A languid late-summer evening...

...and stepping out to let the cat in, I look up. The Summer Triangle is at its glorious zenith. Straight up. Can't get any straighter upper. At least to us in the absolute midlatitudes. (I mean, here in Stumptown we're almost exactly midway between the equator and the North Pole.)

Everything, all day, has been excruciatingly vivid and clear. When the humidity drops around here, you can really, really tell. As in feeling like I could discern the very needles in the doug firs across the river in Forest Park. On a typical, moisture-laden late-summer day, the snow-free shoulders of Mt. Hood blend into the blue sky. But not today—everything stood out, starkly, as if I were wearing polarizing shades.

And with darkness came Vega and Deneb and Altair—three high summer stars that are bright even with Swan Island's blazing dock lights, a half-mile away below the bluff, washing out my sky. The Summer Triangle, an asterism of stars in three separate constellations, each with a story. As luscious as the rising moon has been during the last several evenings, it's nice to stand under a dark sky now.

And much of this points somehow to Jessi's' pregnancy. My youngest is with child. Due April. Rich with newborn twins, rich with a man-child due to Christina in November, and now here to Jessi, within arm's reach. Wow.