Lunar Eclipse and Sunshine

Posted on February 21, 2008 and filed under Parenting and Other Misnomers..., Articles

I haven’t written in a couple days because the sun came out. I live in the pacific northwest, (Astoria, Oregon to be mo7re specific.) so here in the “specific” northwest, the sun hardly likes to show it’s face for more than a few minutes in between summers. Well, we had three days or sunshine…absolutely gorgeous, blazing warm sunshine. It must have hit 55 degrees here! Jeff’s dad came up from7 southern California to help his you7ngest son make the move to Portland. Astoria, as she always does when visitors com7e, put on her pretty face. Not a cloud in the sky…ships came in, lazily from7 faraway asian countries and docked in the sandbar, waiting for their pilot captains to putter out and navigate them through the mucky sandtraps.

We walked up and down the streets that promise to take you to the sky if you keep going…seriously, walking up eighth street, you swear you’re going straight up. Add a mommy (me) pushing a stroller with a sleeping tot and you wind up with one sore lady this morning.

At the end of the day, when the sun tucked behind the sunny side of our hill, we wound up at the Astoria coffee house…a cool, hip place to be, that still manages to be warm and inviting. There we sat and sipped our teas, talking abou7t the weather, the stars and just enjoying each other’s company. It was near perfect. Jojo gave herself the task of picking up flyers, one at a time from the front, and walking them over to uncle Drew, in the back. When the flyers ran out, she took them back from drew to the front table.

Then a wom7an walked in and asked the barista (he was a dude, so I think he should be called a baristo, but that’s another topic,) if he had seen the eclipse. That’s right! I remembered, total eclipse of the full moon. I gathered my group, which had expanded to include Jeff’s boss, and we watched the moon cookie in the sky get eaten by a hungry shadow. The california transplants were getting cold. We tried to remember what it was like to be cold in 50 degree weather. The wind wasn’t even coming off the Columbia! It was nice outside.

Then it was over. Everyone left and we made it home in time to make a quick dinner, scarf it down and place the munchkin to bed.

I slept like dead…but with a lot more dreaming involved.