I put a note to myself in my calendar: “Meteors.” I’d read an article in the Times about the Perseid meteors associated with the comet Swift–Tuttle. The paper said that last night was to be the apex of meteor activity. Still set to Beijing time I set the reminder at a time that would have been too late, but it didn’t matter. I remembered, mentioned to my wife and by 9:30PM, after my calls were done and the last light of the day faded off to the west we sat back to watch the show.
The mosquitos thought this was grand, so I went inside and changed into long pants, and long sleeves and socks and doused my open flesh with Off and resumed my position. The western sky kept flashing. We assumed this was lightening off in the remote west, but there were no clouds, and no thunder. Was this after-flash of some activity out in Cleveland for which light could be detected but sound was simply too far? Unfortunately there were clouds above the Gunks or the first section of sky so we couldn’t say much. But it continued and we began to wonder if these might not be meteor flashes.
The clouds above us were supposed to part, and indeed, they did. The first streak of meteor light was implausibly close as though someone just above the horizon had smudged a bright pen point and then flicked the stick off. Far too fast to be a plane, brighter for a moment than any star, it was our initial point of wonder. Now we had something we could insist the girls must see and they reluctantly suited up in their hoodies and came to join us. We sat there in chairs, staring at the heavens waiting and waiting though it wasn’t fireworks display with tens of thousands of meteors which the paper had described, it was precious to catch each of the fleeting flame outs. Tonight is supposed to be “partly cloudy” and I suspect that we’ll be out there again once all is dark.
There is a video out there of the late-great Bill Hicks as a teenager performing a bit at a comedy club about the unpardonable crime of “flinching.” Faced with onrushing, immediate danger, I would most certainly flinch. This morning around seven I was on a call, watching the squirrels and the catbirds peck out the seed from the lawn where I’d tossed it no long ago. In the middle was a groundhog, who was chewing on grass. The fox then suddenly made her appearance. Everyone scattered, and the fox saw one squirrel quickly dive into the hedge she doubled back and ran right into the groundhog who looked up and . . . did not flinch. The fox, who is larger and longer and more agile, rather adjusted her course and trotted around elsewhere, looking for prey. After a few minutes, she trotted off, back into the woods. Something unspoken, but absolute made clear to the hungry fox that this meaty rodent, would not be possible to make into a meal.
I’ve written before about the groundhog chasing the fox off of the lawn. Presumably to make sure she didn’t go after his children. But this time, he simply ignored her. If he had flinched and ran, would the fox have given chase? I couldn’t say. At what point, at what weight, does a growing groundhog know that it has nothing to fear from a fox? How hungry does a fox need to be, before she will attack against her better judgement?
Wednesday 08/14/20
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