I didn't remember until almost ten o'clock. And a quick check outside found us with mostly cloudy skies. With small holes the stars could peek through, passing quickly overhead in our wind.

By eleven we were maybe 40 percent clear, with the mesh of small clouds. Each passing completely overhead in only a minute or two.

But no falling stars.

So, five minutes before midnight, I'm outside again. No coat, no hat, not even boots. The concrete below my stockinged feet as cold as the snow piled in the corners of the lawn.

And as soon as I looked up, there one was. A Geminid meteor, breaking over our naked front trees to die almost immediately above, just north of the Pleiades. Bright, and at least as wide as the Seven Sisters at their narrowest.

Oh, wow.

I stood out there, back arched, for another five minutes, and spotted three more shooting stars. All thin and brief, all dashing downward from east to west. Then I noticed the Pleiades becoming blurred, and all the stars west of Orion disappeared.

More clouds. Large or small, with the wind we have roaring outside, they won't be around long.

The peak of the Geminid shower doesn't come for another hour or two. Haven't decided if I'm going to bundle up, and drive north of town.

Or not.