Month: August 2020

Skygazer – Day 638

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Skygazer

Yes, I know. Skygazer’s not technically a word, although I would argue it should be. Stargazer is a word, and it’s defined by dictionary.com (I’ll admit, not exactly the world’s premier lexicon, but it serves a purpose) as: 1. A person who stargazes, as an astronomer or astrologer. (Disregard that they used the word stargazes in the definition of stargazer. Ugh.) Beyond that egregiousness, this simplistic definition seems to be a resounding reason why skygazer as every bit as legitimate a word as stargazer.

As a surprise to no one, I’m sure, I think I am one.

First of all, I find the word stargazer to be far too restrictive in its parameters of what, exactly, is being gazed upon. I look at a lot more when I turn my gaze upward than just stars. Yes, I’m nit-picking. The definition above includes those who study astrology as stargazers. But astrology is primarily occupied with studying planets and other celestial bodies not technically stars.

As a skygazer, I not only look up to view stars and planets, the sun, the moon, etc. I also look up to observe a whole lot of space debris: dust, rocks, ice, chunks of all sorts of things whizzing through space and often, on a regular basis, encountering our atmosphere and creating a spectacle.

Reminders

I was reminded that skygazing has been something I ‘do’ (and have done for as long as I can remember) just today when I received a Facebook notification of a memory. It was from August 10th, 2010, and I’d posted that I was staring up into the heavens in order to glimpse colors dancing across the sky that were associated with solar flares. But that was only the most recent in a fairly frequent parade of such reminders.

Seeing this post of mine from ten years ago made me realize that I do tend to look up a lot. I also noticed that I’ve written a decent number of posts involving meteor showers, comets, eclipses, and other celestial phenomena that involve objects or events in the sky that have nothing to do with stars per se.

So it’s settled. Skygazer is a word, a noun; and I am one.

Perseids

All of which leads me to remind you that the Perseids meteor showers will be taking place over the next two evenings. Specifically, between 11:00 p.m. tomorrow (Tuesday) night and 1:00 a.m. Wednesday the space debris lighting up the sky should be at its peak. It’s possible, if the sky is clear and the conditions are otherwise favorable that we could see between 60 and 75 meteors an hour. This article is slightly more in-depth.

Speaking from experience, it’s best to find a place to skygaze that’s as far away from ambient light as possible. I didn’t realize it, but it can take our eyes a good 45 minutes to fully adjust to the dark. It’s also far more comfortable if you can either sit in a chair that you can recline in and have your head supported, or simply find a place to safely lay out on a blanket. It’s essential to give yourself the time and peaceful patience that will allow you to expand your gaze widely in order to drink in as much sky with your eyes as possible.

A crick in your neck is not conducive to fruitful, contemplative, serious skygazing.

Get Lucky

I’m hoping the weather will hold and tomorrow night I’ll have the opportunity to watch bits of dust skitter across or into the atmosphere leaving a trail of sparkling light. If you happen to know you’ll be asleep by 11:00 p.m., give yourself a chance to get lucky anyway. Take a walk in the early evening and keep your eyes skyward. There’s a chance you may see some very long-tailed meteors as they skip off the edge of our atmosphere (instead of plunging through it). Those apparently occur before the main show of meteors, emanating from the darkest part of the sky, take center stage.

In the midst of all that we’re enduring right now, there’s something wonderful and perhaps hopeful in witnessing a phenomenon that humans have been observing for thousands of years. There are a lot bigger plot lines out there than just ours.

I’m an incorrigible skygazer. Join me.

(T-473)

Double Icing – Day 637

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Carol’s Chocolate Cake with Double Icing – Photo: L. Weikel

Double Icing

It’s been a running request for years now. Whenever I asked Karl what he wanted for his birthday (meaning which confection would he like me to bake), he’d blurt out, “Double icing!” He didn’t care which of the two in my vast culinary repertoire I baked (Aunt Grace’s Walnut Torte or Carol’s Chocolate Cake) as long as I made ‘double icing.’

This request is a throwback to the days when my sister and brother-in-law would bake one of Aunt Grace’s Cakes for Karl’s birthday – and would whip up an extra batch of icing for him, plopping generous multiple tablespoonsful into cupcake liners for him to hoard in the freezer. Ah yes, the hedonistic pleasures of youth.

