2023, Family, Mysteries, Nature, space

The Eclipse

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Of course there were clouds here on Saturday when the partial eclipse was gracing the late morning sky. 

I got my fascination for astronomy from my dad.  He loved following the space program and I remember when the Hubble started sending images back to Earth; he was enraptured. He sliced several photos out of Scientific American and kept them in a file in his living room drawer.

When I traveled to see the 2017 eclipse, I thought a lot about my dad.  Of course, as much as he would have enjoyed the eclipse, I don’t think he would have enjoyed how I experienced it (cheap motel the night before, five hours waiting in a parking lot with other folks, huge traffic issues getting home).  But it was fun to imagine sharing the observation with him, even when the clouds and rain meant there were only a few clear views that day.

For last weekend’s annular eclipse (when the moon is the farthest from Earth and you get a bright ring effect), we got only a partial eclipse here in the Twin Cities.  Since I’m making a trek to Indianapolis next spring for that eclipse, I decided to stay home for this one and enjoy the partial.  When the time came, I got my eclipse glasses and headed out onto the back stoop, which turned out to be a great vantage point.  YA followed me out, laughing at how dorky I looked.  She’s right; unless you’ve invested heavily, you’re stuck with rectangular cardboard frame glasses that resemble the cheap 3-D glasses you get at the movies. But then her curiosity got the better of her and soon she was standing out on the stoop with me, using another of my pairs of glasses (I have several).  The clouds were moving in quickly but at the apogee of the eclipse, we did get several good views, a few seconds each. 

A little later, she shared some websites she had been looking at which showed the eclipse from various locations in the west and southwest, where they could see the whole shebang.  She’d been watching for over an hour!  She says she doesn’t want to go with me to Indianapolis next year but I feel like at least for the day, I passed along a bit of my father’s interest in the heavens!

What’s the dorkiest thing you’ve ever worn?

35 thoughts on “The Eclipse”

        2. One of the fun things at the state fair is to look at the various band outfits in the parade each day. There are lots of schools that are still doing spats and big furry hats and epaulets, but there are also bands that are going in the other direction with spandex, t-shirts, khaki shorts and tennis shoes.

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  3. Would probably have to be the costume for the “Varieties” skit I was in sophomore year of college… It was based on Alice in Wonderland and I was one of the playing cards being yelled at by the Queen – so costume was included a cardboard rectangle on front…

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  4. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    Band shirts, as noted yesterday? Public Radio swag (i.e. tote bags)? The expensive sneakers my feet require, WITH the orthotics, to treat bursitis in my heel and plantar fasciitis? The eye shades that follow an ophthalmology exam? Every day as I age I look more and more dorky. However, I am alive, at least for today.

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    1. According to YA, you are in very good company. She thinks I hit the dork mark pretty much every day. I’m picking her up from the airport in a couple of hours and I am sure she will have something to say about my bright red sweatpants and my tie-dye shirt.

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  6. Star Trek uniform—original movieverse circa Voyage Home. First with Vulcan ears, then when I figured out what a pain spirit gum is, Trill spots (applied with a rubberstamp).

    —Crow Girl

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    1. Hopefully someday you can share a photo of the Trill spots. I don’t know a whole lot about the Trill, but does every individual have unique Trill spots — kind of like zebras?

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      1. It’s been ages since I saw Deep Space Nine, but I believe they are individual. I don’t think I have any photos from those days, but I should hunt around, when I have some time.

        —Crow Girl

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  8. The waitress uniform I wore at Country Kitchen for my part-time job in high school was really dorky. There was an orange and white checked peasant dress with elastic around the sleeves, waist, and neck. Over this went a heavy, brown, vinyl apron. We had to wear hair nets, panty hose and brown support shoes. It was uncomfortable and embarrassing.

    Our little uniforms for student nurses were uncomfortable and embarrassing too. They were hot, polyester, pin-striped, blue and white dresses with a white apron over the top. We only had one each, and we were required to wear it daily when doing clinicals. We had homework to do every night and I had a job working 3 – 9 PM. I had to hand wash my uniform after work and hang it up to dry. We also wore white panty hose or support hose and white shoes. We also had to wear the stiff, white cap. It was pinned to my head. They were very strict about hair too. It had to be tightly up in a bun and pinned so it wouldn’t come out. The bun had to be under the cap. The cap had a student nursing pin on the side. We were all really uncomfortable for a year wearing all of that. I don’t think I ever wore that cap again. I still have it somewhere, smashed in the bottom of a box.

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    1. I wonder if we ever crossed paths in that Country Kitchen (I worked there in 1977). I didn’t like that uniform either, but it was better than the one that I got when I moved from Country Kitchen to the Ole Piper Inn. That was a one piece top with snaps at the bottom and a thick brown vinyl skirt that pretty much stuck out in all the wrong places.

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  10. There is/ was a fashion trend for men recently of wearing blue suits with very tapered legs and brown pointy dress shoes. I thought that looks real dorky.

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  11. It’s one thing to be compelled to wear a dorky uniform. Those aren’t fashion choices, dorky though they may be.

    What’s really dorky are those fashion choices nobody made you commit. I remember, for example, in my young adult years I had a pair of rainbow suspenders I wore with jeans.

    And when I taught myself to sew, the first thing I made was a pair of bib overalls—in green corduroy. I looked like an oversize toddler. I can only remember wearing them once.

    In my youth I went through a period where I favored shirts with French cuffs—the ones that require cufflinks. I’m sure everyone was impressed.

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  12. A lot of my wardrobe from the early 70s (college years) was pretty dorky – an awful lot of polyester. I am embarrassed now to remember a polyester bright yellow pantsuit that must have made me look like a banana! And how I loved the white go-go boots that I wore with mini skirts. Now I mostly just dress for comfort and certainly not to impress anyone.

    My student nurse uniform was a light blue and white dress – I think the skirt was striped and there was no apron. We had to wear white pantyhose /support hose and white nursing shoes but thankfully NO cap.

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