Skywatch Friday: Stormclouds Gathering

The news has been full of storm stories, including rather stunning videos of the tornado that touched down in nearby Rice, Texas on Sunday. This week's Skywatch photos are of that same storm, but it only grazed us. As it approached, I shot both north and south/southeast, turning 180 degrees alternately: blue skies and white clouds on one side, gathering greyness on the other.

On Saturday, as I waited for the Beloved Spouse to return from east Texas with the tennis team, the tornado sirens went off here, but despite the wind, rain, and chaos, nothing much happened. By the time he got home that night, we'd suffered no more than the usual scattered pecan branches. The next afternoon I decided that the impending drama deserved documentation, and these are the results.

The shot that opens the post shows a slightly different view, toward the southwest. The rest show the contrast between what was going on to the north and south.

As the storm moved up, the sky gradually became darker, but since the sun was shining in other directions, the contrast is more apparent in some of the photos:

To the north, the front line gradually became apparent, but even when it passed through, a small patch of blue was still visible (at the bottom left of the image).

I've resurrected my project to photograph each named full moon for a year, only because I've managed to capture the last two: the Harvest moon on the equinox last month, and the full Hunter's moon last Friday night. This, of course, was the night that the Texas Rangers captured the American League Championship title and headed to the World Series for the first time in the club's history. Buzz from folks who attended the game mentioned the spectacle of fireworks over the stadium lit as much by the full moon as by the park lights. I've shot many a moon over Ranger's Ballpark, so it seemed a fitting astronomical tribute to an historic event. Here's my usual lame effort from the front porch.

The rest of the week didn't go as well. It became apparent on Sunday night that our cat Koko, who's been suffering from lymphoma for several years, was ready to meet his maker. The poor cat looked like a skinned monkey, although he was once so round and fuzzy and black that we named him after Koko the gorilla. He was so thin we could see the blood vessels in his legs when he sat in the sun. He was a pretty valiant cat, and had endured all manner of indignities over the length of his illness.

Our vets do a very sweet thing for clients when a pet is euthanized. They cast its paw print in a little clay heart and present it to the family when they come by to pick up the little cedar box containing the pet's ashes. Unfortunately, the last two years have not been good to our cats, so we now have a collection of four clay hearts--and an entire shelf of a closet devoted to pet urns. One day I'll figure out an appropriate memorial for the back yard and deposit all the remains together.

Koko's demise has produced mixed reactions. I'm glad he's not suffering (we were never sure whether he was in pain, but he certainly seemed to experience embarrassment when he couldn't make it to the cat box), and feel somewhat guilty about the relief that brings. For the past four years we've been caring for and cleaning up after a cat who's never complained and who remained cheerful throughout. Constant medication and litter-box issues have meant no holidays, so his death brings freedom from the burden (and the expense) of maintenance and the ability to take the pups on a camping trip or a family visit. We're down to one easy-to-care-for cat and the two dogs, which is probably an appropriate number of pets for a couple of geezers.

Last night's first game of the World Series didn't help our moods much, with the Rangers' being trounced by the Giants. Here's hoping things go better tonight. Have a happy Skywatch Friday, all, and a pleasant weekend.

Skywatch Friday: The Boys of the Solstice

Thanks to my daughter's great connections, we spent the evening of the first full day of summer back at the Ballpark in Arlington, at another interleague game: Rangers vs. Pirates.

Now, since the Beloved Spouse is a Pirates fan, this was just recompense for my having whooped it up as the Cubs beat the Rangers last month. Alas for him, however, the Rangers came from behind to win--and the shot above captures the fireworks (with a waxing Gibbous moon peeking over) after Josh Hamilton hit the third home run of the evening for Texas. After the fireworks had finished, I got a slightly better shot of the moon (albeit a bit blurry).


Our seats were situated directly behind the left field foul pole, which offered an interesting perspective, but we chose a lousy day to watch a game: 102 degrees F, and the sun blasted us in our faces for the first hour or so of the game. But the tickets were free, the beer decent (St. Arnold's this time--although there was Guinness for sale in the pub nearby), and the company well worth keeping.

Since I'm finally on holiday for a couple of weeks, I'll get back to bitching about oil spills tomorrow--but for now, I wanted to wish folks a happy Skywatch Friday, and a terrific weekend.

