Meteor Shower

Here is love. Waking from a dead sleep at the sound of your husband's phone alarm at 2:55 a.m., to grope for a bathrobe and your eyeglasses, limp downstairs, and sit in a stiff patio chair engulfed by nippy air for about twenty minutes. What would induce this madness, you ask? (Er, I mean ... What would induce this kind of love?)  The promise of a meteor shower.

Apparently when I agreed to do this, at the saner hour of 10-something p.m., this little adventure sounded reasonable and maybe even a tad romantic. Sitting with people I love (my husband and daughter, who recently studied astronomy) to gaze at the starry night and see objects that have existed more than a hundred years burn to a crisp in our atmosphere and cause a beautiful display. It was bound to be something we'd talk about in perpetuity, right?

Well, for starters, as I sat there squinting at the heavens, I was subjected to squeals of, "Oh! There! Did you see that?" "Look! That was awesome." And "That was a really bright one over there."  I, of course, saw nothing. I gave up sacred sleep for nothing, but then rectified my complaint quickly to say, "except spending time with you fine people, of course." Cough, cough.

I resigned myself to the fact that I would have to get on You Tube at some other decent daylight hour to finally find out what a meteor looked like.

That's when it happened. Was it an airplane? No, it was too inconsistent to be an airplane. The flashing lights came in quick but sporadic succession. A group of meteors were meeting their fate before my very spectacled eyes. They were burning out of their existence in gloried splendor, and I was right there to enjoy it all, as much as a sleep deprived person can enjoy anything, that is.  

In addition to finally seeing meteors I learned all kinds of stuff from a little girl who just studied astronomy and thinks it's cool, and a man who I have long known is a little nerdy but super cute and I love him despite it, and probably because of it.

It was great. But the rest of the party will have to continue at some better, more decent hour, please. This girl needs her beauty sleep.