Those particular indulgences took place in what now feels like another time, another era. As our lives unfolded (and our waistlines expanded) a time came when Karl realized that icing ‘cupcakes’ were unbelievably indulgent and not exactly the healthiest thing to consume on an even fairly infrequent basis. (In other words, his requests for these icing nuggets came to a reluctant end after both of us lost a good chunk of weight 30 years ago.)

The Request Renewed

Slowly over time, though, as these things tend to wriggle their way back into our consciousness, Karl started espousing the, “if the icing on the cake is scrumptious, then twice as much would be even better” approach to life. But I held firm.

For a long time, in fact, I held firm. Part of me vaguely recalls giving in maybe once as his annual requests grew more plaintive – but I can’t be sure. If I did, it was probably a year or two after Karl (our son) passed away, figuring I could assuage some of the sadness by dosing it with butter and sugar. This is especially true since there were only four days between the two Karls’ birthdays.

Fast Forward to Today

Perhaps as a result of the pandemic and wanting to surprise him with a guilty pleasure, or perhaps as a result of the stunning fact that Karl didn’t even once yelp, “Double icing!” in my general direction as August started unfurling its katydid nights, I decided to indulge his desires this year.

Without even asking for it, Karl received Carol’s Chocolate Cake with double icing. (Rest assured that was the cake he requested this year – I’d never deign to make that decision for him.)

Speaking for myself, double icing is too much of a good thing. Gobs of butter cream icing drown out the deliciousness of the dark chocolate, coffee-infused cake. And besides that, my whole body starts to buzz.

Karl practically passed out after eating his massively generous slice tonight. I wonder if he’s now cured of asking for “double icing!” or if next year he’ll just ask for Aunt Grace’s Walnut Torte (and the obscene icing cupcakes of our misspent youth).

Yeah. Double icing is evil – Photo: L. Weikel

 

(T-474)

Ninth House – Day 636

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Photo: L. Weikel

Ninth House

Although I’ve started a couple of posts this evening, I keep deleting them. Nothing seems relevant. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that nothing I can think of feels worthy of my or your attention.

I’m feeling a bit distracted. I can’t put my finger on anything in particular, other than to admit that perhaps it just an overwhelming desire to lose myself in a good book.

I have about 30 pages left in the novel I’m reading, Ninth House*. I know I’ve said it before, but it just feels great every once in a while to immerse myself in story that has nothing to do with anything going on in my life at the moment. My problem (if you can call it that) is that I’m a really slow reader. If you add to that the fact that I almost never give myself permission to ‘read for pleasure’ during the day, it means it usually takes me f-o-r-e-v-e-r to finish a book. That’s especially true now that I’m writing these posts every night.

Honestly, I usually manage to read between one and two pages a night before nodding off. That is not a recipe for plowing through my list of wanna-reads at a decent clip.

Maybe if I finish this book and begin the one that’s been on deck for a good month or so, The Murmur of Bees (recommended by a dear friend whose taste I trust implicitly!), I’ll be inspired to write about something new or different.

It’s time.

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Just Weird – Day 635

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Opposite of Clarity – Photo: L. Weikel

Just Weird

Am I the only one? I’m having a really hard time focusing. The day today felt surreal; I was never really sure what time it was. Perhaps because the skies grew so dark and foreboding so early in the afternoon, everything felt skewed and off. And normally, I love a good thunderstorm. But the one that struck tonight was in keeping with an entire week that was just weird.

I feel restless and unsettled. Karl and I had a misunderstanding almost first thing this morning that left us screaming in each other’s faces. It was shocking. And utterly hilarious (in retrospect). Sort of. But not really. It was just weird.

I can’t even put my finger on the word that would accurately characterize what exactly happened this morning. Argument isn’t the word – there was no issue upon which we were disagreeing. Hence disagreement, too, fails the test. Misunderstanding is probably the closest I’m going to get.

Opposite of Speaking in Tongues

Having been raised Catholic, studying the bible was not a foundational activity in my youth. That said, I am familiar with the concept of ‘speaking in tongues,’ and have always understood it to mean that when a person in biblical times spoke in tongues, no matter what their background, whoever was listening to the speaker heard the message being spoken in the listener’s native language.

