The bringer of jollity?

I kept dozing off on the couch after a mildy muggy but occupied day. I dragged myself up, removed my shoes, and thought glumly of the obstacles between my bed and me.

Then I remembered.  Jupiter is in opposition tonight, the closest to the earth it's been since 1963.  A lot of people still alive then; a lot of people not yet born.

I put my shoes back on and headed for the roof.

 

Not what I saw

Jupiter was unmistakeable, and not just because it was a moonless night. Shining like a brilliant star, it hung in the east. 

I closed one eye, and it disappeared. (I'm scheduled for eye surgery in a month.)  Through my good eye, I fancied I could see a tiny pinprick of brilliant light near Jupiter's left shoulder. A distant star? One of Jupiter's moons? Probably my imagination. 

 Back down to our suite, where the Resident Fan Boy now couldn't resist going up to look for himself. 

It will be a little more than a century until Jupiter comes this close again.

I hope someone will be here to see it.

The belt of the hunter

Sometimes, I find myself making my way home on the black streets, with Orion glowing on the eastern horizon.

Being newly back from Ottawa, and in Victoria for the winter for the first time in several years, I'm noticing how dark the streets are. Victorian streets often have a grassy verge, whereas Ottawans walk close to the edge. Getting splashed by passing cars is slightly less likely in Victoria, but there's also a greater distance from the street lights, which fail to brighten the sidewalk much. Also, I'm realizing how much light reflected off the snow in the winter nights of Hades. Pedestrian accidents are common in Victoria, where they try to cross the shadowy streets, shadows themselves.

I'm also startled by how deserted the Victorian sidewalks are, after darkness has fallen. My home street in Hades was not a particularly busy street, other than in the morning and after-school rushes, but I'd walk out at night, even in the bitter cold, and pass several other pedestrians on my journey. Our home street here is a major artery with plenty of cars, but few people out, even reasonably early in the evening.

I'd forgotten this, possibly because I was the mother of young children when I left Victoria, and so rarely abroad after dinner.

Walking home on a dark, dark sidewalk, I can see Orion very well, far better than I ever did in Ottawa. I blink back at him with a light I've attached to my zipper, like the cyclists and joggers around me, so the cars can see what they're hitting.

Sidewalk smarts

I made a quick trip down to the mailbox to mail what I hope are the last of this season's Christmas cards. (Fat hope. Invariably something comes in during the twelve days of Christmas which makes me moan "Oh damn!" in that charitable holiday style I have and hastily fill out another card and envelope.)

Within seconds, I'm slowing down and picking my way over and, where possible, around stretches of black and white ice, marvelling at my fellow pedestrians striding by, some on phones, some absorbed in texting. I only see one of them slip, but it doesn't seem to be an edifying experience.

I manage my errand and the Resident Fan Boy helps me force Yaktrax over the soles of my sneakers for the long trek up the hill to the library. I may not have street smarts, but I have sidewalk smarts and trembling on the brink of my thirteenth winter in this godforsaken city, I know there will wide, solid, slippery streams frozen in mid-flow from the driveways intersecting the pavement. Yaktrax may not save me there (Ice on a slant? Are you mad?); I'll walk around that, thank-you, but it will help me stand a chance -- literally -- on those treacherous stretches in front of condo-buildings where the inhabitants resolutely expect the city to clear and salt for them. I learned this the hard way but then, I got all my sidewalk smarts the hard way.

It's a bit nerve-wracking making my way up a hill that is just short of a kilometre in the icy dark, juggling a bag of library books, a bag of poop, and the jittery Accent Snob who isn't that fond of walks in ideal daylight weather. I spend the uphill trek crankily snapping at the dog as he attempts to convince me to go back by frequent stops to look longingly over his shoulder, and the downhill trek compensating for the inexorable pull of gravity and the slightly more exorable pull of the Accent Snob who recognizes that I've finally come to my senses and turned homeward. I compensate by walking like Groucho Marx, knees bent, slouching gait, the whole effect helped, I'm sure, by the cigar-sized flashlight I'm holding out to make out ice patches in the dim glow of the posh Rockcliffe Park street lights. Also the moist gleam of my philtrum, resulting from my runny nose.

There are beautiful Christmas lights on the way, but it's difficult to appreciate them under these circumstances. A winter storm is on its way and the trees are beginning to moan ominously. I just pray it is actually a winter storm. If it's more bloody freezing rain, I just may be more in favour of the end of the world which is supposedly occurring at about 6 am our time.

See you later. Maybe.