Eclipse
On August 21, 2017 Colorado and the world experienced a total eclipse. It was pretty cool.
Ads filled my Facebook feed in the days and weeks before the eclipse. People looking to get, buy or trade for NASA approved sunglasses to view the eclipse. People made pinhole devices to safely view the eclipse and its 92.8 percent totality. In the hours before, people traveled to Wyoming and Nebraska to get a better view of the event that spanned about an hour and a half. Hours later traffic jams would take as long to resolve as an earthly rotation around the sun.
Colorado mobilized the Department of Emergency Services in case of any problems related to the sun’s partial blockage. I don’t know what they expected but pretty much the sun just disappeared behind the moon for a bit.
Articles filled the internet on ‘strange’ phenomenon that occur during an eclipse. Scholars wrote articles about how ancient people viewed the event as if they’d popped by their graves and had a chat about it. Either it will be a good day filled with good things or an evil day where Trump ends the world.
Animals were expected to behave oddly. Skeeter and Petticoat and the two foster kittens Pepper and Fancy did just that. Petticoat came in just before the event started and ate then began to yowl to go back outside. Not the usual, ‘hey, bitch, let me outta here’ but a yowl I’ve not heard before. The foster kittens also yowled to be let out of their room and the swarmed all over me looking for comfort.
Skeeter yowled as well, killed a couple of mice and felt better. But she was outside with me when I wanted to take pictures of the totality light. She fretted, meowed and begged for a pet.
I noticed the shadows from the tree near the deck and it was a better way to see the eclipse than looking through glasses. Fans and feather shadows increased in sharpness as the eclipse moved through until the shadow finally returned to normal. Just another day.
Without the flat surface of the deck I wouldn’t have seen the shadows and I’m glad I paid attention to the light.
After it was all done, the cats assumed the nap position to sleep off their worry of the day.
I hear there’s another total eclipse coming in 2024.
I’ll be 66 years old.