Tuesday, August 22, 2017

i face in the direction i am bound

Apologies (to myself, mostly) for not blogging last night - when I'm home I tend to fall into some sort of torpor by 10pm, and blogging becomes increasingly difficult. Or maybe it's that it's been so long since I've been somewhere that counts as 'home' that I'm willing to abandon everything for the chance to lie in bed for as long as possible.

Either way, I should start off by saying that yesterday was great - although we didn't see the full totality of the eclipse because it was cloudy and kinda raining during the peak moment. Sadness. If it had been half an hour later, the skies had cleared enough for us to see it, but it wasn't meant to be.

Still, we had a delightful time - it was a family reunion of sorts, since we met up with Uncle Mark and Aunt Kathy in a tiny, tiny town called Hale, Missouri. Living Wamplers were slightly outnumbered by dead Wamplers at this affair - this is the town where my granddad grew up, and his parents, grandparents, and two uncles and an aunt are buried there, all in a row in a small cemetery just outside of town. We spent most of the lead-up to the eclipse in a park in the middle of town, where there were picnic tables in a shelter house and a bunch of people from surprisingly far-flung places (aka Minnesota and Wisconsin). But just before the totality we loaded up (ourselves...we left the food and stuff on a picnic table) and went to the cemetery, where the six of us who lived stood and watched the eclipse with the dead.

It would have been even cooler if we'd actually seen the corona - but even with the clouds, it was obvious that the land turned dark as nearby security lights came on and dogs howled in the distance. And I hadn't been down there since my great-granddad died (when I was eight; my great-grandma died when I was twelve, but we were in Ukraine when she died and didn't come back for the funeral), so I'm glad that we made the trip.

After the totality, we went back to the shelter house and picnicked, which was delightful (helped along by the wine Kathy brought...I'm pleased to report that I'm not the only lush in the family). We also met a woman who works for the newspaper/museum/library (#smalltownlife) who knew our family name, so she opened up the museum for us so that we could take a look around. They had a picture of my granddad and his twin in grade school, as well as some other interesting relics, so it was worth a visit.

Then we drove home in a long line of cars headed north, but the only slowdown was in Chillicothe (home of sliced bread! according to a mural, and backed up by a fact-check on Wikipedia, which says they had the first bakery to ever use a bread-slicing machine). When we got home, we generally hung out, had supper (ribeyes and sweet corn), and then took a break while my parents went to a round barn meeting. Then we played a quick game of Ticket to Ride, which my dad won handily.

Today was a bit more lowkey - I got up later than I should have and earlier than I wanted to so that [censored] and I could deal with an issue with my [censored]. Then I spent the afternoon hanging out with my dad in the kitchen, saying [censored] to [censored] (who has to go back to work, alas), writing in my journal on the back porch, and eating supper with my parents (yummy pork chops and baked potatoes and green beans and watermelon). I also talked to Terry briefly, and I enjoyed some wine that I'd stockpiled here - if wine really is good for you, I'm losing out on a lot of health benefits while being here, so I figured I should medicate.

And now I must sleep - goodnight!

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