Nothing to see but something to say

[Ben the Ignorant]

Last night I staid awake between 1:50 and 3:40, hoping to see some Aquarids. My meteor observing routine is watch for 5 or 10 minutes, stop for another 5 or 10 if nothing happens, and of course keep observing if the shower begins. The 5 or 10 minute time depends on how much energy I have and how intense the shower is predicted to be. The very beginning of the time I had alloted myself saw a largish but slow and isolated cloud overhead, the type I also see in typical good october nights: they are big but tight, move at a lazy pace, and leave immense clearings of very dry air.

Not october but the similarity made me sure the atmosphere would clear the same, and at the next time slot, after spending a little time at the computer, I returned to my largest window and saw a blackish city sky with no clouds in sight. Something with unusual pulsating lights instead of the customary blinking beacons made me curious but binoculars showed it as a plane flying in a curve that made its lights look odd. Some run-of-the-mill satellites crossed the sky, nothing to see here, move along. I opened the window to get a feel for the air but it was rather cold so I shut it and thereby reduced my viewing field but there was no meteor to see anyway.

Time slot after time slot elapsed, and not a single meteor, so I finally decided to give in to sleep but at the very last moment - isn't it always at the last moment? - something moved on my neighbor's roof across the street. It was dark and slender, and moved like it was curling on itself swiftly, and then jumping from tile to tile. After slithering on the roof's angle it stopped, and its head seemed to disappear for a moment. Is it shoving its head inside the chimney, I thought? What is it hoping to find there? Will it have the audacity of jumping down?

Are weasels that adventurous? Not this time anyway. After spending a goodly amount of time with its head buried inside the chimney, maybe pondering to enter it to hunt for God knows what, the weasel got its head out, and took a long look around, realizing it had made itself vulnerable, so it needed to assess the presence of enemies. Cats roam the roofs as freely as weasels at night, and attack them by instinct, I've witnessed it at my former home. The more massive and predatory cats dart at weasels with a ferociousness they don't display for other animals, and the underweight weasels wisely run away at full speed.

But no threats this night, just me and my laser, that was of no use since I was alone but I had kept it in my hand, moving it between fingers just to not be completely idle, being completely motionless while we wait seems to be against nature. Hey, what if the beast sees the green dot close to it, will it freeze? Will it run away? Will it do something totally unexpected?

Well, kind of. The weasel ignored it. I moved the beam around it, on its fur, no special reaction to the dazzling dot on the roof, but maybe because it was focusing on the source of the laser, which was obvious: me, a large potential predator in the weasel's primitive brain. Uh, that guy is clearly watching me and doing something strange, Should I worry? Should I flee? After pondering that and remaining motionless during the reflection, like we also do, the furry nighttime little burglar concluded I was too distant to be a threat, and resumed its forray among the tiles. Too bad a cell phone camera is useless in that darkness and from such a distance.

At a junction between two planes of the roof, under an angle covered in zinc foils, the weasel suddenly became shorter and shorter, and finally what remained of it vanished. What? I thought, I'm sure it didn't go away, it just got shorter like a magician's assistant and then disappeared totally! There's no escape route I couldn't see, what has become of it? Did it enter the roof? Then it clicked, yes, there's no other way it could go, and if I wait for a while I'll see it exit the secret tunnel it found, no doubt after a systematic search of all potential hiding places on high roofs. A minute later the dark pointy head of the beast emerged, always nervously looking around, exited the narrow opening with an obvious effort to extract itself of a place that was not meant for its comfort.

Then it resumed its frolicking form roofs to ledges, still ignoring my laser beam. I'm not too surprised by that, I've played with my laser and wandering cats at night; some are afraid of the beam, others just don't bother with it, and that weasel was the cool type. Err, if you don't hurt me I don't fear you. Now I have to ask my neighbor if she ever heard tiny footsteps inside her ceiling. It so happens her landlord has some repairs to do on that ledge, so obstructing the weasel's secret entrance is a must.

There, no meteors, maybe more meteor luck this night, or maybe more unexpected stuff like that. Saw nature in action anyway.

Edited May 8, 2019 by Ben the Ignorant