Total Eclipse of the Heart

I just want to say how awesome it is that I found a way to worm Bonnie Tyler's smash '80s hit into a blog post title.  I mean who knows when that chance will come around again?

I was pretty damn excited when I found out that being in Santa Fe, we were in a great position to observe the most recent solar eclipse.  I even spent some time researching how on earth I was going to see it because frankly those box projector things make absolutely no sense to me.  All the websites told me "YOU WILL GO BLIND IF YOU LOOK AT THE ECLIPSE FOR HALF A SECOND," which seemed excessive but who am I to argue with WikiAnswers?

Anyway at around 6, Natalie and I met up to go to Lindsey's house for yummy chicken tacos.  On Sunday the boys were officially gone for 7 days, meaning we only have to get through another 7 (hopefully) before they're home.  We've been trying to fill our days as much as possible with work and hanging out together to keep from going too insane because seriously, the last 7 days have felt like months.

We ate quickly and made some strawberry daiquiris which we then took outside because we're rebels like that.  Then we decided to watch the eclipse on the bleachers at the nearby high school.  Unfortunately because the gates were locked, this meant we had to scale them. With open alcohol containers.  See? Rebels.

I know this will shock--well, no one, but I'm terrified of getting yelled at or being in trouble in any way.  And the high school was directly across from a fucking police academy, so I was definitely being the "Piggy" of the group for a little bit. I had flashes of being arrested and I don't know, being convicted and shot or something.  I'm seriously no fun.

Somehow, though, I finally grew a pair and awkwardly climbed the fence (almost falling) and made it to the other side unarrested.

The eclipse itself was brief, and though we tried in vain to look at it using an empty six-pack box and a piece of paper, we finally had to risk instant blindness and resort to "glancing at the sun for a second" so we could see it.  I took a photo but (obviously) you can't see the actual eclipse because it's too damn bright.  I assure you, it was there, and we did a lot of cheering and made quite a few excited exclamations.

Once the eclipse was over, we then had to re-scale the fence, this time in full view of all of the people who were standing outside their apartments watching the end of the eclipse.  And my climb out was just as awkward as my climb in, I assure you.

I don't think I saw the 1994 eclipse since I can't imagine Maine sees things like that all that often, so it was a pretty awesome experience to see my first eclipse and have a really awesome experience doing it.  I feel so fortunate to get the opportunity to live here, though sadly it just isn't as bright and awesome without my Robbie here too.

So for the next 6 days or so I'm buckling down and hoping the time goes by.  My sisters are coming to visit on Thursday and my birthday is on Sunday, so happily I have lots of things to look forward to.

Happy Monday, all!