Tonight, tonight, won't be just any night...

...because this is the peak night of the annual Perseids meteor shower.

From NASA's website:

"Earth passes through the densest part of the debris stream sometime on August 12th. Then, you could see dozens of meteors per hour."

For sky watchers in North America, the watch begins after nightfall on August 11th and continues until sunrise on the 12th. Veteran observers suggest the following strategy: Unfold a blanket on a flat patch of ground. (Note: The middle of your street is not a good choice.) Lie down and look up. Perseids can appear in any part of the sky, their tails all pointing back to the shower's radiant in the constellation Perseus. Get away from city lights if you can.

Above: Looking northeast around midnight on August 11th-12th. The red dot is the Perseid radiant. Although Perseid meteors can appear in any part of the sky, all of their tails will point back to the radiant. Image copyright: Spaceweather.com, used with permission.

There is one light you cannot escape on August 12th. The 55% gibbous Moon will glare down from the constellation Aries just next door to the shower's radiant in Perseus. The Moon is beautiful, but don't stare at it. Bright moonlight ruins night vision and it will wipe out any faint Perseids in that part of the sky."

They advise that the time of evening that best reduces glare and increases the chance of seeing "earthgrazers", those with long, extra bright streaks, is between 9 and 11 PM in your local time zone, and there will be a "double peak" for quantity, between 11PM and 1AM, and again around 5AM tomorrow. Yes, I know it's prime posting time here, but everybody will be here tomorrow night; the meteors won't!

Last year, it rained or was cloudy here in the Northeast, but tonight the weather is looking very promising, so get outside, enjoy the show, and don't forget the bug spray!

For my cousin Greg

I checked my email this morning to learn that my cousin, Greg Wilder, died a few days ago. He wasn't a first cousin, but my mother's first cousin, and I didn't know him well, but I still had great affection for him.

I actually have barely any memory at all of him from when I was a child, but I do remember that my mother would speak of him fondly, very proud of his minor celebrity status. She always had to add that he had changed his name because his real one seemed too ethnic in the 1950's entertainment world. I never had a chance to ask him about it myself, but I always wondered why he even changed his first name from Robert. Now, I suppose, I will never learn.

My mother's extended family never stayed close, so the only time I ever saw him as an adult was when he came to her wake. He was probably about 70 then, but he was spry and personable, and we exchanged email addresses. We would exchange pleasantries once in a great while, and he would call me "cuz" like we were teenagers. It was very cute.

I visited the website link he sent me, and learned that he was still out there, crooning Sinatra and other standards at weddings and swing dances, at an age when most of us expect to be retired. He loved it, and was pretty good, too. There are sound bites you can reach from the link if you're interested.

I hadn't heard from him in quite a long while, over a year, when I made a post about my mother, both here and on another blog site. I forwarded the link to a few family members, fully expecting that he'd be someone who I would hear from. When I didn't, I wondered about his health, and realized that I had no way of contacting him except through email, and I don't even know any of his intimates to contact them.

I learned today that he suffered from lung cancer, and that he passed away on Monday. I find myself sad that my life had moved in a direction and pace that didn't allow me to know him better, my "luvincuz" Greg.

Mmmmm... I love pie!

At a gathering of friends last week, we had lots of food left over, including about three pounds (yes, pounds, not pints) of blueberries, compliments of one of our assembled group. He insisted that I take them home, and I told him I just might have to make a pie with them. He said that if I did, I had to promise to post pics.

I ate blueberries all week long - on cereal for breakfast, on sorbet for dessert, and snacking all by itself. By today, I still had at well over a pint left, and I could tell they wouldn't be good for eating right out of the container much longer. What's more, it's been a lonely, emotionally stressful week for me, and I have learned that little does more to banish blues for me than to lose myself in some cooking.



Yes, it was probably a little insane of me to have my oven turned on in this heat and humidity, so I decided to at least wait until the daytime heat was gone, and then was forced to wait a bit longer, until the rain had abated enough for me to open the doors to let some cooler air inside.

