Thoughts While Looking Up

Well, I'd love to report that the Leonid meteors last night were amazing, but they weren't. I got up at 2 AM and went up to the roof. The sky was generally clear, but there were some cirrus clouds that were doing a pretty good job of reflecting the city's lights skyward.

We're replacing the cornice of our building, and there is a bunch of construction stuff on the roof, along with some stone slabs that look kind of like gravestones. I knew they had something to do with the roof business, but wasn't sure what they were.

In any event, one of them made a good place to lay down and look up at the sky. 

While I was lying there, thinking about the stars falling over Brooklyn, it got me thinking about how Stars Fell Over Alabama, which I mentioned yesterday, was based on the 1833 Leonid storm, and the illustration I included, was a depiction of that event.

Looking at that picture, you see there are no black people portrayed; though I would think Alabama was full of blacks back then - and I presume they would have all been slaves.

After giving myself a few minutes to acclimate my eyes to the dark, I watched and in  five minutes or so, only saw 2 meteors, though one was very bright, and lasted for about an inch-worth of arc of sky, if you held your arm out at full-length. The other meteor was much fainter, and followed right after. I love the silence with which it happens, though since it didn't seem to be much of a show, I headed back downstairs to bed.

Tonight, at our co-op board meeting, I learned those slabs are called copestones. Dictionary.com says they are the "top stone of a building or other structure".

Tonight's meeting - a 2.5 hour affair, definitely had a varied agenda. Lots of debate, not about the big items in our budget, which truth be told, we don't have much discretion over, but in the small stuff, e.g.,  holiday decorations for the lobby. Should we spend what we usually do, or should we set some kind of example, even though, it won't make or break us? In the end, we came up with a good compromise, and by that, I mean no-one was completely happy - but everyone felt they had their say.

One crisis I've been tasked with dealing with is one our ginkgo trees in the front of our building has apparently decided to change its sex - from male to female; or at least one branch of it has done so. The problem stems (that's a tree pun, people) from the fact that it is the female ginkgoes that produce those very stinky fruits in the fall. I know around the corner from us, there's a tree that drops a lot of them; and while I know the nuts inside are valued by for Chinese cooking and traditional medicine, (I see an old Chinese couple collecting them every autumn), I would basically describe the smell when they fall, as 'vomit-y'.

There was talk of cutting the branch off, or even replacing the tree, which is about 25 years old. I don't like the smell more than anybody else, but I'm opposed to cutting off the branch - if the branch wants to be female, let it. Besides, what if we cut this one off, and another branch changes? So, I'm to contact the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and see what can be "done", whatever that means. Find some way to persuade the branch to change its gender, perhaps? I kid you not, and have mixed feelings about that, too. I'm pretty much a "free to be you and me" kind of guy.

Speaking of compromise and sexual orientation, my props go to the Mormon church in Salt Lake City, which supported a law banning discrimination against gays in housing and employment.

The LDS church was of course, a major leader in overturning gay marriage in California, and they have serious, serious clout in Utah. But they did the right thing here, and politics at its best, is finding out where people can agree.

Comments

[PBK]

Thanks for the kind words. I 'm glad you liked the post.

[Vintage Jewelry]

Nice post! It is very romantic to come and to watch the falling meteors and stars at the night:) I remember when I was young, My father took me to the field, near our farm and we lay on our backs and watched all the night on the meteors and speaking. It was amazing and unforgettable!