Cyclones

On Friday night I had the opportunity to go to a Brooklyn Cyclones game at Coney Island with a friend and her family. She lives in Park Slope, and I foolishly suggested we meet by Prospect Park and ride the train to the stadium together, because it's only about a mile from my house to the park, and I would have plenty of time to take a nice summertime stroll before the game. Ha. I did not factor in the reality of what they call "summer" in New York, which roughly translates to "as hot and foul-smelling as the armpit of a Russian body builder." A side effect of said heat is that it destroys a normally-reasonable person's ability to be reasonable. The thought did pass through my mind, as I stepped out of my apartment into the wall of hot air, "maybe I should take a cab?" But by the time I had mustered the brain power to comprehend what it would require to act on this thought (i.e., stand by street and raise arm), I was already halfway there and had sweat through my clothes and it wouldn't have done any good anyway.

I have never been so happy to get on a train at rush hour. We were all a pretty sorry sight, we couldn't really talk to each other until Flatbush, when the train had cleared out enough for us to see each other and our sweat had dried into a nice thin film of salt. Summer is salty.

The game, however, was nearly perfect. There was a nice breeze coming off the ocean, our seats were in the shade, we got free hats, and aside from the bizarrely frequent advertising, the game was exactly as entertaining as we wanted it to be. And a bonus for all Cyclones games is that there are fireworks at the end. I wonder if they do this even when the Cyclones lose?

The smoke from the fireworks lingered longer than usual, a side effect of the heavy air and heat. This is my favorite part of fireworks shows, the petrified spidery smoke remnants, floating slowly away from the bursts of light like the residue of shock.