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[muckefuck]

For months now, I've been telling myself I should take an evening stroll, but inertia always takes hold and before I know it it's 10:36 and I really really need to log off and crawl into bed. Tonight what finally got me to do it was the sunset. The entire day was cold and rainy until, sometime after dinner, I was in the hall scratching kitty and I noticed golden light coming from the west. One of my favourite celestial phenomena: Clouds overhead, but clearing just above the western horizon--the perfect recipe for a brilliant sunset.

So I simply walked out the door and stood on the corner. There it occurred to me that I was getting only a small glimpse and the truly beautiful colours were behind the apartment building cattycorner. So I began walking up the street hoping for a better view. I stood for a bit at the corner of Ashland, where the topography makes one of its only sudden moves in Chicago, rising to Clark a mere block away. I clambered up the slope to the corner of the CTA bus turnaround and still wasn't pleased with the outlook.

So I simply kept walking. At this point, I despaired of ever getting high enough to see beyond the mid-rise buildings around, but I was seized with curiosity. More than a decade of passing the police station at Clark and Schreiber and I'd never thought to see what was behind it. A charming residential street, as it turns out. I followed it to Ravenswood, where the railroad berm taunted me with its inaccessible superior elevation. By this point, the sky had peaked and was trending back to a gray-and-white scheme similar to what it had displayed all day.

So I went up a block, turned back in, and found an even more charming side street. In one block, I counted three Marian shrines among the bungalows and gazed enviously upon dormers with a view to the west. Despite the chill in the air, for the first time all summer I saw fireflies. (The one I came across killing trees the other week hardly counts.) Lesson learned. The next challenge will be to get monshu to come out and accompany me.

Comments

[anicca-anicca.livejournal.com]

Nice!

Question: cattycorner = kittycorner = schräg gegenüber?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Both are variants of cater-cornered from French quatre "four". Und danke für die Uebersetzung. Ich habe vor kurzem einen deutschen Bekannten darum gebeten, aber er ist so lange in den USA, er konnte sich sie nicht mehr ins Gedächtnis rufen!