Conceptually, that possibility always appealed to me. I could imagine it happening; pretty easily, in fact. Although I had to wonder how anyone would know it was happening. I figured the only way they’d realize it was happening would be by realizing they were unable to communicate with each other.

So I found it puzzling on the one or two occasions I saw what I guess were considered to be people speaking in tongues that no one could understand the gobbledygook that was issuing from their lips.

That’s not my point here, although I’m wondering if anyone else has had a similar antithetical experience.

My point is that Karl’s and my morning today began with a ‘conversation’ in which we were ostensibly speaking to each other but not communicating a damn thing. It was as if we were speaking in anti-tongues. Or talking under water. No matter how hard we tried, the words just weren’t coming out right. Or maybe they weren’t being heard correctly.

The frustration we both felt resulted in us literally screaming in each other’s faces. It was awful and unsettling and…incendiary. It was profoundly uncharacteristic of both our personalities and our relationship.

It was also just plain weird.

Just Fed Up

After each storming off to lick our wounded egos and reflect upon our justified outrage, it took us about half an hour of fits and starts at reconciliation to come to the conclusion that our explosions toward each other stemmed from our mutual frustration over…everything.

Everything ‘out there’ that we have absolutely no control over. It’s almost as if no one speaks the same language anymore. Everyone speaks their own personal dialect and it seems as if there’s no desire or attempt to understand the perspective or feelings of others anymore.

Karl had been trying to tell me where he’d found himself detoured due to flash flooding. I was trying to visualize where he was talking about. Neither one of us were approaching the scenario from a perspective that permitted communication of anything meaningful. Even this attempt to describe the utter banality of our inability to understand each other feels like a failure.

But I’m trying to capture it because somehow that feels like the point. It feels like what I imagine a lot of us are feeling with respect to a whole range of issues from the slightest (like ours) to the most consequential we can imagine.

We’re totally fine. But I have to say: it was just weird.

Flooding – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-476)

Taken Aback – Day 634

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Tigger – as disgusted and taken aback as I feel Photo: L. Weikel

Taken Aback

I had a conversation late this afternoon that completely surprised me. I was so taken aback, as a matter of fact, that I did not fully comprehend what was being said to me in the moment. As a result, I failed to respond the way I think I wish I had.

Let me set the scene:

At the grocery store today, I ran into a friend whom I haven’t seen in probably two or three months. We’re both wearing masks, of course. We exchanged pleasantries and inquired about each other’s families.

As conversations are wont to go nowadays, we drifted to the pandemic and mused over whether we’ll ever really and truly get to a point where we can live entirely ‘mask-free’ again. We didn’t describe it that way. It was more a vague wondering on both our parts whether things would ever really and truly go back to the way they were. Both of us expressed a deep sadness that resigning ourselves to a new normal may be what we have to do, but it won’t be without deep sadness.

The Surprise

It was at this point that the conversation took a turn that I definitely did not see coming. She told me that her daughter had taken her five year old grandson to his pediatrician the other day for his well-checkup. It just so happened that the boy woke that day with a slight sore throat. Hmm.

They went to the doctor’s office and, sure enough, the boy was running a slight fever.

When the doctor came into the examining room, he told the boy’s mom that he was not going to test the child. She should just take him home and keep an eye on him. If he got worse, she should bring him in again.

When I asked why they didn’t test him, she told me the doctor said, “Most children and healthy adults don’t get sick with Covid. It’s nothing to worry about. The numbers are being exaggerated by too much testing and they’re being all conflated.”

I was stunned.

A pediatrician said this?

My friend concluded our conversation with, “So they came home and sure enough, the next day he felt completely fine.” As if this proved what? That the boy doesn’t have the virus? Have they not been paying any attention to the way this virus can manifest?

What I Was Thinking

My mind was boggled. In that moment, I could almost literally feel the gears in my brain getting stuck, backing up, and trying to re-engage along a completely different track. Not knowing for sure where her daughter lived, I asked if this was a local pediatrician. Sure enough, he practices in the Lehigh Valley.

I am still somewhat reeling from this revelation. This was a five year old. Why in the world would this pediatrician NOT test this kid – when he was exhibiting symptoms?! I’ve been thinking about this over and over again all evening (hence the reason why I decided to just sit down and write about it).

