Stepped outside of work and happened to breathe in. It was so fresh I nearly fell over. Like dying on a bed of wet moss.

Friday afternoon and 6:00, with still three hours of light to go, at least, & hey I'm a bachelor and whatnot, I went up Blackford Hill, site of the observatory of the University of Edinburgh. The road up is a nice steep road with houses along both side—with nice little yards that are being landscaped, or terraformed, or something—yards like Capitol Hill in Seattle, rather than yards like the Mission, San Francisco, which is more the tune of most Edinburgh "gardens"* I know.

Turned up near the top of Blackford Hill and what did I see but a big copper-roofed observatory with its own nice yard (think Coit Tower for the style of this yard). There's a bunch of offices there, and maybe this is where you sit if you're a grad student in Astronomy? If so, not bad. It's fresh and open and regal & stuff.

Took a grand tour of the premises. Walked along a little road and terrain kept surfacing, just over the next rise. Big mounds of rock, as big as a corporate headquarters. Yellow insistent flowers admonishing me in big dilligent stands. A woman walked three big black dogs. Two fought while one sat aside, licking its paw; then it ran to catch up. A little radio tower installed itself in the hillside like something from Tintin or G. I. Joe. I didn't want to go inside the radio tower so I routed around the high side of it, taking a little dirt path and across some grass and rabbit droppings. Then I got to the top of the hill.

And I laughed. Out loud. Laid out are Arthur's Seat and Edinburgh Castle, perched up there like plants on your grandmother's windowsill. The sea in the distance. The copper roof of the observatory raising its eyebrows at you on the right. A city in stone at your feet; gardens ("real"* gardens, with plants; vegetables). And over on the left, the sun was doing that thing where it pokes its fingers through the clouds and you get those awesome shafts of light, like a Romantic landscape painter was making the whole thing up. But it happens; it actually does, you know it does.

Then I set my bike wheels on the rough pavement in front of the observatory and observed my way down the hill at high speed, pedalled home increasing my cardiovascular health. Sauteed some vegetables and et 'em up, throwing in half a poblano pepper (and what the hell you only live once—let's break out the feta, dated Dec 17, 2005). That's all, man. That's all. But then I might go see Odetta at the Triptych Festival. You never can tell, man, you never can tell.

Eternity has its demands, indeed, Zag, indeed.

* Those are American quotes.