Our Eclipse Non-Event
My husband and I sat outside at the appointed time this afternoon. He brought our collander, because we read you could see something using a collander. We had no idea how that would work.
Neither of us were that excited about the eclipse, to be honest, but we went into town this morning to get eclipse glasses at CVS, only to be turned away by a rather surly woman who probably had been asked a million times about eclipse glasses. She grumbled to me, “I should put out a sign.”
Returning home, Michael and I went back to work in our respective studios. At 3:03 he texts me, “do you want to be together during the eclipse?” I love my husband, but I was unsure that this was a moment that required togetherness. To be sure, just in case it was, I texted back “sure!”
Together, we sat in yard chairs, and waited.
It got cold, so Michael retrieved some coats. A mosquito tried to bite me, the birds were flittering about—but who’s to say they don’t always do that at 3:16pm. The light got weird, and Michael said in his best Christopher Walken voice, “it’s kinda spooky.” We waiting, I scrolled Instagram.
“Is this it? This must be it, it’s after 3:16.”
“It’s getting darker.”
“Is it? I think its getting lighter.”
“I’m bored.”
Silence. We looked at the collander.
“I think that that was it.”
Our silence continued as we glanced quickly at the cloudy area where the sun was.
“Yeah, that was it.”
“I’m going back to work. See you later.”
And that was it.
We must have experienced it, but we weren’t sure.
The drawings in this post are from when I covered the last eclipse in 2017 for CBS. I was sent to the American Museum of Natural History because my producer could not get me a hotel near the total eclipse area—I forget where that was, maybe Montana? I loved seeing all the people from all ages and races gathered to experience the event, and loved drawing them. I missed watching people watch the eclipse this year, but it was fun to watch Michael and the birds, too.
I hope you had a good eclipse experience wherever you were today.
Rule: Hold onto any man who can channel Christopher Walken.
I took a hit for the team and let the cat clutch me like a baby koala during the eclipse.
I had a very good eclipse experience. I was in the path of totality over Dayton, Ohio (glasses courtesy of my Senator, Sherrod Brown!) and I rigged up the most Dayton-esque thing ever with a piece of cardboard, glasses and a spare iPhone … I might just be one roll of duct tape away from being an engineer! 😂😂😂😂 seriously, if Dayton had a personal brand, it would be “give us duct tape and baling wire, we could go to the Moon!” I’ll post either in my newsletter or notes, depending on how ambitious I am… it’s on IG anyway…