The eclipse, and saying goodbye to an old friend

Did you have eclipse fever? We were excited for it too, but neglected to buy eclipse glasses until the last minute, which means of course that there were none to be found anywhere in the city. No problem! Pat went to the Google and found a tutorial for making your very own fancy schmancy eclipse viewing device, essentially a homemade telephoto lens made of cardboard, tape, and a lens from a cheap pair of reading glasses. We jokingly dubbed this contraption "Icarus 2000", and yes it worked like a charm! On the day of the eclipse, we set it up in our front yard, focused the lens, and voila! There it was! A number of our neighbors soon joined us out there, and before you know it we were having an eclipse party in our front yard. It was so much fun. Honestly, even though the eclipse was pretty cool to see, the best part was hanging out with our awesome neighbors. ❤❤❤

The trees cast eclipse-shaped shadows. That was pretty cool -- trees as pinhole cameras! Apparently, in our zip code it was 89.2% totality. My brother actually drove to Casper, Wyoming so he could witness 100% totality.

Us with some of our wonderful neighbors, having an impromptu eclipse party. That's Pat in the very back.

Icarus 2000! Who knew a pair of cheap reading glasses and some junky old cardboard would work so well? Google saved the day!

Now for the second part of today's post, which brings good news and sad news. The good news first: I've been toying with the idea for some time now of doing a gallery show featuring photos from this blog. If you're a regular reader, you probably know that I occasionally show my fine art photography, but since I don't consider my blog photos to be art (with the odd exception), the thought of showcasing them in a gallery seemed a little weird to me. But the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. My friend Delaney helped it grow legs. In April he contacted me and insisted on helping me make it a reality, which was so kind and unexpected! In no time at all he had me hooked up with the Ivywild School, and before you know it I was committed to a one woman show, which will open in October. I'm very excited about that! But now for the sad news: Delaney unexpectedly passed away a couple of days ago. Like me, all of his friends are in shock and very sad. He was, as you can probably tell from the above anecdote, a generous and thoughtful person. I have known Delaney since the mid-1980s and it just seems unreal that he's gone. He was a very important figure in our local music scene for decades, and more importantly, he was a good friend to many. He will be missed. I'm so very sad that he won't be at the opening of my show. I wanted to give him a huge hug and thank him, and now I can't.