Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Solar Flare

Last night I walked Lily to Edgewater Drive. At Peter's house I stopped and looked up at the thin pile of snow below his rooftop solar panels. Peter was approaching from the far end with his Shih Tzu. "Wow, your cat is on the roof! She seems confident, like she's done this before. She looks like a hood ornament!" I said.
"Like a jaguar," Peter said. As we chatted the shadows grew. The cat walked to the other end of the peak and resumed her perch in the last square of sun. A few moments later she came down off the roof by climbing onto the porch and jumping. She walked right up to Lily, fearless. Lily lunged and barked as I restrained her.
"Your cat is taller than your dog," I said to Peter, surprised. "I've been meaning to tell you this story. A newly divorced friend of mine told me she had a huge crush on a fireman when she was working downtown. He frequented her office when testing the alarms in her building and they would smile at each other. Anyway, I asked her his name and it turned out to be your brother."
"When was that?" Peter asked.
"About 20 years ago."
"My brother would've been 8," Peter said. I laughed. "It might have been my father. He's 64. He was a fireman too. We're all firemen."
"Okay that makes more sense because she's about my age, but then again maybe it wasn't 20 years ago," I said, laughing.

so·lar flare
sōlər fle(ə)r/
noun, Astronomy
plural noun: solar flares

a brief eruption of intense high-energy radiation from the sun's surface, associated with sunspots and causing electromagnetic disturbances on the earth, as with radio frequency communications and power line transmissions.

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