Nasty thunderstorms in the area affected the MARC, causing systemwide track signal outages on both Camden and Penn lines, along with fallen trees and at least one freight derailment. All that added up to a 3 hour commute home from Washington today, on a Camden Line train which limped along the darkened rails at scarcely 15 mph.

Right now, something very strange is happening outside: large clumps of something resembling laundry soap bubbles are flying through the air outside my window, filling the sky over Little Italy and settling on roads and cars. I thought at first that it was an overflow of froth from an open washing machine in the neighborhood, but these bubbles don’t seem to be popping too easily; they roll along the street like tumbleweed and fly through the air like plastic bags in the breeze. Plus, it would take more than a dozen running washing machines to produce this quantity of hardy bubbles. The rain of amorphous translucent masses seriously convinced me, at least for a moment, that an alien invasion was in progress. Perhaps the driving rains of this afternoon caused a vat of something to bubble over in the nearby industrial district.

Lots more to blog about, but not right now. Tired, sleepy.