Right before it went into the oven, I brushed the crust with a little egg and sprinkled it with sugar. I do admit, I cheated a bit, using a store-bought crust instead of from scratch, but that would have been far too much work tonight.

So, this is how I spent my Friday night - exciting, huh? And here is the result of my labors, thanks to my friend.



Here's the finished pie, all hot and juicy from the oven.

I couldn't bring myself to wait until morning, and so indulged myself in a slice as a bedtime snack, accompanied by some vanilla soymilk (no dairy for me):



The first slice is always a little messy, but it was as good as it looks!

I'm licking spoon, plate and fingers as I type this. (Can we say sublimation, boys and girls?)

Bombs bursting in air

I heard the other day on NPR (so it must be true, right?) that our forefathers celebrated our Declaration of Independence with fireworks.

As they are now, fireworks were an expensive undertaking, so the Europeans who imported them from China were mostly royalty, and would use them to commemorate events such as royal birthdays and weddings. It was a rare thing for common folk to even see them, never mind being invited to do so. So, a fireworks display in a public celebration was a political statement as a symbol of democracy and the power of the people.

It made me happy to learn this, as it's always been my favorite part of the holiday.

Yesterday, as I planned to meet some friends in Westchester for a fireworks show at Kensico Dam, once again, the rain threatened. For any of you who live around here, you'll probably sigh, as it's rained here every day for over a month. I actually loaded the car in a deluge, but as we drove south, the skies cleared, and a few minutes after our arrival, this was the sight that met us:

The crowd was far thicker than I had ever seen it before, and one of our friends speculated that it was because a lot of the smaller towns hereabouts have foregone their displays due to budget issues. We grumbled a bit because we had to sit off to the side, and knew the surrounding trees were going to partly obscure our view. But a wonderful potluck picnic dinner, accompanied by a lovely Captain Lawrence wheat beer, made us comfy and mellow in all that crowded din, although we were hard pressed to hear the Westchester Philharmonic over it all.

Soon, the display started, and although we didn't get the full view, it was an impressive show, nonetheless, made more so by the backdrop of the Dam itself, which is impressive and tall, and quite magnified the thunder of the fireworks.

Here are a few shots I managed to get, or the slideshow here. I hope you enjoy them, in the name of democracy, of course!

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

road trip haiku

mountains cry for joy
'neath blankets of rain-soaked earth
as warm sun beams down.

Shakespeare on the Sound

Every year at this time, one of the things I most look forward to is heading out to see one of the wonderful local companies performing Shakespeare at an outdoor venue. By far, my favorite of these is a company that self-descriptively calls itself Shakespeare On The Sound. The company itself is talented and features many professional actors from the New York stage, and the production values, staging, etc., are top notch. The park in which they hold their productions is a spectacular setting, with a gentle slope heading down toward the stage and harbored shore, facing southwest. What this means is that, just as the production starts, the audience often gets a view of the setting sun and twilight, just slightly off stage right. It's a magical place in which to see the works of the Bard. This year, it was to be even more magical, as they were preforming A Midsummer Night's Dream, and they were introducing a new staging feature, a meandering ramp that was built out into the seating area to bring the performances even closer to the audience.

I had been looking forward to it for months, and then as the performance dates came, so did the rain. Before I realized it, it was the last week of the 2-1/2 week performance calendar, and I had to work quickly to galvanize a few friends into heading down there for the only date we all were able to go. So Friday, as the day promised yet more thunderstorms, I was determined that the weather wasn't gong to dampen my determination to see this show. After all, their policy is that, unless it is raining hard at the 7:30 start time, the show will go on. Even though it had rained every day the week before, they had managed to put on four performances out of six. We all had arranged to bring our contributions to a potluck picnic dinner, and the air was warm and pleasant. Around 2 PM, I got a letter from one member of our merry troupe, telling me that it was pouring out where he was, relatively near our venue, so he was probably going to cancel. As I read it, however, I was some 25 miles away and looking at blue skies. So, I popped up my IM and did my best to convince him the the show would go on. I sent out an email to everyone, stating the theater company's rain policy. One of my friends affirmed, that yes, she had been there once as rain broke out, and as most people fled to their cars, the rain suddenly stopped and the show went on, to much applause.

