Enjoying the Eclipse

Yes, absolutely!  Of course Mr. Hunter stepped outside (well, I carried him outside) to admire the annular solar eclipse in action.

The moon had just begun to take a chomp out of the sun.

One of Mr. H's good friends had given us a special eclipse viewing card, and the first time I looked through the lens, I gave a little chirp of excitement: There was the moon, cutting into the sun!

The moon, taking a bite out of the sun.

The eclipse inspired a neighborhood party of sorts, with some neighbors looking through my eclipse viewer, and the family down the street sharing the special eclipse viewing glasses they'd gotten in Taiwan.  The guy across the street found that if he looked through three pairs of sunglasses at one time, he could get a pretty good view of the sun.

One neighbor, who's originally from Korea, recalled how when he was a boy, a relative told him that one long-ago solar eclipse was happening because "a fox was eating the sun."  The story went that the fox got the sun in its mouth, then realized the sun was too hot, so the fox spit the sun back out.  I asked this man if he'd believed the story back then.  He said, maybe a little bit, but then he figured out it wasn't true... like when he realized there was no Santa Claus.  No Santa Claus!  

The thing is, the two young daughters of another neighbor were standing there, too, listening closely.  Their mom and I looked at each other: Oh, no!  "But of course there is a Santa Claus," she said quickly, trying to sound casual but authoritative.  One of the girls asked if Santa Claus came down their chimney, or if it was her mom who brought the presents down the chimney.  Um, whoops.

A temporary beauty mark, annular solar eclipse style.

Random eclipse search fact: whenever there's a big eclipse, people look up "Total Eclipse of the Heart."  And you can bet that people have also been listening to Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" and Manfred Mann's "Blinded by the Light" because of the 'clipse.

Turn around, bright eyes.

May 2012