Evening Shapes and a Special Star.

This evening I saw a salamander, a bottlenose dolphin, a slug, and an ocean-going liner, all etched in shining silver and holding station in the north western sky just after the sun went down.

When I was a little boy, I had some curtains in my bedroom with flowers on them. From the bed, however, the flowers looked like elephants. I would occasionally go over to check that they really were flowers, which they undoubtedly were, but when I got back into bed, they always turned into elephants again.

I find it almost awe-inspiring that Venus can outshine a late sunset sky, while the stars in the darker eastern sky are still not visible.