Day in the Life of an Idiot

 I actually avoided social media yesterday in order NOT to see everyone's fabulous pictures of the solar eclipse. Minnesota--at least where I am--was completely overcast. I would be slightly less bitter about it, if it had rained more. As it was, it only spit from the sky a bit. So, we didn't even get much-needed moisture in exchange.

Alas. It seems to be our luck. 


Image: Minnesota weather cooperating, per usual.

Seriously, the last time there was an eclipse visible here, we also had thick clouds. Though, if I remember correctly, Mason and I did get a chance to see the sun's partly obscured corona briefly, when clouds parted. (Here's my blog from then: https://lydamorehouse.dreamwidth.org/442743.html) Shawn still remembers being mad at us because, though we did bring our glasses we looked at it through the clouds without them.

Not this time.

Shawn even took her eclipse glasses to work with her, just in case....

Boo.

Thanks to Washington Technical's 7:10 am start time, my family regularly gets up at 5:30 am so today, I hopped us all out of bed to see if we could see the lunar eclipse.  I wandered around looking at the stars in the front and back of my house, but, FOR THE LIFE OF ME, I could *NOT* see the moon.  I went inside and asked Shawn, "Where the hell is the moon supposed to even be?"  (For the record, though it would have been the perfect opportunity, she did not blink at me and say, "In the sky.")  She looked on a moon app (because we live in the future and have that) and determined that it was VERY LOW on the horizon in the West.  I convinced everyone to shuffle outside in their PJs and walk down to the end of the block.  Sure enough, there it was in its blood moon glory.

Honestly, it didn't look like much special at its peak.  Mason, however, had never seen a lunar eclipse before, so we stood there a long time admiring it.  I said to him, "That's us.  That's our shadow on the moon."  And, being the kind of nerdy mom I am, I went on to explain how lunar eclipses work and how that REALLY IS the shadow of the earth as it comes between the moon and its source of reflective light, the sun.

Several times cars came down the road and pushed us off onto the sidewalk.  I took every opportunity to loudly (for 5:30 am) to let the drivers know that they should really just stop and take a look at this special event in the sky.

As we drove Mason into school a half hour later, the moon had set so low on the horizon that it turned HUGE and kind of an orange-yellow.  With the earth's half shadow still covering it, Mason and I both remarked that it kind of looked like a giant croissant.  I agreed that if we weren't going to arrive at school only JUST in time, I would have turned the car around and headed for Bread & Chocolate for a moon-inspired croissant.

At school there was a big breakfast thing going on and there were ROTC uniformed guards all over the place. I felt very ESCORTED as they directed us around the parking lot to avoid all the extra early-morning confusion. 

So my morning was fairly dramatic and visually stunning.

And... on my way to the coffee shop I saw a hawk soaring over the highway.

Beauty is everywhere.

Now, I'm at the coffee shop, starting working on a story that I _was_ going submit to a Biblical Horror Anthology, but a friend of mine noticed what I'd failed to, which was that I'd missed the deadline by several months.  But, I'm not sure I care.  The story idea is kind of fun.  It was supposed to be a post-apocalyptic speculative story set in Sodom and/or Gomorra. A storyline and a title hit me instantly.  The title gives you a hint about the other, "Single Righteous Man Seeking Same."

We'll see how it goes.  Now that there's no anthology waiting for it, it's going to have to be sure that it stands outside of its setting, which is going to demand extra work that I probably should have planned to do at any rate.