This kid could easily be spreading it. Who’s to say the whole family doesn’t have it and maybe most of them are asymptomatic? What if my friend, who is a few years older than I am (thus in her 60s) catches it? And I’m not even saying that the kid has it or doesn’t.

My point is: Why in the world would a physician NOT order a test, particularly when the child shows up with symptoms? This is a kid who is kindergarten age! I didn’t ask, but I do wonder whether the plan is for him to go to school whenever it starts…?

Upshot

I regret that I didn’t speak up and question the wisdom of not having the child tested. Then again – would that be my place? And what would that have accomplished? The deed was done, or rather – not done.

I wish I had defended the need for MORE testing – not LESS. I am feeling freaked out that a person I consider intelligent and practical would actually express skepticism over ‘the accuracy of the numbers.’

I definitely was taken aback by this conversation – and now I’m feeling more than a little bit of despair.

(T-477)

Fresh Start – Day 633

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Newborn Swallowtails – Photo: L. Weikel

Fresh Start

I think I may have mentioned this feeling yesterday, but once Tropical Storm Isaias moved through our area, the transformation was stunning. Everything felt different; as if we were being given a fresh start. The air, the trees, the grasses, the rivers, the creeks, the gardens – everything was transformed.

Of course, a symbol of transformation is the butterfly. By virtue of its creature story, it embodies the essence of transformation. Starting life out as a caterpillar, it eventually wraps itself in a cocoon, completely dissolves itself into an amorphous goo, and then reconstitutes itself into an entirely new and different creature. One with wings, in fact.

Judging from what I discovered yesterday post-Isaias and witnessed today playing out in our yard, our garden, and in the fields as we walked, it almost seems as if the tropical storm was a catalyst of change. It was almost as if the arrival and fury of that storm initiated any number of cocoons to break open and release those new Beings into the world.

Moth Goddess – Photo: L. Weikel

Butterfly and Moth

The two pictures accompanying this post are of beauties crossing my path – literally – within hours of the storm moving through our area. It was as if the butterflies were breathing a sigh of relief over their release, their rebirth, and they just had to prove to themselves that they could actually do it. They could fly!

Both the Swallowtail and the delicately adorned, pale, butter-colored moth tested their wings, slowly opening and closing them, almost as if they couldn’t quite believe how it felt to both have them and have mastery over them. What purpose they were to serve was an even greater mystery, but somehow they knew it would be something so special that their perceptions of everything would be changed forever.

And they were right.

What if we’re on the brink of having our cocoons broken open as well? Will we learn to fly, too?

Photo: L. Weikel

(T-478)

Tropical Storm Isaias – Day 632

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Photo: L. Weikel

Wow. Well, I mentioned in last night’s post that here in Pennsylvania we’re not used to tropical storms maintaining their ferocity as they march into our area from the south or tornado warnings beeping out on our phones and warning us to ‘take appropriate cover.’ Enter Tropical Storm Isaias – yet another reason to wonder just what we did to so profoundly piss off 2020.

Who’d have imagined a tornado would touch down at  the hospital in our county seat of Doylestown? The storm ripped off part of the roof of the on-site daycare center, damaged another pavilion, and tossed about and upended six cars in the parking lot. And that’s just one instance among many reports of a devastating number of trees uprooted and creeks and other bodies of water blowing past their flood stages and inundating everything in their path.

And it does sound as if the full moon did indeed exacerbate the impact this storm had when it slammed into the North Carolina coast as a Category 1 hurricane last night. Storm surges have been devastating and well over 3.5 million households are without electricity. It’s all a bit hard to fathom – a tropical storm at the beginning of August.

Stress Eaters

Just after the height of the storm hit, I walked out onto our porch to take some photos of the storm water cascading across our property. As I stood there in the pouring rain, I was joined by Spartacus. Instead of acting fearful of the storm, he quite adorably seemed more concerned than anything else.

Spartacus – Storm Watcher – Photo: L. Weikel

Then I noticed something even odder. There were a bunch of birds at our feeders! That was pretty much the last thing I expected to see in the midst of the storm. Granted, the absolute worst had probably just peaked – but the rain was still pounding down and strong gusts of wind were whipping the willow behind our barn and making the rest of the trees dance very hard to keep up.

Yet there were these birds, crowding several of my feeders. My heart went out to them as I sort of chuckled to myself. I could relate. Clearly they were stress-eating; stuffing in as much as they could while the getting was good. Living for the moment.

