Friday began with my seeing about 30 meteors of the Perseid meteor shower between 1:15am and 3:15am. Near the end the day, after 7:30pm, I was able to see two rainbows, one of them rather vivid and arching across from the isthmus to the south side. The other was just a faint leg above the other.
This past week, I had been looking forward to watching meteors, but the lighting around where I live is very bright. So I walked to the edge of a golf course near me where trees blocked some of the light. Maybe I could have seen more if I had not taken a short nap near midnight, but the best thing would have been to drive outside of the city.
I was lucky to see the rainbows from the Union Terrace as I took a short break from being a volunteer for the 25th anniversary show of Whad'Ya Know, which played at the Union Theater from 8 to 10pm. At the time I felt a little down, so the rainbows and a group of toddlers jumping up and down at the sight while shouting "Two rainbows! Two rainbows!" cheered me up. Because rain had poured much of the day, few people were on the Terrace as the rain ended. Some of them were excited to take pictures with their digital cameras, but I had brought just my stereo camera with me to take pictures of the stage. When I develop the film, I hope that I'll have a good enough photo of the rainbows to post on here.
As I walked home, though, I reminded myself that it's best for people to create their own rainbows in their lives, to see them in people and everyday experiences, and not just wait for the few lucky times that real ones appear.
