Eclipse experience of 2024

 Notes from April 8 Eclipse Day

Walked over the parking lot, then the wood slatted deckway with my cart of laundry. Said hi to John, the paraplegic diabetic who has a little long haired dachshund named John Wayne. John loves to sit in his reclining chair in the sun and just bake. He listens to his little radio/phone while sunning. I teased the dog that he should be thrown in the washing machine with my wash...just kidding. The laundry room was empty, and I started my one load for now. I have a lot more that needs to be washed, but I'm still low on energy.

I excused myself from the rocking chair group on the porch in the shade, who seemed to enjoy saying it was Judgement Day, and all kind of strange things. I said that was interesting, and went home. Took a photo of the pink dogwood across from my front porch. It's been silhouetted against the sky most times I've tried today.

Earlier today:

Up early (for me) to pick up Judy from her having dropped her car at the repair shop and take her home. We met at a nearby coffee shop, Moments, and had some breakfast together first.

I shot some nice photos of her neighborhood in Swannanoa with trees, bushes, and tulips in bloom. That shall be a post over on the other blog.

Home for a while, finally opened computer. Then gathered knife, fork, spoon, napkin and a mug to take to the lunch program. And texted a friend to meet her following lunch so we could exchange a few things. My side of the deal was coming home with eclipse glasses.

Then home again, feeling the meal I ate wasn't quite adequate, I had some jelly beans and a date. Pretty nice balance of sweets. And this time the jelly beans won as the most tasty.

Sorted one week's worth of clothes into my little pack and roll cart, and took them to start the wash in the laundry room across the parking lot. I like that there's now an app that I can just point at the machine to pay the $2/load. My timer I set on my phone lets me go home, or wherever nearby, until time to switch the clothes to the dryer.

Eclipse is probably starting now, it's 2:06 pm. But the highest amount won't be till 3:06...though even then it will only be partial. It's partly cloudy out.

I'm taking a break to pay attention to laundry.

Then I tried to see through the eclipse glasses, but the clouds were too dense to get anything coming through them. I finally got a quick glimpse through the clouds. I gave the glasses to a woman who was sitting there trying to see it. 

I drove over to pick up Judy to her car, which had been fixed and was a reasonable price. For all the trouble she's had from a bad fuse of some kind that kept her battery draining, I do hope it's a final fix.

Stopped next at Hopeys Grocery. Got pears and bananas that I knew I wanted, some other things including a frozen pizza.This grocery has a lot of discounted things, as well as "past their expiration date" so I always check, especially on dairy products. Bought a shopping bag that will advertise for them. When did it start being something customers have to pay for to advertise the businesses we patronize? Seems they should pay us. Every time I explain that to the various clerks, they look at me with bulging eyes.

As I drove around our little community I saw one family standing in a parking lot with their heads bent back to see the sun. It definitely became greyer at the height of our 3 hour experience of the moon passing in front of the sun. The cloud cover seemed to gather and be denser, and it was noticeably cooler. It felt like it would rain in a few hours.

But there were moments of  the sun shining through clouds, and there was definitely a slice taken out of it. It wasn't ever clear enough to see any changes to shadows.

People seemed to follow their regular routines. A man was observed dancing down the sidewalk, but one of the porch sitters said he's always like that. (I've not seen that aspect of him before!) 

I  received Facebook posts from cousins in Phoenix AZ and Austin TX, both acknowledged the darkening of daylight. Austin was in the path of totality, but had heavier cloud cover than we did here.

I waved at my friend who I'd given my glasses to when I came back from the store. It was just about over at that point. She said she''d been able to use the glasses, and shared them with others. Excellent!

Now to hang up my clothes which came out of the dryer, home in the cart, and spread on the bed in hopes of deferring wrinkles.

The eclipse experience of 2024 was a happy one of shared community for this person.

Today's quote:

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

HELEN SCHUCMAN