Storms arriving

We have had some stormy weekend weather, with an excellent vantage point from the roof... I managed to do some gardening late on Friday on the roof farm while the valiant Frenchman did our grocery shopping after getting back from work. This gave me a window between sorting photos and cooking supper, in which to start tossing out tomato plants - freeing pots for seeds. I gardened till dark, which comes earlier every evening. The huge cumulo nimbus cloud above stayed put over Jersey, dumping rain and flinging lightning on the far side of the harbor. It is a strange feeling to watch weather happen to other people.

On Saturday, warned by weather radar, I was up there again, making sure pots were secure and well wedged against the solid red line of storms rolling east, towards us and the ocean. It started very mildly, bright white clouds in the high sunlight on the other side of the water, until they pulled in, over Governor's Island and between the sun and the city, swallowing the afternoon. The dark clouds above arrived over the roof and things became very formal.

Have you ever watched Close Encounters of the Third Kind? Standing on the roof beneath this roiling and unpredictable ceiling makes you feel exposed and very dispensable as the mass moves impersonally past on its own planetary business.

And speaking of music that gets stuck in your head, cue Richard Strauss' (thank Mr Kubrick for the introduction) for Also Sprach Zarathustra...

It left us alone. 

Perhaps intent on other things.