Stress eaters – Photo: L. Weikel

Rampaging Tohickon

After the storm passed and bright sunshine made everything look and feel as though it’d just been power-washed, the after-effects were startling. The Tohickon overflowed its banks and was rapaciously engaged in transporting logs and all sorts of other bobbing doo-dads and detritus to the Delaware River.

Many roads were impassable, either as a result of flooded creeks and streams or massive trees giving up the ghost and dragging electrical wires down with them.

The Delaware practically had enough trees floating down it to qualify as a forest itself.

Tohickon Creek – Photo: L. Weikel

It’s Only August

While I’m profoundly grateful we were spared the worst of it, I have to admit, this does give me paust. It’s only August. That seems pretty darn early to me to be dealing with a storm of this magnitude. Given the attitude of 2020 so far, I don’t think I want to challenge worse – that’s for sure.

It’s kind of amazing to contemplate just how devastatingly effective Mother Earth is at putting us in our place. It doesn’t take much. We really are a vulnerable species when you get right down to it, which makes me wonder. Is that why we’re often such bullies when it comes to Nature?

I hope everyone is safe and dry. I’d say I hope you’re warm, too – but if you have no electricity, warm may not exactly be the state you prefer. I hope you’re safe, dry, and comfortable. Take good care of yourselves – and don’t forget to feed your birds.

Casualty of Tropical Storm Isaias – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-479)

Full Moon Dreaming – Day 631

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Full moon in Aquarius – August 2020 – Photo: L. Weikel

Full Moon Dreaming

I’m glad I managed to get some sweet shots of the very nearly almost full moon last night, because there’s not a chance it’s visible this evening. No, we’re relegated to full moon dreaming this evening – and hoping it doesn’t turn into a flash flood nightmare.

Indeed, we’re lucky we even got a two mile walk in. Only minutes after returning home tonight, my phone pinged to alert me to a meteorological prospect I’d already sussed out: we were on the verge of being hit by a severe thunderstorm. While we did receive a reasonable storm (it was nothing like what hit us last Thursday evening), the amount of rain that fell was a mere drop in the bucket to what we’re likely to experience in the early morning hours tomorrow.

It seems a bit weird that here in eastern Pennsylvania we’re getting hit with a tropical storm calling not only for up to 6” of rain falling ‘in a short period of time’ (causing flash flooding), but also winds potentially ranging between 58-73 mph and even the possibility of tornadoes.

I think I can pretty confidently say that Pennsylvanians, on the whole, did not sign up for this. Or tornadoes. Tropical storms are generally southern and mid-western state issues. What the heck is happening here? Mid-Atlantic states say, “No thank you!”

Timing

I’m sure the effects on the coastline of Tropical Storm Isaias (which I believe has regained hurricane strength as it makes landfall in the Carolinas this evening) will be exacerbated by the full moon, undoubtedly creating higher than normal storm surges and even greater erosion than usual. But beyond that, I hate to think of the suffering and risk people will endure as a direct result of the confluence of these battering storms and the unavoidable reality of the pandemic.

It seems like every day we’re bombarded with more and more stories of the precariousness of life here in the United States. Meanwhile, Congress dithers.

Something’s gotta give. And that’s usually when a full moon comes in and gives us a well-timed push.

Choices

Since the inception of 2020, all of us are facing choices day in and day out that we never imagined we would have to make. I think it may have been in this podcast that I heard that this full moon is in the fixed air sign of Aquarius, which is completing a cycle begun at the end of January, at which time we experienced a new moon in the fixed air sign of Aquarius.

I can’t help but wonder at the choices that have been made in how we viewed and dealt with Covid-19 from the earliest days of its arrival here in the U.S. (our first awareness being at the end of January) to how we’re viewing and dealing with it now (at this ‘fullness’ of the same moon as when it all began). I’d like to think that this full moon could represent the climax of the virus’s impact on our society – and had we made other, significantly different choices on how to respond to the virus’s arrival, surely wresting it under control would have been a possibility we’d be enjoying.

But sadly, this full moon could actually signify the virus just starting to hit its stride in taking us out.

Taking a Stand

This full moon could very well be challenging us to stand up to the bullying we’re enduring to have our children and teachers return to school as if the virus is contained. We must acknowledge the truth: it isn’t contained. Not even close.

