9:04 p.m. Echo Park. A dog barking in the canyon, no make that three, no make that five. One is barking rapidly, staccato, another, who is closer, just a languid two or three eruptions per ten seconds. My daughter, in bed, is whistling through her nose as she sleeps (the song of one of the 4000+ strains of rhinovirus probably). In her fist is the ribbon to a Trader Joe's balloon; the balloon makes no discernible noise as it drops closer and closer to the bed. Meanwhile, over us all like a sound umbrella is the muted boom, boom, boom of the fireworks at Dodger stadium. They started at 9:03, and now that it's 9:08, they're done. The Dodgers said four minutes, and that's what it was. Now I hear the neighbors calling to their dogs to quiet. The air is no longer splitting apart. The neighbors are talking to one another. "They're done," Tina (I think) says. A motor is revving on the street. Now I hear the downhill sound of wheels. Now I hear my own breath as things have gotten quiet. Seven or fifteen minutes from now I can definitively say I didn't hear the sound of sirens. Another car, uphill this time. Funny, how cars sound so different, depending on which way they're going.