Skywatch Friday: Sunday Afternoon at the Ballpark

As anybody who reads this blog may already know, I am an unrepentant baseball fan. Absurdly enough, I'm a Cubs fan living in a town whose only team is not only not the Cubs, but is not even a National League club. In fact, my favorite American League team is the Angels, because they're the ones I used to skip seventh period PE in high school to go watch play in Anaheim.

But baseball lovers are an odd lot; we're so devoted to the game, that when we can't be with the one we love, we often love the one we're with. So it is with me and the Texas Rangers. Except when the Cubs are in town for inter-league play.

This is the second time I've been able to see the Cubs play in Arlington. I probably only went to three or four games the whole time I was living in Chicago, a block and a half from Wrigley (20 years ago), so two games in recent years isn't a bad average. What's great about watching the Cubs in the Ballpark (Texas has managed not to sell naming rights to the field, so it's just "Rangers' Ballpark") is that it's inevitably populated with almost equal numbers of Cubs and Rangers fans.

The best job in the world: being on the ground crew at a baseball park.

So when we went to a Sunday afternoon game a couple of weeks ago, with great seats close to the visitors' dugout, we were surrounded by fellow Cubbies fans who energetically announced that we'd "root, root, root for the Cub-bies" in the seventh-inning stretch. The beloved spouse wasn't all that impressed, being as he is a Pittsburgh fan and rooting for the Rangers, but I loved it. Talk of Chicago pizza and Wrigley and such just warmed my little cockles right up.

Marlon Bird, former Ranger, signing autographs before the game.

Not that they needed any warming. It was 90 something degrees, and the only way I kept from being fried was by wearing a big straw hat and a long-sleeved shirt. Not to mention occasional clouds to relieve us from the sun that beat down on us for the entire game (see the opening shot).

For me the afternoon provided balm for the troubled soul. Baseball, because it's its own universe, offers a kind of momentary utopia--a no-place suspended in time where one can enjoy the precision, excitement, and even the goof-ups that happen on the field. The rest of the world doesn't matter, at least for as long as the game lasts. Technically, it could last forever, but I'll take what I can get. For nine innings I forgot about oil spills and climate change and the decline of education in America.

And the Cubs won.

Happy Skywatch Friday, folks. Thanks to the SWF team for their work, and enjoy the weekend.

Skywatch Friday: North Texas Summer Evenings

After posting nothing but cranky stuff for a couple of weeks, I thought I'd celebrate Labor Day weekend and our wedding anniversary (Thursday, the 3rd) with some of the skies Beloved Spouse and I have enjoyed over the last month.

The opening image is one of those lucky shots that can happen when you're not looking for anything. It was taken August 1st at the Ballpark in Arlington; my father would have loved the schmaltz.

A front was moving along I30 while we were on our way to the game, so we weren't sure what to expect. The clouds turned out to be somewhat distracting, though, as the weather moved through and provided some interesting colors and formations when the sun began to set.

Back home, a few days later, we enjoyed more cloud layering and another sunset.

I know that most Friday Skywatchers are suckers for color, but I really like the subtleties of the layers.

Happy Skywatch Friday, folks! Thanks for making it so much fun to look up.

Skywatch Friday: Game Distractions

Of the over two hundred shots we took of June 17th's Rangers interleague game against the Dodgers, several are of the sky.

We had great seats, ten rows up in the section just behind home plate. I was so close to the "special people" boxes that I even sneaked a couple of pictures of Nolan Ryan (got a great shot of his bald spot, which out of respect for one of the game's greatest pitchers, I will not share with you).

But I kept getting distracted by what was above the game (which the Rangers actually won), and here are the results. The opening image is of a bank of lights in center field, which I kept trying to frame so that I got the league flags in the picture as well. They were a little limp at the moment but the wind picked up shortly thereafter.

I'm too lazy to look up the score, but there were home runs, and these two shots show the fireworks and their aftermath against that blue, blue sky:


During a lull in the game I played around with the camera by looking up and leaning backwards, toward the nosebleed section behind us. I got both vertical and horizontal versions of the cirrus clouds that offered the only interruption in the field of blue, blue, blue--which translated later in the week to hot, hot hot. The high today will be 103 F. Summer has indeed arrived.

Happy Fiftieth Skywatch Friday, People. Hope it's cooler where you are!

Skywatch Friday: Ballpark Nights

I seem to take lots of photos of the sky at odd times, but this particular shot represents a prelude to a significant evening.

