Okay, it's a shower.

When I was a kid, I always figured a "meteor shower" would have enough meteors that if I looked up in the sky, at any place in the sky, I would see at least five to ten shooting stars at the same time.

As an adult, I learned that a good "shower" has about one falling star a minute.

Another childhood belief destroyed by reality.

But at 03:30 I went back outside, and found our cloud cover thinning, with a few holes.

Saw four shooting stars in seven minutes in just those holes.

Went and woke up the wife.

By the time she came out, and selected the best observing point (I was hiding in the shadow of the Dodge, staying out of the streetlight... she wisely went to the west side of the house, in the back yard), the entire western sky was clear.

Crystal clear.

With brief white flashes coming in from behind us, streaking the western sky.

Some wide and bright.

Went to wake youngest son. He's feeling the flu-bug that's starting to come around, and had spent the day at River Town again (waking at 04:30). I brought the masked heeler back out with me.

Youngest son came out just in time for the brightest, widest falling star of all, straight west beside the Pleides.

Spotted 20 in four minutes.

Two were parallel to each other, one only slightly ahead, about as close to each other as the wake trails off a low-flying aircraft.

Several had tails that lingered for a second or two.

One more big, bright shooting star just over the house as I waited for the masked heeler to finish her business.

Now I need to go upstairs and help warm her bed up (half her butt is still nearly naked, you know).