I checked the Weather Channel, and it didn't look quite so promising. The approaching squalls looked pretty self-contained, but it was big, and still extended quite a ways to the west. It was definitely going to hit, and hard. So the question was, would they be over in time for the show to go on? Should I drive all that distance just to get rained out. And if it was rained out, then what would we do?

What ensued became its own little comedy of frantic phone calls and hastily made contingencies, much of which went on while I was in my car, slogging through a torrential thunderstorm, and, although just about everyone was ready to bail, we were unable to find a consensus on an alternative plan. In the meantime, I could see a lightening in the western sky (as opposed to the lightning which as blazing to the east). Dammit, I was certain the show would go on, and that's what I wanted to do!

Alas, I couldn't find anyone else willing to still head there, and I kept imagining how I'd feel sitting there on my lawn chair on the saturated ground, watching the show all by myself. After driving 20+ miles and for 45 minutes in this driving rain, at just about the geographic point of no return, I finally allowed one of my friends to convince me to bring my picnic supper to her house instead, some 20 miles in another direction, into rush hour traffic, toward neither home nor the park. As I did, I felt defeated.

No sooner was I on the highway, heading east into black skies and wild streaks of lightning, I looked into my rear view mirror and could see the edge of the squall. Within minutes, I could see the low-slung sun peeking out in the clearing skies. By the time I got to my friend's house, its reflection off the wet pavement was making driving difficult, and I was looking above at patches of blue. I found myself mentally scrolling through the past and present, lovers and friends, for those who might have been willing to take that chance and meet me in the park, and they were few and far between. Sigh.

morning haiku

gentle morning rain
lullaby for sleeping in,
and then thunder cracks!

Time Between Trains

Around here, many of the towns have free summer concerts, and this past Tuesday, I attended one in nearby Ridgefield, CT, where the wonderful Susan Werner was playing. I had been introduced to her at the same venue last year, and was very glad that the weather cleared up in time for her show. A small gathering of friends, with a potluck picnic and a couple of bottles of wine, created the setting for a beautiful evening.

Some of her songs came from her album of last year, called The Gospel Truth. Not what you'd expect from that title; she calls herself "an evangelical agnostic", and her lyrics include such gems as:

Lord, lead us not into temptation
And deliver us
from those who think they're You.

But the songs that touched me the most are the ones that talk of being single, of the struggle to connect with another, of loneliness.

Her words struck me with a special poignancy that night, as I had run into an old love, one for whom I will always have great affection. He seemed very happy to see me, and it made me long for the connection we once had, although I know that one can never travel the same road twice.

Her trademark song, Time Between Trains, is probably my favorite:

I'm waitin' at the station
I can choose my destination
I'm a free soul, I got no chains
But it's a long time between trains

I took a long nap, I read a whole book
I got nice legs, I got decent looks
And I'm not one who complains
But it's a long time between trains

And who'd have thought it all those years
That I would find myself back here
Feelin' restless and ignored
Starin' at the schedule board
Wonderin' why the fates above
Always route love through Miami

And somewhere lovers smile their smiles
While I count the ceiling tiles
And well give or take a few
There's one thousand fifty-two
But that depends if you include
The eighty-eight out in the hall

Yes I'm waitin' at the station
With my old friend sublimation
You know the Wright boys designed planes...

Must have been a long time, yeah

Must have been a long time

Must have been a long time between trains.

morning haiku

Magic elixir,
Ocean, distilled in a cup,

Heady poet's draught.

For someone special.

Butternut Squash Risotto

I made this dish for a potluck dinner party I attended recently, and it was a great hit, so I thought I'd share it.

Ingredients

3 lb. butternut squash, cut into 3/4" cubes
2 tsp. olive oil
2 tsp sugar*
freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp unsalted butter (can use olive oil instead)
1 medium onion, chopped
1-1/2 cups arborio rice
1/2 cup dry white wine
6 cups low salt chicken or vegetable stock
2 tsp chopped fresh sage
3 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese*

* optional

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Toss squash cubes with oil and sugar, and roast in shallow baking pan for 10 minutes. Toss and roast for 10 more minutes, or until tender. Remove from oven and set aside. (May be done 1 day in advance. Bring to room temperature before adding to rice.)

