Evenings Darken Earlier But Roses Still Glowing

All of a sudden it seems like the evenings are darker earlier! As I walk home there have been some spectacular sunsets but my cell phone camera doesn't take sky shots very well. So all I could do was to capture the last of the sun's glow on my roses in the garden. Even though it's 90 degrees this evening, winter is approaching very quietly and stealthily if you just take note of the little signs. Birds practicing formation flights, trees beginning to tinge orange, some bees dead from the sudden cold snap the other day, neighbors taking air conditioner boxes out of their windows, people talking about Halloween and Christmas, wondering when the clocks fall back an hour or when they will stop street cleaning so we don't have to move our parked cars. What other signs are there? .

Dead Chickens Hanging in the Window

Yes, there's at least half a dozen dead chickens hanging not so neatly in the window of the noodle restaurant on 6th street in Chinatown, DC. They hang there cooked, ready to be eaten by the customers who dare enter down the little steps into this den of delights. So far, I've only been able to watch the cook make noodles by watching him through the window they've set up for passersby to see what's going on. For some reason, it's enough for me to be entertained by this, and it hasn't drawn me in to eat there. We usually go to the slightly more upscale restaurant a few doors down where I can be sure they make really good martinis with the vodka I like. But one day, I'll be there with some risk-taker who will go in with me and, by God, we'll order Kung Pao chicken made with one of them dead birds hanging in the winder.

Fountains are Cool

My neighbor has a fountain in his front yard and I've been thinking about adding one too. Some little splashy thing, perhaps one that birds can also bathe in. The fountains pictured here are up on Capitol Hill and are a delight to walk past in the morning, if my job compels me to go to the Hill in the morning. One fountain is slightly hidden on a plaza between the Senate buildings and the Korean war monument.  I was up there again recently and saw the other more famous fountain with those very nude Neptune and Nymphs boldly splashing in front of the old Library of Congress building. When I got home, the temperature had dropped even more from the 80s into the 70s and it just was so much cooler and more comfortable. There was even a good breeze as well so I watered my plants and the tree in the street and hosed off the birdie doo and flower pollen from the car and generally had a good time squirting water about, pretending to be a water goddess. Thank God for living in a watery zone!

Watching the Gardening Flower

On Sunday mornings I usually have an hour or so to relax since we usually go to Church at 5 p.m. and this morning was no different. I sipped my coffee and watched my garden grow from the front porch and it was just a delight. The new rose bush has the brightest crimson flowers, the pink crepe myrtle is about to peak with its frothy fronds, the roses of Sharon are blazing away, the little red gold marigolds are starting up and even a few day lilies are still hanging about. An interesting smoky dark blue bird, slightly larger than a sparrow, hopped along the neighbor's fence with something wriggly in his beak, catching my eye due to his (her?) lovely color. There was an amazing breeze that swept into the tree across the street making the leaves rustle and rattle and making me think of rivers and trees. Feeling energized, I watered every plant that called out to me, "Me thirsty!" and then transplanted a few seedlings into bigger spaces so they could grow better, taking care to make sure I didn't rip my back out again. But it was glorious and sunny and stayed that way all day even when I went inside and cooked Sunday dinner.

Rear Window View during a Tea Break

A look out of the three windows from my downtown office is all about reflections. Real reflections, not my rambling thoughts, that is. I'm on a corner and look into a courtyard at the backs and sides of half a dozen buildings. Since reflective glass is now the norm every window stares back at me with a picture of yet another building or roof or satellite dish or antenna or air conditioning unit or balcony or brick wall or light fixture or flags or some kind of building equipment. In some cases it's a reflection of someone working on the roof of the building I'm in; he's walking about talking on his cell phone, arm akimbo, possibly concerned about the air conditioning unit he's standing beside. Occasionally some birds nose-dive through the space and are reflected multiple times, tripling their number. Of course, I can look upward and see a beautiful June blue sky with puffy white and grey clouds scudding westward. I get to see them twice too, as they are also reflected in all the upper story windows on the buildings around the courtyard. It's a mistake to think that a rear window has no views. And I haven't even started to try and think about this from a theological perspective.

Sounds & Sights of the City at Solstice

You'd think things would have quieted down about 8:30 pm on this summer solstice eve but I just sat down on the porch and listened to a loud assortment of sounds. This is the front porch on this glorious evening in the city. Firstly, there's the dull roar of the NORAD planes up there in the sky over Washington DC doing some drills. Now a helicopter makes its blade-noisy way over to the nearest hospital. A motorcycle just roared by, slowed down by the Fedex truck groaning along looking for the right house. A bunch of birds are tweeting somewhere and a bunch of others are making coo coo noises while a few seem to be cawing and squeaking conversations about the street's residents. They're probably sated from the large assortment of bugs flitting about annoying us humans. Then there's two batches of cicadas grinding and clattering away in chorus at either end of the street. It's always hard to tell which tree they are in or where they are located but they usually all stop at the same time. Quite mysterious. Somewhere in the distance a siren goes off, perhaps it's police or an ambulance and one wonders momentarily what the disaster is, and then, martini in hand, I just forget about it as I'm distracted by some fireflies lighting up the myrtle. And with every breeze -- and there's more than a few -- wind chimes on people's porches are jingling and dingling in the erratic breezes sending soft tinkles out. Closer to where I'm sitting on the porch is the roar of my electric fan -- set up to blow away any flies or mosquitoes that dare trespass in my personal space. Some neighbors have someone banging on their door and the dogs are barking, not recognizing it's the owner's sister visiting. Every once in a while a car does it double toot as the driver locks it up automatically and double clicks the key. A porch door slams tinnily as someone goes out to work the night shift. I can even hear the noise of the TV as someone else watches the World Cup game tonight. Earlier, there were some little girls giggling on their way from the car to their house with their dad telling me how pleased he was that they made it through the first day of summer camp. Thank God for giggling little girls.

Keeping City WIndows Open

One of the nice things about having the windows and doors open, as a result of our foregoing air conditioning the whole house, is that you hear the neighborhood. For instance, there are a surprising number of tweetie and singing birds, even though we are essentially in a busy city neighborhood. This is because the city finally trapped all the feral cats that were decimating the birds so I think the bird population is up a bit beyond the pigeons and sparrows. Also the rat population was nicely assassinated by the city and I think that helped though I'm not sure rats eat birds (?). We did spy a very tiny little humming bird sized tweetie on a neighbor's tree at dinner tonight when we ate on the porch. Earlier in the spring every morning there were cardinals flashing about the front garden and I swore there was a blue jay or two hiding in the privet hedge. We also hear the children play, cars going by with rap or gospel or talk radio or pop music. And we hear snatches of conversations from passersby or people talking to themselves (on their cell phones, most likely). In fact, sometimes our conversations drift out the window and someone will join in. Hubster in the kitchen was calling out to me in the living room about how cute the home grown tomato was and a neighbor outside heard him and she called from her back yard saying "ooh that tomato is so cute;" very funny! Sometimes of course there are some dratted dogs in the neighborhood that set up a barking cacaphony but heck, with the windows open, you can just yell "SHUDDUP" real loud a few times and it seems to work. What an interesting world God has given us~