Under the Sturgeon Moon
I take a break from wrestling with the RSS feed code, and go out to see the moon. There is a small middle school about a block from our house and there is a large field next to it. The light levels are fairly low, most of the street lights are far enough away that the light pollution is acceptable out in the field. I'm out there with my camera, trying to set it up on my tiny little tripod to get a decent picture of the full moon, when I hear this buzzing sound behind me. It's some guy on a scooter going cross-country over the field.
Now I'm wearing dark clothes, lying down in the grass with a camera: what do you do you think he's going to think? He may not even see me, but I'm not really sure I want to take that chance. I prairie dog up enough that I'm a shape on the landscape and say, "Hey."
Long pause and then a "hey" back.
"How's it going?" I ask, trying to be nonchalant.
He must hear "what" instead of "how" because he comes back with: "Taking a leak. You?"
"Taking pictures of the moon," I say. Pause. "This is just one of those two guys meeting in a field sort of things," I say.
"Sure," he says.
A little while later, he finishes up his business and buzzes away. I'm still lying in the grass, trying to figure out what's the point of using a 3X zoom on an object that is nearly 250,000 miles away.
I left my lens cap out there somewhere, and the pictures turned out like you'd expect. But at least I did my bit for the neighborhood watch, spooking someone stopping for a quick public pee while on his way home, and he's got a full moon story he can tell buddies now.
Listening to: Sigur Ros "Untitled Track #3" () [2002]