And a point is going to come – soon, I sense, urged on by the pressure and illumination of this full moon – when parents are going to rise up and demand accountability. Demand testing. Demand a national strategy that will protect all of us, but especially those our government is insanely threatening us to sacrifice: our children, our teachers, those who feed, transport, and clean up after them. Our future.

The present disastrous predicament we find ourselves in did not need to happen. And as unpopular as it might be, there still exists an opportunity for us to dream another future into being. But it would entail short-term but rather draconian sacrifice. Short-term pain for long-term gain. (Something we’ve already squandered once, but hey – maybe we can still turn it around?)

In the meantime, I think Spartacus has the right idea: he’s dreaming, and possibly projecting, himself into a future featuring American humans making wiser, more compassionate choices.

Spartacus – Dreaming of Humans Making Better Choices – Photo: L.Weikel

(T-480)

Polar Bear – Day 630

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Photo: L. Weikel

Polar Bear

I don’t have much time to get this post written this evening. But I’m at least relieved that I can include some cool photos I took this evening. For a good portion of our walk tonight, Karl and I were accompanied by a polar bear and her cub.

To be honest, when I took the photos, I didn’t notice the cub. But I sure noticed it when I sent the photos to my laptop.

The beams of light emanating from the big bear’s head were a sight to behold. And to be honest, I took a bunch of photos of a variety of towering, gilt-edged formations that were sparking our imagination in a myriad of ways.

But then we rounded the corner and immediately noticed the polar bear walking along beside us.

Photo: L. Weikel

I don’t have time to look up the various meanings or messages that Polar Bear might be bringing. But truth be told, it simply felt like she was accompanying us on our journey. I’m delighted to realize, now, that her cub was along for the ride as well.

Finally, the moon becomes full after midnight tonight. But when I took her photo this evening, she sure looked like she was full already. Just in case it’s cloudy tomorrow, I have a great shot to share from tonight!

Here’s to traveling the first week of August together. At least we have our Polar Bear companions!

Photo: L. Weikel

(T-481)

Early Night – Day 629

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Tohickon Creek – 1 August 2020 – Photo: L. Weikel

Early Night

I’m tired. I’m going to try to wrest an early night out of this Saturday evening.

The weather today was a classic August day: quite exquisite, if just a scootch on the warm and muggy side.

Karl and I took a short jaunt to the banks of the Tohickon Creek late this afternoon. We sat on rocks jutting out into the creek, dangling our feet in waters swollen by the torrents of rain that lashed our area late Thursday evening. The cooling comfort of the creek’s steady stream was a perfect complement to the pleasure of losing ourselves in our books.

As Karl approaches his birthday, he was delighted to recently discover an author whose work he can totally immerse himself in. (Double bonus for me – since now I know something he’ll love that I can get him for his birthday.)

Needed to Read

While I’m savoring the last few chapters of a novel, Ninth House,* dubbed as fantasy (but which actually feels more real-life than most would think…), I have to admit I fell down the rabbit hole and interrupted my ‘fantasy’ novel with Mary Trump’s Too Much and Never Enough*.

Because I am fascinated by what feels like an eternal quest to understand why people are the way they are and do what do, I’ll admit it: reading the stories in this book does shed some light on the forces that shaped our current president. His background is terribly sad in its own way. But as bad as the treatment may have been, it’s pretty obvious that the tendencies to react in the bizarrely cruel ways he did to his childhood were there from the very beginning.

I guess I’m saying that, approximately halfway through the book, I feel compassion for his dysfunction. But I’m also, at the same time, appalled that he was permitted to, as the author says, ‘fail up.’ Repeatedly. And continues to have his glaring inadequacies covered up or explained away or simply glossed over, all the while people, including children at the border, are literally paying for that dysfunction with their lives.

It’s funny; I sort of feel as though it’s my responsibility to at least try to understand him. Perhaps it’s a form of self-preservation. If we can somehow figure out his endgame, maybe we can somehow avoid the horrific ending to this debacle that’s barreling toward us.

But I’m sensing that’s not going to be achievable no matter how well we understand him. And that is terrifying.

Enjoy the beauty that surrounded us as we read.

Tohickon Creek (1 Aug 2020) Photo: L. Weikel

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