High summer

The last week has seen some full-on summer temperatures in the Greater Baltimore Area: on Tuesday, in fact, the city broke a local record when the mercury rose to 105 degrees. That means, in turn, that Cleo's getting to know her neighborhood pool rather intimately -but is also becoming acquainted with some of the other special pleasures of summer. She's now also floated on the Chesapeake, on the 4th of July, and tried her first ice cream, on a spoon held by her uncle (cherry vanilla, for the record, which evinced a thoughtful scowl and, rather suprisingly, little else). And, although she didn't quite realize it, as she snoozed in the back of the car, she's also moved slowly, on an I-95 bridge, through a remarkable galaxy of firework shows: on the way home from Annapolis on the night of the 4th, we saw at least a dozen series of starbursts, in various corners of the vast city sky: Baltimore's fireworks, and Glen Burnie's - and was that Pigtown, in yellow and red?

Maybe the most memorable part of that last episode, though, was the train of cars momentarily parked on the side of the interstate, simply paused to take in the show. A scene of sheer, sudden appreciation that vaguely resembled descriptions of the scene in London, on April 21, 1749, when Handel's music for royal fireworks was rehearsed. According to one report, "So great a resort occasioned such a stoppage on London Bridge, that no carriage could pass for three hours. The footmen were so numerous as to obstruct the passage, so that a scuffle ensued, in which some gentlemen were wounded."

We didn't see, happily, any wounded. But the bangs of bursting shells continued to report in the darkened sky even as we lay Cleo down to bed in her crib, on getting home. And the next night, they gave their place back to the fireflies that crowd into our river valley.