Darkness Fell, and it was cool (literally and figuratively)

Last week, I went through some of the stuff in mom's car and took it to Goodwill. There's more yet, but it was so hot I couldn't stay out there for long and I wasn't going to bring it in the house just to take it out again.

On Saturday, I forgot to take my Civic to get the oil changed. It's not desperate, but the warning light is on. I'm just driving mom's car until I get a chance to handle that. And I have plans the next 3 weekends. I need to call the inspection place to see if I can get a ride to the bus stop and after work. If so, I can get it done on a weekday.

Saturday, I drove to  Chapel Hill to get my friend C.M. She's not been the best, healthwise and her husband has been worse. I offered to give her a ride to the tatting meeting if she wanted to join me. She finally took me up on my offer. Her son came with us, mostly to get out of the house and be there in case his mom needed some help I couldn't provide.

We went to lunch and then to the meeting. I'm not sure how much C.M. really learned, although she did finish a ring, with good tension, too. She said she needs to practice under circumstances better suited to concentration. The meeting went well. Thirteen people, not including CM's son, were there. Leigh of SomthingUndertheBed.com had some new books to show off. I made progress on the bracelet for Palmetto. Until the most recent ring decided not close. I haven't been able to close it since, either. I don't want to cut the ring and start it over, but I may have to.

Sunday was errands. I got some laundry done and CD and I did some running around. Our Starfinder books are arriving today, so we went ahead and paid for them on Sunday. We just need to pick them up.

Yesterday, of course, was the solar eclipse. I didn't go to where I could see the totality, but it hit 93% here. I signed up as one of NASA's citizen scientists. Though, I wasn't able to take temperature readings all morning, because I had to work. And giving my thermometer time to register the outdoor temperature took a few minutes, each time. I took vacation time to be out there a couple hours before the eclipse and a couple hours after.

solar eclipse in my office, thanks to my boss

I went to a local solar eclipse activity (buttons and making pinhole cameras). I made a couple buttons but not the pinhole camera, because one of my coworkers got a pair of eclipse glasses for me. Alas, my iPad ran out of battery power only an hour after the eclipse.

I took some pictures. There was one I really wanted to take, but I couldn't hold my fingers in the makeshift pinhole camera formation and take the picture. My new coworker joined me for a few minutes before and after she had to be on a conference call.

tree leaves acting like pinhole cameras

it's hard to take a selfie when you can't see

sun and shadows

glasses, thermometer, after the eclipse

 the temperature fell from about 32C to not quite 28C, and you could stand in 'full sun' without baking

a few minutes after

I wish I had thought to bring a colander

Solar Eclipse Interlude

If you are in the US and you want to know how much of the eclipse will be visible where you are and when it will be visible, Vox is here to tell you.

A Day Late, but hopefully not a dollar short

It was my monthly date with Autumn Breeze and we lingered over supper, talking. I got home late and then I was dealing with some of mom's paperwork. By the time I got done, it was late and I was tired, so I went to bed.

I bought a birthday card for my sister-in-law and then found out it needed extra postage. It is a lovely card but it meant a trip to the post office. First I found out how much I needed and then decided to get some extra stamps while there. Guy pulled out the new solar eclipse stamps.

solar eclipse stamps from post office

You see the stamp in the lower right hand corner? That's how they look normally. See the stamps in the upper left corner? That's how they look with a little heat applied, like someone put their hand under the sheet. I immediately wrote letters to my usual correspondents; 'hi, how are you? Hope your summer hasn't been too hot? Have you seen these stamps? Aren't they neat!?'

I will be a teacher's aide in two classes at Palmetto tat days. I've started one project, the longer one. It's a name badge lanyard and uses about 170 beads (yay, beadspinner). I've completed it. And I made many, many mistakes. So I will make another one before Tat Days. First, I'll make the bracelet for my other class.

Mom's phone charger had definitely disappeared. CD and I went to jumpstart her car and get it inspected. I decided we could go get her a new charger while it was being seen. It took a looong time to charge her car enough for it to start. It was 'five more minutes and we stop before CD's car overheats'. CD sat with mom's car running (to charge up the battery) while I got her phone and did another look round for her charger.

The plan mostly worked. We did drive it to be inspected. We did get lunch. We did find a charger*, although the Radio Shack I went looking for had closed. However, they were not able to inspect the car. Because the car had been jumpstarted, the computer gave a 'not ready' answer to most of the emission questions. The car had to be driven 50-100 miles to reset the computer.

I plugged mom's phone in with the new charger and then drove home. I immediately drove it to the inspection station near me. The guy was 'oh, it's only half-hour til we close, there's no way we can get it inspected today,' and he was very relieved when I said, 'I wasn't expecting you to inspect it today, I thought tomorrow.' That they could do. Although they already had a line up for Saturday and it might be midday before they got to it.

*The salesman at the phone store was quite insistent on giving me a quote. I had to tell him, "If I have to deal with one more thing, even that, I'll break down in tears" to get him to stop. Even then, he gave me his card, etc.

CD had class on Saturday, so if the car wasn't ready by the time he had to leave, he could drop me off and I could drive to my tatters' meeting from there. It turned out, he had to go buy new shoes. They were both whistling due to holes. He had to go a bit out of his way, but he got a good deal.

The Tatters' meeting was nice. I made good progress on the lanyard (despite screwing up a floating chain). Carolyn had brought in some old workbaskets and I got one from the 1940s. Neat!

Anitra's husband had seen a listing on Craigslist for a woman who used to own a bead store who was gradually selling off what remained of her stock. He made the arrangements and a few of us went to her apartment after the meeting. I got some lovely beads, including some silver(ish) drops that are metal and a tiny bit heavy. They'd be good for something that needs a tiny bit of weight to hang right.

She had two lovely foster dogs. The newer one stayed isolated most of the time. She has a tendency to jump on people, but she's a lovely, friendly, Pit/Lab mix.

Monday, LotRO was supposed to have an update, opening Mordor and High Elves. An annoying bug cropped up and they delayed it until Wednesday. So our LotRO date will be postponed, too. It's going to take at least an hour for the update to load so I'd better take a nap when I get home.

Tuesday, was my monthly date with Autumn Breeze. We went back to our usual diner. It's under new management. They've painted the walls and put a new mirror in the bathroom. It's nice to see more than my face from the nose up while I'm washing my hands.

Wednesday is also the monthly Forum meeting and the committee meeting will be afterwards. Then it's about half hour or so at work, take lunch, and then out to the garden for the Forum sponsored workday. It's going to be a hot one, so I'll really need that nap.

Another picture. I think it's Virginia Creeper.