Happy Birthday to All

It's taken some time to really sink in that, now that Mom has died, I am no longer anchored to the house. Yes, I went to Tampa for the Android developers' Meetup and we're no longer careful about making sure one or the other of us is always home, but it still feels a little . . . weird . . . to be able to just get up and go somewhere.

We had our barbecue early in the afternoon because my brother had to work yesterday evening. Ribs, sweet corn, potato and macaroni salads and cole slaw with apple pie for dessert. The fourth is one of those one-meal days. As the sun dropped behind the palm trees to the west, it occurred to me I could, for the first time, go watch the fireworks in person, up close, as opposed to the TV broadcasts of national celebrations and glimpses of the local shots half-hidden on the horizon in previous years when Mom couldn't travel.

I drove downtown in the dusk through a thin intermittent haze of barbecued meats and parked as close as I could to where the fireworks were to be launched which was about a mile away. Half that distance was due to the sheer number of vehicles taking up every conceivable parking space in the center of town and half because the authorities had blocked off the bridge to Ft. Myers (from which the fireworks were to be launched) and all the approaches and intersections.

People were massing, drawn on foot and bicycle, skateboard and stroller, to the foot of the bride, past tents offering ice cream and pizza, fries and gyros and falafel, shaved ice and bottles of water and mango peach tea. I walked past a bouncy castle and inflatable obstacle course for kids. Aisles of booths offered handyman repairs by veterans, enrollment in GED classes for Spanish speakers, sign-ups for cable TV and pool services, club-store memberships, vacation plans, and more politicians on the make than is probably safe for one's sanity (mostly Republicans since they have a primary coming up soon and are all running against each other right now but I did see one lone Democrat who will face the winner in November) all handing out fans with their names and pictures on them which, considering the heat and humidity, meant people were willing tolerate, if not approve, their presence.

And, oh, the people. Tall and short, skinny and fat, old and young. All the hues from pale pink to dark chocolate and every shade of brown in between, mostly natural but an awful lot thanks to some serious sun time. The woman in the hijab. The guy in the confederate T-shirt. All the folks in variations of flag shirts and shorts and bikinis. The black kid with the impressive dreads. The white kid in what I thought was a blue spiky mohawk threaded with flashing green LEDs but turned out to be a wig. The Germans standing next to me struggling to identify the "Star Spangled Banner" as the band up on the inflatable stage slid from a patriotic medley through military anthems to Johnny Cash. The group of children behind me who, when the show started, exclaimed "Wow!" at every starburst until it became a chant that eventually became a rhythm of its own and slid out of sync with the explosions taking on an unintentionally ironic tone. These are folks who might not run into each other on a day-to-day basis, who might not otherwise associate. all down at the foot of the bridge, together, having fun, sharing the one thing we all have in common: the freedom to be us.

If a country is the people (and that is the premise behind our whole experiment, after all), we are in great shape.

Aftermath

We survived the night intact.

My brother had not put up all the decorations because of the forecast storm which never showed but did sideswipe us with moderate rain for two days before, and minor gusting wind right up until noon of, Hallowe'en. At that point, the clouds broke up, the sun came out, the temperature rose and it was too late to add more balloons. Fortunately, he had not, as he had planned, taken any down. We had one casualty: a ghost set up too far into the drainage swale and subsequently drowned. All the others came through fine although the morning winds pushed over the headless horseman and caused the giant black cat to crouch down as if digging a giant vole from the lawn. They all recovered by mid-afternoon and we were respectably spooky by trick-or-treat time.

(There was indeed an additional new decoration this year. An 8-9 foot tall inflatable gray dragonish gargoyle--or gargoylish dragon--sat comfortably beneath the coconut palm.)

Neighbor Dan across the street went overboard again. Easily three times as many decorations as we had, smoke machines belching from the cauldron and castle, strobe lights--the usual. Also half a dozen cheap pizzas and six cases of Yuengling. Which resulted, after a while, in Neighbor Dan riding his motorcycle around the neighborhood, masked. (His twelve-year-old daughter didn't dress up this year. "I'm going as myself. That's scary enough." Surprisingly self-aware, that girl.)

We set up our candy table in the driveway again (our front door is not visible from the street access) and Mom came out for a while and sat with us while the first, and therefor youngest, kids came looting. Batman seemed to be the most popular this year. They came in both blue and black caped versions and all shapes and sizes including one little guy who was as round as he was tall. Like the wannabe from "Dark Knight" only more so.

Mom, although wearing a sweater, got cold when the sun went down and the temperature dropped to the mid-70s so she and I went in where I had dinner ready. My brother came in a little more than an hour later after running out of candy. We had our usual 100+ kids this year again. (Where do they all come from? You can wander the neighborhood all day and not see one or any indication of their existence. Do they all stay indoors every day?)

We have three Three Musketeers bars and four pieces of Laffy Taffy left. My brother's girlfriend had her usual three trick-or-treaters at her apartment yesterday so he'll go over there and retrieve the rest of the Reese's Cups from her. She doesn't like them. We, however, will inhale them.

Under Alien Skies

As we ease out of Rainy Season we've been getting evening clouds, beautiful billowing cumulus towers that sometimes bring lightning, sometimes rain, but mostly just block the sunset.

Last night the clouds in the west covered the horizon from end to end. However, there was a break in the overcast directly overhead. The lowering sun cast long wavelength light on to the sides of the thunderhead above which reflected some of it straight down to us.

The result was a red light that came in under a dark sky painting the grass brunt orange and the houses deep coral. The trees, everything that poked above the horizon, were silhouetted and other shadows went stark black. I can imagine a half-terraformed Mars, still mostly desert with it's matching sky, looking much like this.