The fourth of July, continued

Yesterday was... well, I may as well write about it.

Indianapolis has a canal. When I heard "canal" I got mental images of the Manchester Ship Canal, but nothing could be further from the truth. The canal is not made for shipping, as it's all of ten metres wide and five metres deep. It's a tourist attraction, with long sidewalks beside it where people ride their bikes and rollerblade and jog, lots of greenery and flowers, small bridges, pedalboats which you can hire - all very pretty. Yesterday, it was all decked out ready, with flags and tri-coloured banners, and a band playing, and lots of people getting ready for the fireworks. I went with the family and some of their friends at about six in the evening.

I was very pissed off yesterday, not for any reason apart from loss-of-liberty, for as purplerainbow said, there was some cosmic irony in the fact that on America's independence day, I should feel quite so unfree. Talking to Hannah cheered me up in the morning, but by evening, I was pissed off again. However, the atmosphere around the canal was too infectious for even me, and I started enjoying myself, jogging along to keep up with Nupur on her rollerblades, looking at the people and the stalls and displays and everything.

It was then we got the thunderstorm warning.

I ended up watching from beneath a bridge where everyone was sheltering. I have never seen rain like that. The lightning was ripping the sky into two and the canal looked like a tsunami had hit it, and there were kids screaming at the thunder and people putting down umbrellas with metal points for fear of doing Benjamin Franklin imitations. I've never seen anything like it. According to everyone else, this was the first time it had happened on the fourth of July in memory, and they were all moaning at it, but I loved it. Someone had evidently got off the water in a hurry and beached their boat, so I sat in that, watched the storm and was aware that I'd never been in quite so surreal a situation in my life.

When the rain let off, we made our way back, as the fireworks were off. We went back to the house of a family friend, and on the way there, I made a friend. One of Nupur's acquaintances, he's younger than her, half Hindu, half Jewish, so while very Indian in appearance, he rejoices in the first name of Joshua. Nupur has other friends, among them a sixteen year old girl named Chanda whose house we were at, but I hated that girl. In this world of apple pie, I'm supposed to say she was someone for whom I did not care very much, but I'll opt for the more expressive and in my opinion accurate, "bitch."

So it was strange, but I made friends with Joshua. I'd met him before and liked him, but this time, I noticed it more. I'm not saying I liked him like that, but I did wish he was a little older(!) when I was talking to him. We started talking about lots of things, and he was delighted to hear I'd finished Harry Potter, and after a while he asked me which one I liked the best, I told him Prisoner of Azkaban, we got on to talking about werewolves and suchlike, and I started to enjoy myself again. When we got wherever we were going, Nupur lost an earring (twice) so we hunted for it, and even though it was distinctly not his problem, he helped, getting car keys and whatever from the right people so we could search. We didn't find it, but I was very impressed with his willingness to help. After that we tried channel-surfing to see what was on - all there was was this film about... werewolves. We both
started giggling and couldn't stop. Always nice to have a friend to giggle with.

We had fireworks of our own to finish up. They weren't very good, and besides, Chanda-whatshername was lighting them and trying to ignore me, but while we were out there, I saw the last of the storm mingling with the fireworks. Every so often, the low lying clouds would light up, and for a split second, you could see the outline in stark white light as more lightning flashed and thunder crashed. Again, I'd never seen anything like it.

We got home about midnight, and Nupur was exhausted enough to start doing weird things. She talks in her sleep, I know that - a couple of nights ago she scared me half to death by talking about popcorn in the middle of the night - but last night she went one further and started playing the violin in her sleep. I laughed until I fell asleep myself.

On the way home, we saw a rainbow.

Tornado watch; or, Finding Nemo

Well, well. I seem to have brought the good weather with me.

The whole area has been on tornado watch the whole afternoon. There were huge funnel clouds reaching towards the ground, and power cuts and blackouts all over the place from more lightning storms, but the expected tornado itself never came off, much to most people's relief. People in shops were told to huddle to the centre - my aunt said they were in some store where everyone was given cookies to keep them calm. I figured it must have worked, as she was decidedly calm when I saw her again.

Where was I where all this was going on? In the cinema, which apparently had its own generator as there was only a few seconds of blackness before the film continued on its merry way. The film was Finding Nemo, and I really liked it. My only quibbles were the title (finding no-one?) and the fact the film was further support for the fact that no-one in a Disney film ever grows up with two parents. Apart from that, it was just good, beautifully animated, well imagined, sharp and very funny. Like other films, there were a few gags designed to go over the heads of the little kids and straight into the grown ups' ears - "Everyone, think dirty thoughts!"

Of course, we emerged from two hours of sweet Disney goodness to find the world outside under two feet of water. Well, not quite. But yesterday's rain had just about dried up earlier, and I was out on the swing, but I couldn't do that now. Everything is sparkling with water, and more rain is apparently on the way. I don't mind. I like this; it's all cosy inside with the rain outside, and it makes a change from the heat. It only just occurred to me this morning why there are such extremes of temperature here - how far it is from the sea. Thousands of miles, apparently, and I think it might be contributing a sense a claustrophobia to the place. Or I may just be imagining things. We shall see.