On June 20th, 2007, in one of baseball's more poetic moments, Sammy Sosa (former Chicago Cub, playing in a Ranger's uniform) hit his 600th home run against his former team.

Now, I'm one of those unfortunate folks (a Cubs fan) who lives in a state and a town in which their favorite team does not play. Not only that, but this particular town has an American League home team, and I'm a National League fan (for the most part; I grew up an Angels fan, and still wear Rally Monkeys to Angels games against the Rangers). So this was a special night in more ways than one. Anticipation ran high, and I took about a billion pictures, starting with the two included here, of the pretty crescent moon at sunset, and of right field with the sky behind the Home Run Porch, just as things got going.

Later that evening, Sammy, whether aided by prohibited chemical enhancements or not, hit the big 600, and the crowd went nuts--including me. In my excitement I got a shot of him at bat, and then another of him running the bases, but was jumping up and down too hard to shoot the actual hit. Most of the pictures I took were of the Jumbotron replaying actual event, and of his teammates jumping all over him.

But who cares. It happened, and I got sky pictures. So, since I will undoubtedly be in no shape to submit a photo next Friday (if I'm lucky; see my post on Monday, April 6 for that story), this one honors the beginning of another season.

If anybody wonders why this post is here, on the Farm, may I remind you of the late George Carlin's very funny routine comparing baseball and football. Baseball is, after all, about getting home:

In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! - I hope I'll be safe at home!

To my beloved Cubbies: Maybe this year!

Baseball and Melancholy

One thing about Cubs fans is that we never really do expect to win. I mean, we can have a great season, with a terrific record, and go on to blow it in the division playoffs, even if we've beaten the opposing team several times during the regular season. Or we get a little further into things and some fan catches the wrong ball and it's all over.

This year would have been a great one for winning the World Series, though: the hundredth anniversary of the last time the Cubs became the champs.

But perhaps not winning is what helps makes Cubs fans who they are, as if a certain post-season sadness were part of our character. After all, we've still got Wrigley Field, and the ivy, and one of the best in-park experiences in baseball. As traditional baseball parks drop off the map, to be replaced by bigger and "better" ones with sky boxes for rich folk, Wrigley remains staunchly American. Everyman's ballpark. You can still mark the seasons by the condition of the ivy on the brick wall.

I miss that ivy. Some of it (from a cutting) grew on a wall behind our flat on Seminary, only a block and a half from the Field. Among my fondest Chicago memories is puttering around in my garden while a game was going on, listening to the announcements and the cheering (or groaning) crowd, and Harry Caray leading the fans in "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the seventh inning stretch. But that ivy really is a phenological marker. In the spring, at the beginning of the season, the outfield wall looks really scraggly, before it leafs out. And at the end of the season (which has been, more often than not, the end of the season at Wrigley), the barest hint of color starts to tinge the edges of the leaves. After everybody's gone home for the year, the ivy looks like the photo at the beginning of this post.

Perhaps the reason why baseball is the only sport I truly love is that it's laced with metaphor, and tied to place. In a World Series without a favorite team, I'll inevitably root for whichever team I've seen play, in a place where I've lived--southern California, Philadelphia, Chicago. Even Texas, if it ever comes to that. For me it's not a real summer without at least one game, and I've learned to live with the Rangers, just as I've more or less learned to live on the prairie. This year we went to the last Sunday home game, against the Angels, who beat the home team soundly. We sat just a few rows behind the visiting dugout, and I even managed to get some decent photos with my iPhone.

When George Carlin died, last June, in the middle of baseball season, the first clip I got online to watch was his hilarious take on the differences between football and baseball. Long after I forget which seven words we can't say on TV, I'll remember this bit.



And now summer has come and gone, and the Cubs are out of contention, and so are the Angels (one of my childhood favorite teams; I graduated from high school near Anaheim), and along with the equinox and yesterday's cold front, fall is making itself official. I won't be as interested as I thought I'd be in the outcome of the World Series this year. But as the playoffs wind down and the contenders are resolved, I'll get into the spirit despite the fact that I really don't care who wins. It's the game that's important, after all, and getting home, safe. And, of course, there's always next year.

Photos: Boston Ivy (Parthenocissus tricuspidata), the species that grows at Wrigley, by John Delano; Cubs Win by L. B. Jacob, both from Wikimedia Commons. Angels fans celebrating a couple of runs on September 22, at the Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Texas.