Somewhere Over the Rainbow

or in that vicinity...

Man, what a long day at work today.  Thinking that I would be taking off early to have coffee with my former boss/still current friend, Joe, I went into the office about two hours early.  I'm not an early morning kind of person in the first place but this morning was particularly drizzly and dreary.  

Then along 17th St, I noticed a rainbow flag.  Not all that unusual in this part of town (Dupont Circle).  Half a block later on the other side of the street, a restaurant had tied six huge streamers - red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple - from one point on the grill of a second story window, and then fanned them out downwards to the outer patio railing.  The result was a fantastic triangular canopy under which the diners would be able to sit.  Contrasting with the grey sky, it was even more breathtaking.  That's when it occurred to me that it's Pride Week in DC.

A partly rainy/partly sunny morning is the kind of time one would expect to see rainbows, and I saw a lot of them.

It turns out that Joe's flight was canceled, which meant traveling headaches for him and no coffee with Joe for me.  Instead, it wasn't until dusk that I left the office.  The evening walk back along 17th was very different from the morning.  For one thing, evening light is very different from morning light.  For another, many more shops and homes had put up their Pride decorations.   Rainbows burst from many a window, flagpole and railing.  Passing by the same restaurant, I realized that what I had seen this morning was an unfinished product.  Colored streamers of six hues now wove in and out of the patio railing to form a rainbow fence.  Gone was the delicate canopy, lost in the addition of more streamers and lights.  Instead of nature's rainbow, I was now thinking Disneyland.  But otoh, with the twinkly Christmas lights, it was a festive place to dine.  Certainly, the patrons seemed happy.

About a block later, I realized that other lights were twinkling as well.  Tonight, I spotted my first fireflies of the season.  Several of them, flashing bright in the growing darkness.**  No matter how many more years I live, I will never cease to be amazed by fireflies.

**Ironically, the fireflies reminded me even more of Disneyland.  Growing up in California, I did not see my first real firefly until well into adulthood, which is why I'll never take them for granted.  The only inkling I had of what a firefly was like was from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney.  The first time I saw a real one (and almost every time since), my first reaction was that nature reminded me of artifice.  Yes, I know it's perverse.