Know why I don't post over at the Quick and Dirty anymore?  It's because of how the CGI (not mine; I have no access to it or its settings) is set up to read extra space characters.  I am accustomed to putting two spaces after a period, and sentences look right to me when you do that, even if the norm is becoming one space.  If you try to put two spaces in a row on the Quick and Dirty, you get a space and a plus symbol.  It is very irritating trying to read an entry with plus symbols in it, and it's a huge hassle going back to the HTML and taking them all out.  But the sentences just look freaky with only one space after the period, so I just don't fool with it anymore.  Which is why it's listed over there as a previous journal.
    A friend in [dw] showed me Diaryland.com, which I will explore.  If it's as easy and more accommodating, I may start up a new quick and dirty over there.  We'll see.
    
    Rebar gave my children $20 some time ago to spend as they saw fit, but it wasn't until last night they decided.  They wanted a Movie Night.  So, off we went to see Snow Day.  It was a fairly fun movie; my kids claimed to have liked it, despite their having been goofing around in the theater for almost the entire last half of it.  Fortunately, there were only two other viewers with us, and they were way back in the back, so I don't think we disturbed anyone.
    Coming out of the theater, I noticed with extreme pleasure that the night was warm, a nice clear and starry 68°F, so I asked my yunguns if they'd like to camp out.  They enthused.
    So, when we got home, I dug their tent out of a high cabinet and my waterproof sleeping bag cover out of a low closet, and bundled up blankets and pillows into the cover.  We hauled all these down to the overlook, the hilltop before which lay the entire main runway, as well as the forest and farm below, and far horizons dotted red with radio tower lights.  The sky was busy with planes in their patterns to and from the Newark and JFK airports.  Clouds were shredding themselves across the navy sky, and the corral at the horse farm was stunningly lit with stadium-like lights, casting everything else in our immediate vicinity into blackness by the contrast.
    I got the tent up and put their blankets and pillows in, and they settled into them in a giggly fashion.  They giggled more watching my shadow on their tent wall as I stuffed my folded blanket into the waterproof bag and lay it down, wriggling myself  in.  I made shadow puppets of birds in flight and at rest, and then told them to go to sleep, which they did ere long.
    I could not sleep right away.  The fresh breath of the breeze was intimate and sweet, and the sounds of small life singing was moving.  Far, far above, the planes droned their low chords, and less than a mile away, the small highway swished with the trucks and cars upon it, unseen behind the trees and airport buildings.
    The very bright lights from the horse farm were turned off, and as my eyes adjusted, so much light seemed to fall on the hill, that I imagined I could easily read.  The lights from the runway and buildings were being glanced off the gathering clouds and back down to us.
    On the service road below, a car sped towards the north end, then abruptly turned right, as though to enter the taxiway.  Then it stopped and backed up fast, its tires squealing.  Then it lurched forward again with another squeal, and then back.  It swung around southward again and took off.  It stopped and backed up rapidly yet again.  This car did this forward and back thing many times before finally driving away down the road south out of view.  I have no idea what that was all about.
    A helicopter came low from the direction of Newark and flew over the runway to the hangar I knew it belonged to, though I couldn't see that hangar from the hill.  Five minutes later, it or another just like it came back and headed off toward Newark again.  I see these often, and think they are government copters.
    Two vehicles left my landlord's house behind us, and took two different paths down the hill, one turning onto the service road, and one down the farm road.  Both disappeared.
    Just as I was beginning to doze, droplets of mist began to strike my face.  It was refreshing, but I worried whether this was going to shape up into rain or not, and whether we should get indoors.  I remembered the tent was supposed to be fine in the rain, but I doubted my sleeping bag cover.
    The mist did turn into serious rain, but being warm and comfortable, and figuring that the children were also, I rolled the sleeping bag cover over onto its side, so that the gap in the seam where you enter the bag would be on the side and easier to keep closed, the top flap hanging over the bottom one to shed the water rather than funnel it in.  The cover was plenty long enough to accommodate my whole body and pillow, and still have room at the head to stick my shoes, cap, and keys.  My celphone, being so precious and electronic, I snuggled close to my side, along with Tuffy.  So, through the blanket and cover, I could feel the rain pelting my body, but it felt nice, and I soon went back to sleep.  I was warm and dry all through the rainfall, and slept well, though waking when it was finished and all the stars revealed themselves in the now cloudless sky.  With a happy smile, I slept again.
    A couple of hours later, I woke to a deepening chill taking my arms and legs, no matter how I curled.  It wasn't painful, but Moomie called out to me from the tent that he was freezing cold.
    "Do you want to go inside?"
    "No."  He immediately fell asleep again.  Well, I was going to be miserable soon, and they would probably be miserable sooner, so I inched my bag over to the mouth of the tent, then thrust my torso up through it and in between my children.  Only the top half of me would fit in the tiny tent, and I rearranged their covers and mine so that we all used all of them, and snuggled together close, and it became very pleasantly warm indeed.  Well, except for my exiled feet.
    They awoke at 5:30 am, asking if they would be late for school.  Hahaha!  Oh, no, I told them, not for hours.  They watched the eastern sky gather up a big pool of red for the oncoming sunrise, and when they left the tent, they were delighted to find deer in the field below, fleeing for the woodline.  I told them we were up so early that we could go to the store and get bacon if we wanted, and have time to cook it.  Woohoo!
 

the Hangar...flight and soda

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