Bring stock to a simmer and keep at a very low simmer.

Meanwhile, cook onion in butter over moderate heat until softened, about 5 minutes. Add rice and cook, stirring, about 3-4 minutes, until rice becomes opaque. Add wine and cook until it is absorbed.

Stir in 1/2 cup hot stock, and cook at a simmer, stirring frequently until broth is mostly absorbed. Continue simmering and adding stock 1/2 cup at a time, making sure it's is absorbed before adding more, and stirring thoroughly with each addition. Cook until rice is creamy looking but still al-dente, about 20 minutes total. There may be some leftover broth.

When you add the last scoop of stock, stir in the squash pieces, sage, and a generous grind of fresh black pepper. At the end of the cooking, stir in the Parmesan cheese.

Serve immediately garnished with sage sprigs and additional cheese. Pass additional cheese if desired. Makes 8 generous servings.



Enjoy!

My Ever Valentine

Jo. That's what you insisted on being called, not Josephine, or heaven forbid, Josie, not even Mrs. M____ to my friends. But it suited you, short, simple, straightforward.

We never had an easy time of it together, you and I. So headstrong, both of us, yet without the slightest understanding that it was often our similarities, not our differences, that were our biggest obstacles. You were my first Valentine, and all these years later, you still are the first person I associate with that day. Of course, the fact it was your birthday as well made it even more your day. But on your Valentine Birthday, I would unleash my best artistic urges, and when I would get creative and make you pretty things, we seemed to find our good place together.

I still have vivid memories of the pains I would take in constructing the most gorgeous valentines I could conceive of, sometimes far too large to get home in my schoolbag. I remember the one year when you sent me to school with only red construction paper and doilies, and I was so frustrated by my inability to make a perfect heart that I burst into tears. Fortunately, my kind classmates responded with donations of their spare craft hearts, because I could only be happy if it was perfect. Little did I know that you would have loved even the crooked hearts, and that you would see them as perfect, as only a mother's eyes can. And I remember also, many years later, when you showed me a box you kept in a drawer, filled with some of the smaller and more interesting gifts I'd made for you.

As the years passed, and the distance between us grew, both physical and emotional, crafted gifts gave way to store bought cards, but you were still the first person on my card list every year. And then when I lived closer again, and I learned to let go of my ego in dealing with you, I found myself trying once more to give you a perfect gift.

You had no need for frilly doilies then, but your fierce pride kept me from doing the immensely practical things that I would have liked to do for you, like getting you groceries or maybe paying your gas bill. So, then my creativity had to take on new and different aspects. One year, I came across a laundry basket that was red and had heart cutouts, and so I then filled it with edible treats and decorated with bows and ribbons. I held my breath for your reaction, but for once, you accepted something you really needed, and seemed happy about it! So, there we were, having finally grown into a place where we could accept each other and get along reasonably well. But that time for us was to be all too brief, and in 2001, your body finally succumbed to all those years of poor health, just two weeks short of your 67th birthday.

In so many ways, I don't think I really knew you at all until you lay in the hospital on your deathbed. It astonished me how every day, there were friends turning up to see you, even after you had gone far enough that you were unaware of our presence. More than one of them told me that you were the only friend they had. People I had never heard of would exclaim, "Oh, you're Jo's daughter - she always bragged about how beautiful, and what a wonderful daughter you were!" Things that you never said to me. Knowing that you felt that way made all the grief we had put each other through over the years worth it.

Today would have been the day you turned 75, and I'm sure I would have done something wonderful for you, something that would have made you protest and bitch. And you would have secretly loved it.

We honored your wishes and "donated your body to science", and then later scattered your ashes at sea, so today there is no monument, no place of reflection, no site where I could even leave a token of my affection and remembrance. I only have these words.

Happy Birthday, Mom, My Ever Valentine. I miss you, and I will always love you.