These Black Sponges Will

 

This is the rainy season.  I thought the rainy season was April, which this year continued on with a furry into the “May- flowers” section of spring.  It’s mid-July and the rain forest vibe continues.  The heat and humidity build up thicker and weightier during the day.  Sometime late afternoon too much water has gathered in the heavens and it’s obvious that these black sponges will need to need to squeeze their contents back down on to the earth.  A flash in the distance.  Then a rumble.  Another flash, that feels closer and is then confirmed much louder with crack, seconds later.  One, two, five, and then seventeen hundred drops. 

 

I beat the rain today during an early afternoon ride north towards Rosendale, as the sponge clouds were still drawing water.  I stopped randomly a few hundred yards from where Old Huguenot Street cross the trail, near Garvin’s and walked about obligatorily looking for some new species or other to identify.  I found a tree which Seek called a “Rock Elm” which can be found here but is more common to the west.  Not much else beyond that and a few photos of someone’s red house and later my bicycle in the distance. 

Monday night and dinner was mine.  We hadn’t wound up having a pizza night on Friday, so I felt OK plucking out the store-bought pizza dough from the bottom of the vedge tray in the fridge.  I’ve used this enough to know that it’s really the right amount of dough for two calzones.  If you try to make one large one there will be lots of extra dough that cooks out thick, flavorless, needlessly.  I made the one with chorizo sausage and the other with onions and mushrooms, both with ricotta and mozzarella. The pesto sauce I had in mind though had gone bad so tomato sauce would have to do. 

During dinner one of my daughters got on to the signs of the zodiac and with our curiosity piqued we encouraged her to read off one and then another person’s characteristics.  Reasonably well written we were all quickly finding certain traits that were remarkably on-point, glossing over whatever it was that didn’t seem appropriate, piling on my wife we all yelled out “that’s you!” which she emphatically denied.  And when we were done we could start all over comparing our traits to the characteristics of our animal years in the Chinese calendar.

 

 

 

Monday, 07/12/21