Blogger 365 Day 225 - The heavens can't wait

     This almost feels like a continuation of the last blog, if only because what precipitated it is the very same thing that precipitated the last blog.  After I finished the last entry I set about starting my dinner.  I had picked up a few things at work, kielbasa, sausage, sauerkraut and pierogis and my plan was to just throw them all in the crock pot and walk away.  Which I did and and a couple of hours later I had the veritable Polish feast.  My belly was happy and full and I was thinking I would just have a relaxing evening the rest of the night.

     That wasn't how things turned out however.  As I am sitting here doing something either on my iPad or on my computer (I tend to bounce back and forth as the evening progresses) and snacking on the Polish goodness I had created  the power went out again.  So I stumbled about the apartment for a minute or five, trying to locate a candle and some matches so I might have a little bit of light to get by.  It took a while, in part because it was dark, but also because this is my apartment we are talking about here, if something is put away then it is obviously out of place.

     Locating the needed items I decided I would throw on some clothes and step outside to see if it was raining or what the reason may be that once again Oakland was being relegated to Third World status.  I even made a hashtag of it on Facebook, #ThirdWorldOakland, which will never trend by the way, so don't look for it.  I step outside and ........ nothing.  No rain, no thunder, a little bit of lightning way off in the distance but nothing even remotely nearby.  In fact the skies above me were clear.  Not only that, but with a least an entire city block without power (I didn't investigate just how far the outtage went) I could see more of the night sky, and it was supposed to be the last good night for viewing the Perseid meteor shower.  So I just perched myself out in the driveway and waited.

     Again the eyes were playing some tricks on me, where you try so hard to see something that you almost imagine things are there, even if they aren't.  And while my apartment and the surrounding buildings were dark, there was still more than enough ambient light from the rest of the city that seeing the lighter shooting stars with thinner tails was tough, and that seemed to be all I was seeing (or imagining). 

    I was probably outside for a good 15 minutes or so before I saw my first really bright one, with a longish tail, going in a westerly direction toward downtown Pittsburgh.  A couple of minutes later there was another one, then another after that.  The power ended up staying out for 30-40 minutes and during that time I probably saw a 15 or so shooting stars, at least 6 of which were bright with longish streaking tails.  It was amazing, and had the power stayed on chances are I never would have ventured out so I guess it all worked in the long run.