Diverse Voices And Blazing Visitors

    

Tucson Weather Today

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I finally got around to watching the movie Once Upon A Time In Mexico.

Didn't like it.

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For the last couple of nights, as Eva enjoyed her final 8 P.M. nightly run around the pool deck before retiring to her sleeping pillow for the night, she cooperatively joined the barking brotherhood of dogs for a mile or so around that were loudly protesting the chorus of yelps and howls from an assembled pack of yowling coyotes performing out in the scrubland.

Just a part of the simple life out here in the relative wilds of Southern Arizona.

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Yesterday I read that space rock enthusiasts across the Northern Hemisphere should get a pretty good show from the Geminid meteor shower Friday night, the shower being at its best overnight from Friday, December 13 into early Saturday, December 14. So last night I put on my jacket and cap and took Eva outside a little after darkness fell.

If I'm Lucky I Might See Something Like This

The meteor shower’s prime viewing time is supposed to run from 13:00 UT December 13 to 10:00 UT December 14 with its peak to come at some time around 2:00 UT (7 P.M. Tuscon Time) with meteors falling at a rate of 1 to 2 per minute.

At around 7 P.M. Tucson Time Eva and I went out and I looked up into the night sky but saw nothing, nothing but a lot of stars and about a three-quarter bright white moon that washed out the Southern view. Then we went out again and again every fifteen minutes or so but saw no movement up there.

None at all.

But Eva was in her glory, trotting around the pool in the semi-darkness and pausing each time she neared the North gate to gather in all the night sounds and smells from out there in the scrubland.

It was after eight o'clock that I saw my first meteor. And it was a good one. High in the Northern sky it seemed to just appear all at once, to just leap into existence and burn brightly as it streaked from East to West across the blackness above. The strangest thing about it though was that in mid-streak it seemed to ease apart and become three separate meteors burning and traveling side-by-side. Too soon, of course, it just disappeared... winked out, burned up in the Earth's dense atmosphere.

We lingered out there for some twenty more minutes but it was too cold for an extended stay, then went back inside where it was warm. Eva conked out and went to sleep for the night. I sat and watched some TV for a while, occasionally looking out the window into the starry sky.

Eventually I went to bed, read a few pages from The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy on my kindle for a few minutes, then gave in to a deep sleep.

I woke up at four A.M. and decided to stay up and write this and get it ready for uploading. Right now -- right this moment -- at 4:29, I am contemplating the wisdom of fixing a cup of instant Folgers and then bundling up for another trip outdoors.

. . .

I did it; good coffee; no sightings.

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Did You Know . . .?

The names of all continents both start and end with the same letter.

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day in 2012, a 20-year-old man shot and killed his mother at their Newtown, Connecticut, home then drove to nearby Sandy Hook Elementary School, where he killed 20 first graders and six school employees before turning a gun on himself. The Sandy Hook tragedy was the second-deadliest mass-shooting in the United States, following the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech, in which a gunman killed 32 students and teachers before committing suicide.

The community of Newtown, which has some 27,000 residents and is located about 45 miles southwest of Connecticut’s capital, Hartford, eventually decided to tear down Sandy Hook Elementary School. It was razed in the fall of 2013; a new school will be built on the same site.

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WORD FOR TODAY

reconcile
verb
1. to compose or settle (a quarrel, dispute, etc.).
2. to bring into agreement or harmony; make compatible or consistent.
3. to cause (a person) to accept or be resigned to something not desired.
4. to restore (an excommunicate or penitent) to communion in a church.
5. to cause to become friendly or peaceable again: to reconcile hostile persons.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS

Anna Marie "Patty" Duke
(born December 14, 1946)

Patty Duke is an American actress of stage, film, and television. First becoming famous as a child star, winning an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at age 16, and later starring in her eponymous sitcom The Patty Duke Show for three years, she progressed to more mature roles upon playing Neely O'Hara in the 1967 film Valley of the Dolls. She was later elected president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1985 to 1988.

Morey Amsterdam
(December 14, 1908 – October 28, 1996)

Morey Amsterdam was an American television actor and comedian, best known for the role of Buddy Sorrell on CBS's The Dick Van Dyke Show from 1961 to 1966.

Lee Ann Remick
(Dec 14, 1935 – July 2, 1991)

Lee Remick was an American film and television actress. Among her best-known films are Anatomy of a Murder (1959), Days of Wine and Roses (1962), and The Omen (1976).

Ginger Lynn
(born December 14, 1962)

Ginger Lynn is an American pornographic model, prominent in 1980s videos. She also had occasional roles in low-budget B-movies. AVN has ranked her at #7 in a list of the 50 greatest porn stars of all time.

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Previously known for its six syllables of sweetness and light, reconciliation has become the political fighting word of the year.
--William Safire

This Is Who I Am