UFO Clouds – Photo: L. Weikel

Strange Evening

Yesterday Karl and I made a point of taking our walk a little later than the day before, when we knew we would have the best chance to witness the rise of the vaunted Super Pink Moon. We walked along one of the roads near our home that meanders through several fields belonging to a horse farm that sits atop a ridge. It’s a vast expanse of land and is a great place to observe all sorts of celestial events. It’s one of my favorite ‘go-to’ places when meteor showers, eclipses, and other such happenings are taking place in the night sky, although this turned out to be a somewhat strange evening.

As we waited for the moon to rise, we were distracted and intrigued by some unique cloud formations. Most noticeable were a handful of lenticular clouds that almost seemed to be moving ‘against the grain’ of the greater cloudbank behind them.

Missing Time

The funny thing is, we were both hell bent on catching a glimpse of the moon rise, and by that I mean we wanted to catch sight of it as it rose above the horizon, since we knew it was supposed to be the largest ‘super moon’ of 2020. As a result, we were fixated on constantly checking the horizon line.

Meanwhile, these lenticular clouds were quite distracting – at least to me. The clouds seemed to be moving in relation to one another, in a more conscious than usual manner. I’m not entirely sure why they kept drawing my attention, but they did. And it felt as though they were communicating with each other. It was an odd feeling.

Eventually, though, we decided that perhaps there was more of an overcast pall to the horizon than appeared to our eyes. So we decided to resume our walk, after having hung out at this spot for a good 20-25 minutes. As we started resuming our trek, one of the horses came galloping across the field toward us. I’d brought a carrot just in case, and walked back toward where the mare was now standing, grazing nonchalantly, pretending she didn’t really want any attention.

I called to the beautiful creature, holding out the carrot, when all of a sudden she arched her tail and took off like a shot, tearing across the field away from me like she was being chased by the devil.

All in all, an odd reaction that was completely unexpected.

I left the carrot inside the fence and caught up with Karl and the pups. We continued walking for about five minutes when – all of a sudden – I glanced to my left and there she was: Grandmother Moon in all her full, Super Pink glory, a beacon of glowing orange gorgeousness already a substantial distance above the horizon.

Karl and I just marveled at her magnificence. How in the world had we missed her slipping above the horizon?

It was as if we’d lost almost an hour of time. Between the odd clouds, the spooked horse, and the lost span of time between the moon rising above the horizon to when she became obvious to us, it just didn’t feel as though it added up quite right.

Finale

And as a grand finale last evening, after writing and publishing my post, I went outside with Sheila to give her one last opportunity to tinkle before bed. The sky was bright, and I knew where the moon should be – but once again, she was nowhere to be seen. The night sky was so uniform in appearance that it didn’t even appear to be cloudy. But it had to be. There were no stars. No moon in sight. And yet, as I said, it was ‘bright.’ Sheila, oddly, turned right around without doing a thing and made a bee-line for the door, as if to say, “Nope. Not peeing. Let’s get outta here.” (That’s significant for her, since she’s always good for a tinkle.)

We immediately went upstairs and got into bed. I read for about ten minutes and, falling asleep sitting up, turned my light out. It couldn’t have been half an hour later when I was awakened by flashes of really bright light. No thunder. Just lights. Lighting up our room. My first thoughts were of ambulances, weirdly, or search lights. But then I realized it was lightning – yet it seemed to be coming in all four of our bedroom windows. It was as if we were surrounded by lightning. And there was no thunder. I woke Karl briefly so he could at least fleetingly verify my perceptions.

Suddenly, rain pelted the roof. But the lightning didn’t relent. The flashing was almost kaleidoscopic. Yet somehow, in the midst of all of this, I just ‘decided’ to just go back to sleep.

The whole experience qualified as a very strange evening. And when I awakened, I could feel I’d slept hard – and deeply. It took a long while and a couple cups of coffee to feel fully ‘in’ my body.

**And another layer of strangeness? Tonight’s post was the FIRST post in 514 days that I was unable to get published before I went to bed. My website’s server was down for over THIRTEEN HOURS.

(T-597)