Crouching Axolotl, Humping Rats

Once again I have been seeing unofficial constellations. Most of them are beasts. Wherever I look in the night sky, they pop out at me. The odd thing is that I still can't find the bear that everybody else sees. I've also never been able to find Capricorn, which is my astrological sign. Someday I'll get one of those charts that tells where everything is. If Capricorn, or some part of it, turns out to be part of the Humping Rats, then I will claim that as my sign.

Hey, Dude. What's your sign?

Oh, I'm a Humping Rat.

They're all made up, anyway. Whoever came up with the signs in the first place could just as easily seen entirely different constellations. I do it all the time. Maybe it's a goat trait.

This night feels slightly less cold than have recent nights. Either that, or I'm getting used to it, (as a result of keeping this room unheated most of the night, for Sluggo's sake.) I think we're due for a warmer spell. There was no Indian Summer to speak of this year. It's getting rather late in the season for it to appear now, but then the weather has been odd all year, so it wouldn't be a big surprise to have a balmy day or two. I always enjoy those little breaks in the natural routine. A warm spell in December is like a nice rainstorm in July or August.

I think I'll try summoning a warm day by using a summery icon. Then I'm going to try to get to sleep early. I'm pretending that something interesting is going happen this afternoon.

Too much starch in my diet.

(no subject)

Early this morning, the clouds which cling to the mountains this time of year like fluffy meringue topping were flushed by the still-hidden sun to a translucent red of delightfully lurid shade. December's sunrises are frequently more colorful than its sunsets. As much as I dislike trying to get to sleep after light has come into the sky, I am often tempted by the early premonitions of dawn to remain awake to see the full bloom of morning. Today, I managed to resist, in part because I sensed that the particular color already on display could not possibly be bettered. Thus, I got to sleep before any birds began their songs. Of whether or not that red glow effected my dreams, I have no memory. I woke what seemed a mere moment later, though a full nine hours of oblivion had passed. I've quit pretending that anything of interest is going to happen in what remains of the afternoon.

There has, however, been an abundance of sunlight, so I went out to absorb a full dose of it during its final hour. Though the air has remained cool, the day was sufficiently mild and bright to coax partly open the small purple flowers of the sourgrass. They closed again as I stood watching the varied fractal forms of cirrus clouds drift eastward. A few dozen of those tiny flying insects who like to gather above the bush near the porch were out, too. In their vertical dance, rising higher, then lower, individuals falling off to one side or the other, vanishing into the bush, then returning, the whole group endlessly bouncing and circling in some intricate series of patterns, they remind me of a bubbling fountain. Silhouetted against the evening sky, they give the appearance of being somehow compelled to trace the design of something that isn't there, and I briefly fancy them to be a cult of insects who worship water and attempt to invoke it through a modeling ritual. But they are like the clouds, and the trees, and my own eye perceiving them, manifestations of some mathematical formula working itself out to an unseen end, or maybe no end at all.

I look at the window now, and gray dusk has fallen, and the set sun has brought no color but a faint golden glow to the western sky. The birds have ceased to chirp, and the stream sent running down the road verge by a lawn sprinkler up the block shines with the reflected last light of the sky. Dimly, I see the insect fountain still bubbling above the bush.