enough, I saw too many to count. The first three were in our very backyard, so maybe I'm just especially oblivious these days.But one thing I am sure of is that the lindens are late this year. They're in full bloom now, but the smell is not as overpowering as I remember, so maybe I'm already experiencing a dimming of the senses. As I was making a circuit round the hood, I spotted some columbine gone to seed, so I grasped some of the drier pods and crumbled them in my hand until the released their tiny black seeds. These I carried all the way back home and tossed onto the earth at the west end of the parkway, right at the border where the shade becomes too heavy for grass to grow. Another experiment to see if we can get anything to grow there.
Aside from a fountain being set off at the edge of the playlot, I haven't really seen any fireworks this year and that's fine with me. It's fun to watch them when I can do so from a high floor or rooftop deck, but I'm not one to subject myself to the crowds and chaos of the lakefront. I sure can hear them; Kitty put up with them for most of the day, but now that the big shells are coming out, he's gone to ground. I will soon as well. No four-day weekend for me--tomorrow is our last planning meeting before the division retreat on Tuesday. (Tomorrow at 2:30 p.m., because the head of the division apparently hates us all.)